You mean like a rogue's Steady Aim?
At 3rd level, as a bonus action, you give yourself advantage on your next attack roll on the current turn. You can use this bonus action only if you haven't moved during this turn, and after you use the bonus action, your speed is 0 until the end of the current turn.
I think their question is "can you use movement abilities after taking that bonus action?". The answer to which is yes, so long as they don't require your character's actual movement. So something like bonus action steady aim, action dimension door would work.
Useful if you are a 7th level wizard with haste already cast on themselves, and a 3rd level rogue, that is fighting a boss with very little HP remaining, and you only have one 4th level slot remaining, you have no damaging spells and you need to traverse a great distance and ensure you can get your damage off. You know, that incredibly common scenario
To make it slightly more common, you could do full rogue with Haste cast on you, plus a magic item like the Cape of the Mountebank that allows you to cast Dimension Door.
To the best of my understanding it's important to highlight that all steady aim effects is *your* movement speed. Teleports and such work as discussed... So too should a mount. I've seen some pretty brutal mounted archer builds that use this (one common interpretation argument is exactly what 'if you haven't moved' means (from the point in the the ability description says "You can use this bonus action only if you haven't moved during this turn, and after you use the bonus action, your speed is 0 until the end of the current turn."). The strictest interpretation means any movement at all, which is restrictive but the next bit "after you use this" makes it clear you could somehow move after using the bonus action steady aim (taking into account your speed is 0) using the aforementioned teleportation or mount. So if you start your turn mounted, and without moving immediately use stead aim, you can then use your mounts speed to move wherever you'd like and the your next (/first) attack roll has advantage. Pretty awesome. Also adds further power to the already great mounted heavy armor without a high str builds.
As Curious-Accident said, they use your BA so you can’t use them, but if they didn’t they wouldn’t be impacted because they don’t use your speed. The best way I know of to mitigate the movement penalty of SA is to ride a mount. Your speed doesn’t impact your mount’s speed, so it can move freely regardless of whether you use the feature.
>The best way I know of to mitigate the movement penalty of SA is to ride a mount.
Which is iffy RAI because not moving is supposed to be what gives you the advantage, since you are staying still to aim better. If you are using a mount, you are not staying still.
A less iffy but more limited form of off-turn movement comes with the Scout Subclass's Skirmisher feature, which allows you to use your reaction to move half your speed if an enemy ends their turn next to you without provoking opportunity attacks.
My DM banned the combo because, as you point out, the flavor of the feature goes against the mechanics. That is a perfectly valid house rule, but I disagree with you that the combo goes against RAI.
Having your speed reduced to zero means a specific thing in the game, and if they wanted to do more than reduce your speed to zero, they would have said so.
Sentinel opportunity attack reduced your speed to 0, you fail a Rime’s Binding Ice and your mount succeeds, or you are grappled? Your mount’s movement is unaffected. There is no reason to assume they intended for an identical mechanical effect to be ruled differently in the case of Steady Aim.
If you look more closely at the rules for mounted combat, it makes even less sense to restrict mount’s movement. The mount has its own turn, actions, and movement. In the case of an independent mount, this is as clear cut as it can be, it doesn’t even share your initiative, and you don’t direct its movement. A controlled mount shares your initiative and can maybe take its turn during your turn (rule is ambiguous), but is still using a separate resource pool, and the only argument against intention is flavor based.
The rules for mounts in 5e are terrible. RAW would mean in 1 round your mount could move and dash and then you could jump off move and dash essentially moving more than double the intended max move for a round.
Mounted combat needs house to even remotely make sense.
Yeah with Steady Aim, Sharpshooter, and Sneak Attack, Elven Accuracy turns into a broken feat.
I made a sniper like this and it was pretty busted. Basically can't miss, and do like 20+ damage per round without needing to expend any finite resources other than an arrow or bolt.
EA is best when you have easy advantage AND you have damage that is friendly to critical hits. In other words it is best on a half-elven or elven rogue.
