Optimizing Critical Role: Yasha

[@1rotzy]

I like what your doing here. It’s not just “HERR DUR DEY STUPID” you are respectful to the character and the player and give a more of a hindsight of what could have been better. Keep up the good work.

[@lordspaz88]

I like this, while it is coming from an optimization point of view you're still taking the player's personality and choices seriously and not just simply saying "you built your character wrong"

[@nem0men_901]

This type of content is bound to cause at least a little controversy, but it helps that you approach the topic in the best way possible, i. e. being respectful and stating your intent very clearly I enjoyed it, looking forward to the next one

[@romxxii]

Funny how this popped up in my feed _after_ Red Nose Day, when Ashley played Yasha once more and spoilers... ...got promptly mind-controlled.

[@cmccbuilds8229]

Lol - I’m halfway through that episode - didn’t see that yet. Hilarious.

[@schuylersimmons4424]

dope. really like this. as a new GM, it's good to hear breakdowns of popular characters. thanks for this.

[@mojojomoo]

I am excited to see you do the rest of the cast as well. This was a cool video that managed a respectful alternative.

[@resurrecsean]

I really like this idea! And the fact your taking the personality, backstory, and story events created by the characters into account just sweetens it

[@Keynetics]

This was a very good watch hope more people see this absolutely sharing this with my D&D friends

[@SamCann14]

Even though its impossible to argue with that huge increase in wisdom saving throws, the tragic elements that came from Yasha turning on her friends was a great part of the story and I'm kinda glad it was what it was!

[@sarahtoninmg]

This is actually really good insight into building a dope character. You explained this well and to my surprise didn’t bash her character choice. This was respectful and well done! I’d love to see some more on the CR characters if you’re feeling up to it ( :

[@lejandario7779]

I actually like this. Its treated as what it is,a thought experiment. Well done for keeping the player in mind

[@dragonicdoom3772]

Kinda sucks that they nerfed aasimars so much in Monsters of the Multiverse. Don't get me wrong, the ability going from an action to a bonus action is a huge difference, but the other changes were so detrimental. Like how the scourge aasimar no longer damages itself but they reduced its aoe damage from half your level to proficiency bonus, and reduced the extra hit damage from your level to your proficiency bonus is such a huge nerf. Even the change to the healing ability is a mixed bag, since while its much better at early levels, its much less reliable later.

[@andrewdowns3673]

What Vestiges of Divergence would be useful for Yasha? My top pick would be the Stormgirdle. It just fits perfectly with her being the champion of the Storm Lord.

[@misscaricature]

Love this! I'm a big CR fan and it's interesting to what the characters would be like if instead of focusing on RP critical role was combat focused instead.

[@TheStrangeBloke]

Big improvement over previous videos, I really like the shorter format. One thing I will call out however is that Sentinel allowed Yasha to frequently get one more attack, which is a big deal when you consider the strength mod, large weapon dice, and magic weapon riders that she was working with. Feels like it would narrow the gap a lot from a DPR perspective. Still absolutely right about the defenses however. Personally I would simply take both GWM and Sentinel, and forget boosting strength. 18 is enough.

[@cmccbuilds8229]

Yeah I really wanted sentinel too. Forgoing the extra asi is certainly a way to fit it in. If Beau didn’t take it, I’d probably go that route.

[@Glistam]

I think a swap of int and wis in this new build would have fit the character better - Yasha being able to be mind controlled was a big part of her story and a big weakness the character had. She could still raise it with Resilience as done in the build and represent her attempts to become stronger willed and resist a lot of that influence. Plus the idea of going Battle Master at higher levels falls a little flat for me, rp-wise, if the character isn't above-average intelligence. I know that favoring wis over int makes sense from a pure optimization standpoint, but it does lose some of the mechanical weight to important character background and motivations.

[@Glistam]

Especially if she was backed up by the optimized Fjord presented in the next video, it would've been much less of a negative.

[@cmccbuilds8229]

I don't see Battle Master as an intelligence based subclass at all. It's a skilled fighter subclass, which certainly fits Yasha IMO. I don't see Yasha as the grog or hulk style barbarian of break stuff first, ask questions last type. She's just a strong, badass warrior type.