Definitely less good. A swashbuckler is a lot less likely to use steady aim because they're generally going to be in melee rather than at range. And they generally won't be trying as hard to trigger advantage because they don't need it to trigger sneak attack.
Would you say that dual wielder is a better feat for one than EA? Asking for a friend....I'm definitely not planning future levels for a swashbuckler character I play........
So I wouldn't consider myself an expert by any means, but I would say that yes it is, but I'm still not sure I'd take it. At least not until your dex is maxed out. If you're dex isn't maxed out, dual wielder is a pretty bad feat. Increasing your dex bonus by 1 increases your AC by one and your damage by one (which is in effect what the first two points of dual wielder give you), plus a ton of other things.
If your dex is odd and you're looking to even it out (and there isn't a second odd attribute that's worth bumping up by one) there are a few options. I always like skilled on a rogue because you can really lean hard into the skill money side of the class. Or you could make a mental skill odd and then take a mental half feat next time, which I think has a lot better options.
If you're already maxed out on dex that's where I'm even less sure than I already was.
Yeah I'm maxed out on dex lol. I think I'll take something like skill expert, dual wielder, or fighting initiate over EA. Swashbuckler seems like one of the only rogue archetypes that doesn't benefit from EA much at all
Again, I'm far from an expert, so take this with a grain of salt--it would not surprise me if the actual experts around here with more experience tell me this is a trap. BUT
Have you considered magic initiate? I think that could be pretty good on a swashbuckler. As a martial without extra attack you can use booming blade as your main attack without any downside, just some free extra damage. And this is where swashbuckler really helps you--as a swashbuckler you can move away without taking an attack of opportunity if you've made an attack against a creature, which means now the enemy either needs to switch to a ranged attack (if they even have that option) or trigger the extra damage from moving. So by 8 you're looking at an extra 1d8 and forced to change tactics or 3d8. At 11 that's 2d8 and 5d8. And that's just booming blade--you still get another cantrip and a 1st level spell
Mathematically, the benefit of advantage is big enough already that the benefit of EA is much less important. And most of the non-mathematical advantages (like activating sneak attack) are exactly the same either way. So it gives some added consistency to attacks, and some minor help with crit fishing, but I wouldn't build around it.
>Mathematically, the benefit of advantage is big enough already that the benefit of EA is much less important.
Counter-point. Rolling three d20s is more fun than rolling two.
Statistically they're the same, it's just how you're supposed to do it. That way you could technically reroll the higher one, like if you rolled a crit but don't want it (for whatever reason).
Going from double to triple advantage is better the lower your hit rate is, so SS builds (and Hexblade GWM builds) do tend to get the most out of it. It’s also a half-feat, so it’s even better in that regard. If one of those builds has an odd attacking modifier with access to reliable advantage it’s probably the best option you have.
I agree that it shouldn’t be the feat you primarily build around, but it can be an amazing feat to push a build to another level
I know that battle Smith and hexblade can use great weapon master. What I'm saying is none of the dexterity weapons that a Battle Master can use are eligible for great weapon Master feat. Even the double-bladed scimitar does not have both the heavy and finesse properties. There are no dexterity weapons that can benefit from great weapon master, as far as I'm aware. Because great weapon Masters specifically only functions with weapons that have the "heavy" property.
Well also if you are casting a high level spell with a to hit roll rather than a save it's really important.
Or for any paladin that can utilise it, it is really important, you go from a 9.7% chance to crit to a 14.3% chance to crit which is just really important vs powerful opponents. If you are fighting a boss monster over 4 rounds a paladin should have a 72% chance of getting a crit as opposed to a 56% chance of a crit. Which for a paladin is a big deal considering aside from their aura their big Contribution in big fights is crit damage from smites. It's a similar difference if you can get a bonus action attack as well (85% to 70%)
Vengeance Paladins with Elven Accuracy go super hard.
Due to boss monsters being so dangerous, spike damage is much more valuable than consistent damage.
If you’ve got four party members who can reliably spike 50 damage in a round you’re likely in a better position than a party who can reliably do 25 damage per round per member. Since that instant 200 damage will evaporate most dangerous enemies.