[@peterwhitcomb8315]

CR thankfully uses the Flanking Optional Rule making the reliance of Reckless Attack to negate GWM -5 to hit penalty less cumbersome @ level 4. So it's even more optimized :)

[@cmccbuilds8229]

It’s a weird thing in the video optimization community but everyone always assumes no advantage (unless an ability gives it to you) and no magic weapons (unless an ability gives it to you). Both are relatively easy to get in most campaigns and advantage should happen decently often with a well played party. Maybe I’ll make a vid on it someday - diving deeper into the implications and reasons why.

[@kronos1794]

At least a zealot barbarian is kinda tough to mess up. If you can survive until the character literally can't die you're good.

[@VeteranVandal]

I do think she just changed the int for wisdom to not be like Grog. I think Grog was better built if we disregard how bad Berserker is relative to Zealot. Yasha suffered a lot with mind control, goddamn. I knew quite a few of the things in her build, but I wasn't aware what her background was. Kinda cool. I think Yasha was a weird character overall, but it was at least a very unique take on Barbarians. I think CR barb I like the most is Ashton in this aspect tho. I'd really struggle on doing a unique barbarian build, i get the sense everything that could be done was.

[@jasonmed2119]

Fantastic

[@shealupkes]

her thing for swords could easily have been reflavored as glaives leaving her room for the fabled polearm master and great weapon master combo

[@angalv3152]

love these builds....what feats would you go for if u went till level 20? you mention crusher but you also mention that if u went all the way till 20 you wouldnt dip into fighter how would this change the build in this case?ty

[@cmccbuilds8229]

Curious what others think here

[@Samuel_Kabel]

Did you... did you go Barb 4/Fighter 1? Or is it implied that you're taking B5 first? Cause it really looked like you just skipped Extra Attack in favor of Second Wind, along with +1AC and -1HP.

[@cmccbuilds8229]

Def go barb5 before the MC into fighter I’m not a madman :)

[@matthewparsons4597]

I'm finally getting around to watching campaign 2 and I'm loving the whole thing, especially Yasha. Currently she's my favourite character of the Nein, which I think Ashley's personality really adds to. Looking at the similarities between Pike, Yasha and Fearne, Ashley plays a lot of characters that are honest (whether that's kind, socially awkward or insensitive), reliable and creative problem solvers. I'm a fan of that, Yasha most of all. I just wanted to share my thoughts on the build. First, I'm usually against switching racial ability scores, but that goes out the window as soon as you start rolling for stats. If there's less standardised scores, swapping racial bonuses for something that enables a better character makes very little difference. I agree that she should have a higher DEX so that she can fill out Half Plate, but I would like to keep INT over WIS. While her low WIS would be a liability in some fights, I'd guess that's only really an issue against bosses who are more likely to have charm/dominating spells. Her low Insight feels like it rounds out her social awkwardness better, and she feels more intelligent than the average peasant. To make this work, we take Resilient earlier. I think Yasha's flavour suits a more skillful greatsword wielder, so I discourage the grapple+shove combo. Her first ASI should be spent on Fighting Initiate: Interception if you allow it to defend against attacks coming to you (so pre-errata Interception). Otherwise, I'd take the Resilient: WIS now. It'll give her a longer time to benefit from no negatives to her WIS skills, and it'll help her in more boss fights because she took it earlier in the series. With her STR 18 and Barbarian abilities, her damage is okay for now without GWM. I would argue that 5th should still be a Barbarian level to radically increase her DPR with Extra Attack before going for any Fighter levels. Then her Fighter level at 6th for Defence Fighting Style and her AC skyrockets. At 9th, the ASI should be for GWM; Yasha's strong, but she had plenty of opportunity to increase her STR and never did so I think Ashley wanted her at STR 18 for a roleplay reason. At 13th, I really like the idea of Savage Attacker on Yasha. By taking it 4 levels later we've given her some more consistent damage in the early levels AND given Ashley more time to accustom to other abilities before adding a new mechanic that amounts to advantage on damage whenever you like. This is more flavourful like how I didn't increase STR to 20. If you took the pre-errata Interception at 4th this ASI should be for GWM where 9th was for Resilient. In the end, her AC is higher than the original, her damage is higher, her WIS saves are higher, and Interception suits her character more than Sentinel. It does lower her WIS slightly from this optimised build and lowers her damage through a lower STR, but with my version she still has a clear weakness that hasn't been handwaved away and she isn't an unstoppable object like what Grog was.