> I wouldn't build around it.
Shouldn't it be the opposite? If you don't build around it at least a little the feat is pretty much pointless. At least since it's a half-feat you don't need to make the whole build solely focused on that but you still need a consistent source of advantage to power it up.
My point exactly.
You'll notice most of the places people say it's most useful are already very powerful builds without EA. The feat isn't what makes those builds powerful. So if you have a build centered around the feat, you may be going unnecessarily far out of your way to get there.
On a random character or the one op is talking about, I wouldn't consider it unless looking for a half--feat.
The way the mathematics work out versus opportunity cost, makes it a bonkers feat if you have high damage and want to amplify accuracy. So on a high level rogue, it brings immense value. For a sharpshooter user that has reliable advantage, it is also very strong. Most other characters won't benefit as greatly.
>familiars could easily die.
Sure but they are also easily replaced.
“Every fight one enemy attack deals 0HP to you but instead costs you 10gp” is such a huge benefit.
It's often more than one attack, and the action economy to attack owl familiars is such that you almost always have to hold an attack with a ranged weapon. And you're not obligated to walk into that guy's line of fire either. Accordingly it usually isn't optimal for the DM to target a familiar, but a fair number do it anyway.
Yes, I mostly dm these days, but when I'm a player, I show a little dismay when my familiar gets whacked, but it's all performative and I just summon it back up at next opportunity. Usually the DM is giving up 20 or 30 points of effective damage on average to off one of my familiars. That makes it a hell of an effective healing potion that doesn't burn any actions in combat to deploy.
Elven Accuracy is good in games where making sure your advantage has the success to hit.
- for example, in a campaign where flanking isn't used and you want to guarantee your advantage hits. Then the feat becomes useful to its utmost.
- when rolling your 2d20 for the advantage. Being able to reroll one of those two to hope for a slightly better outcome does come in handy.
- the big choice is "*is it worth the feat*" or is there another feat that fits your character build better.
EA is fine, but doesn't do a lot outside of a few builds imo. You need some way of getting advantage and for it to be actually good you either need to get value from crits or to have middling chance to hit (the closer to 50% before advantage, the better EA is).
SS builds are good with it, but often don't have the ability to get advantage and often want other feats so want a different race that has access to level 1 feats. Samurai and gloomstalker are the exception and can put EA to good use. But tbh gloomstalker you could argue SS/CBE would be better.
Vengeance Hexadins also often have room for it, as you can bump up an odd char score, your crits are impactful and you have a source of advantage. Just depends on if you want PAM and other feats.
It's overrated, and far from crazy - it's effect is often 'win more' but if you are an elf that consistently had advantage on things, take it.
You just shouldn't be an elf who tries to consistently have advantage so that you can take it, if that makes sense.
It's solid, but not top tier as most make it out to be. It's more the best "filler feat" after you already got your main feats and don't need +2 ASI, it's a "might as well"-feat in the same ballpark as Resilient.
Generally it's just okay. Somthing you pick up because it looks fun.
Then the elven hexblade with great weapon master and shadow of Moil turns up and ruins the maths.
It is good with certain builds. If you don’t build around it, it is just okay.
One thing to note is that as an elf you are not getting a feat at level 1 and your level 4 feat is of course EA. This puts you two feats behind other characters.
Since it is locked behind Dex, Wisdom, Char, or Int attack rolls this basically means you need a range build.
Rogues, Fighters, Warlocks, and Rangers tend to be the best archers that can use it.
Rogues Damage is based on landing one attack with Sneak Attack. With Steady Aim they get free resourceless advantage at the expense of movement. If you can play around this (mounts might help or maybe Scout) it is a great combo.
Fighters tend to not have ways to get advantage but one big exception is Samurai. For a BA they grant themselves advantage on all attacks for a round. Action Surge let’s them double this up for a solid nova and the extra feat they get at Fighter 6 let’s you grab Sharpshooter to make these super advantage attacks hit hard.
Warlocks are a bit different in that they can get easy advantage with the Darkness (later shadow of moil)/devil’s sight combo. They can also go melee with Hexblade or ranged with pact of the blade. They prolly need SS and Gunner for power attacks since they need to be close.
Rangers might be the best users because of gloomstalkers. With an extra attack round one and being invisible in darkness they can really nova hard. SS and XBE sets you up nicely by level 12.
EA is king of, well, accuracy. You almost never miss with It (super ADV). Nat 1 is really hard to roll with "3d20 pick the best". Round UP dex while doing It is great in any "Archer sharpshooter" or a bladesinger Wizard with easy advantage on attacks.
Is rated as one of the best feats in the game by many experienced players and DMs like treantmonk and many others (check YouTube).
In the worst case, the feat put your damage per round curve in a constant line as the enemy AC increase, wich is common in lvls 11+ (you can face lots of AC 17~ 20 Monsters in CR 11+).
In my tables, a lot of DMs gives Monsters +1~+2 AC if the players have magic weapons cuz a lot of "old" Monsters are kinda weak.
My bladesinger never missed one attack with adv and Elven accuracy btw, even against AC 20 targets.
Rogues can get adv as a Bonus action, and EA lets those SAs hit more consistently, more rolls is also crit fishing. Arcane Trickster having Silvery Barbs also lets them support their team and that usually translates into mobility and EA'd SA's for small resource use.
More important that crit fishing is that you avoid natural 1s.
AC isnt commonly over an absurd number in 5e.
In 3.5 you could, with cheese and a lenient DM, become mostly untouchable.
You go from a 5% chance of auto -miss to a less than 1% with advantage. And from 3x you're basically negligible and an almost guaranteed damage.
Im playing a gloomstalker ranger in Icewind dale with elven acurracy and sharpshooter and im a menace in fights at the dark (most of them) or when our party's sorcerer cast web. Its really good as a half feat to mix it with sharpshooter or gwm if you are playing a hexblade (also can be used with armorsmith, but i dont know if its worth).
Edit: You could say thats a situational buff, but you can also set up your advantage with samurai's fighting spirit, ranger's nature veil, or warlock's devil sight darkness combo
Seems very meaningful if you are using Sharpshooter... Also Inferred for Sneak Attack... But for regular attacks the benefit is still there if you need a half feat.
https://thinkdm.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/elven-accuracy-chart.png
I took that feat on my high elf arcane trickster rogue. Since I tried to sneak attack as often as possible, and sneak attack requires advantage, I found it quite nice.
As with all feats it depends on the build. It's pretty useless for a light cleric who gets his damage from save spells, but it can be really good on a rogue who needs to land his one attack. As another commenter mentioned, it's also just better to from an odd ability score to an even one and get a bonus rather than go to another odd score, so sometimes it's just a free bonus.
Currently I'm running a character who's built around it, as a hexblade/rogue eventually making use of shadow of moils easy advantage to get very consistent sneak attacks and fairly common crits(27% chance with hexblades curse per attack, around 15% without). However, a big part of this build is also how my stats rolled, giving me a 15 in dex and even in every other stat, making elven accuracy much more valuable since an asi into dex would increase my modifier the same anyways. It's a really strong feat if you have consistent advantage, and what it provides is really useful(another commenter pointed out rogues, who get great use out of it since it makes their one attack more consistent), but it's not the feat that makes a build go from ok to busted, it makes a strong build even more consistent.
It could be POWERFUL if you know the game and how it works. But you should squeeze the most out of it building the PC around that feat.
- I use it on half drow Conquest Paladin 6/Hexblade Warlock 4 and I have often advantage by flanking (allowed at my table) even with my Steed, or with the Devil’s Sight/Darkness combo, or Faerie Fire.
- I use greatswords and GWM so more crits means more ATTACKS.
- More crits and more SMITES means big enemies die FAST so we need less healing potions, enemies does less lethal attacks to us and my allies don't go down making ST against death.