[@henryohenry1504]

I don't exactly understand how d&d works but Ashley clearly should've multiclassed into a bard it would've been amazing for Yasha's character arc. Actually if you would maybe a what if series when you're done. Like what if yasha multiclassed into bard? And what if jester multiclassed into Warlock because she clearly didn't want to be a cleric ;)

[@shadowhell8378]

It's time for a update now that they have gotten to level 20

[@aquamarinerose5405]

I will give some small points "Against" these changes 1: Though you're right that a giant hammer is often just fine, I think that the choice between these two is basically just flavor. 2: I personally think picking Necrotic damage would fit better with the concept simply because of the fact that her Necrotic Shroud ALSO Does necrotic, And the effect of her eventually transforming into a Guardian aasimar and also having her Divine Fury ability become radiant damage would make that mechanical change even more interesting. (which might've just HAPPENED) for all I knew. (Granted you said that you weren't taking it into consideration, but I think that it fits) Granted, of course I get the POINT of this series is optimizing them, though I'd argue these points of optimization in particular are a smidge too small to matter that much. Also on the Fighter dip, it's not really necessary considering that she already has medium armor proficiency, though the extra +1 from defense is nice... I'd argue that without actually knowing where the campaign was going to end, maybe our hypothetical alternate Ashley would still WANT to get to 20th level for that capstone even if she didn't know exactly how long the campaign would last.

[@mikonyx7712]

I have to say, everytime Matt had an enemy using mind controltype ability against Yasha, I've been dieing inside, like, how you can pull up such abilities SO FUCKIN* OFTEN, and always target a player with wisdow for a dump stat. I feel like it was one of the biggest problems with campaign 2....

[@yooooo8600]

Well, you have to remember that Fjord, Jester, Caleb, and Cadeceus all had proficiency in Wisdom saving throws, which is 9 times out of 10 the saving throw that the charmed condition calls for. Also, by the end of the campaign, Veth and Beau also had proficiency in Wisdom saves, through a feat and a class ability respectively. So while you're correct that Yasha was the most likely to fail a Wisdom save, the other characters still got targeted quite a bit by them, they just all had a really high chance of succeeding. I never got the sense that Matt was specifically targeting Yasha, and the only instance in which he did target her was when Ashley had to leave the campaign again, and so Yasha was gonna get mind controlled and follow Obann around while Ashley was gone. But that seemed to be an entirely scripted moment.

[@michaelmerrick6522]

As someone who considers aesthetics as part of their roleplay, the changing weapon and possibly of race changes kinda fell flat for me on the roleplay vs. optimization. Thankfully that book you mentioned does help this a bit by letting you flub about with your ability scores. Something that changes the underlying mechanics without taking away from my character fantasy.

[@cmccbuilds8229]

Why would changing race or weapon affect role play?

[@michaelmerrick6522]

@@cmccbuilds8229 Imagine for instance you're playing a Kobold Paladin. Given their massive nerf to strength It would be best to play a Dex Paladin. The best single handed weapon for that would be a rapier, but you think a paladin with a rapier looks dumb, part of your RP might be that your guy wields a warhammer. What do you give up to make that happen? You have to decide between RP and Mechanics if part of your RP is that you want to play that specific race/class/weapon combination.

[@cmccbuilds8229]

What nerf to strength? Strength based kobold builds exist. Build towards strength and use a war hammer. Also Dexadins are a thing. They can be quite good.

[@bowl1858]

I think that Yasha having low wisdom actually fit her character though

[@lejandario7779]

How come?

[@andrewprovencher3400]

this video implies there is a "wrong" way to build a character...I hate it d&d is not about being as optimal as possible

[@cmccbuilds8229]

There is optimal and suboptimal. Neither implies right or wrong. The question is what does optimal mean.

[@doofmoney3954]

This might be the worst dnd channel on youtube

[@TheStrangeBloke]

There's always a worse channel.

[@kronos1794]

How? Players interested in optimization are a decent percent of the D&D community and he's making decent points. Either be constructive with your criticism or show us how it's done by making your own better channel.

[@doofmoney3954]

@@kronos1794 No

[@doofmoney3954]

@@TheStrangeBloke Yeah I can think of a couple but this is already pretty horrendous

[@kronos1794]

@@doofmoney3954 Then your opinion officially doesn't matter.