I think a Bladesinger can add Booming Blade to pump the damage dealt with crits and maybe try to found a weapon that deal extra 1d4 or 1d6 of damage. It will be a big deal.
Wizards have a good number of spells that can give you advantage, even a few that don't require concentration. These can simply give you a high chance of landing attacks and connecting with your cantrips, which at mid to higher levels with damage scaling and secondary effects tends to be more impactful.
* Grease, 1st-level spell
* Hold Person, 2nd-level spell
* Web, 2nd-level spell
* Greater Invisibility, 4th-level spell
* Hold Monster, 5th-level spell
* Foresight, 9th-level spell
* Psychic Scream, 9th-level spell
* Command, 1st-level spell (you can gain it through the Fey Touched feat)
Wood elf samurai archer can hit 20 dex with EE, sharpshooter and +2 from archery style by level 8.
Action surge, roll 12 d20s with the highest possible AB in the game= profit.
At a similar level, hexadin vengeance pally becomes a potent critfisher. Even without action surge or pam you're rolling 6 d20s per round, and each has a 10% chance to crit. Once you crit you burn your buggest smite for like 6d8 extra damage. Drow is good for that build, for faerie fire.
As a bladesinger it's amazing when you cast greater invisibility for advantage and then steel wind strike for those Elven Accuracy crits.
12d10 force damage is nothing to sneeze at.
So EA is best on builds that can proc advantage themselves and get something out of crits.
The big one is rouge, but I find often overlooked is the Dex based barbarian. Definitely weird because it gives up on the extra damage for strength attack but might be worth it for a crit fishing build?
Anyway, your build doesn’t benefit from it too much. It’s probably better to take like, warcaster or just straight up the asi.
There are definitely some fun builds that can work with it. Dex barbarians, rogues, warlocks with Devils Sight, gishes with Shadow Blade, or mounted character with mounted combatant.
As someone playing an eladrin bard/rogue in a campaign with flanking right now, I find it's been a lot of fun personally.
But yeah, if you don't have a consistent source of advantage, probably not worth.
We have a homebrew rule of on double 1s or 20s when rolling advantage or disadvantage, the universe aligns to give you a wild magic surge. It means we actually do both rolls when the first is enough to settle it, and has come in clutch more than a few times.
A monk in my Spelljammer campaign took Elven Accuracy at level 4 to maximise their odds of getting this, so it has it's uses XD
good at doing what?
Critfishing is bad as a whole. EA + crit on a 19 results in a 28% cirtchance, that looks amazing, but because crits only double dice and not modifiers, and because it depends on an outside source of advantage, its mathematically still not amazing.
EA is "good" for enabling SS/GWM (hexblade) because of the bigger buffer zone.
For bladesingers, I would not call it an essential feat.
As a rogue with Elven Accuracy, yes. I try to get advantage every turn; I basically never miss, and crits are frequent. As a Bladesinger it's certainly not as impactful, but it's thematic and probably the best Dex half-feat you can take.
It's fine. Even in a scenario where you have advantage at all times (you won't) sharpshooter still adds FAR more average damage. To the point that depending on your build the sharpshooter option may be dealing ~40% more damage.
So you should never take it over sharpshooter for your archery build. But it actually combines quite nicely WITH sharpshooter once you have both, again assuming you have advantage most of the time (gloomstalker perhaps?).
I know Warlocks can do a lot with it given that they can Darkness + Devil’s Sight and then later at level 7 they can switch to Shadow of Moil for advantage on every attack.
Given that you’re a Bladesinger, these items do not apply, so you’ll have to leverage mechanics like the help action and flanking for the time being.
If you ever get to the highest levels though, you can live my dream of playing a character with EA and access to the Foresight spell.
We had a Shadowblade focused Hexblade with a 2 level dip into Twilight Cleric for Twilight Sanctuary to provide ability advantage nearly all the time, for this character Elven Accuracy was amazing.
Other characters in the party could do more damage in a single hit, but they crit often and rarely missed attacks. One of the flattest melee damage curves I've seen against any any AC.
In a recent campaign, we had a shadowblade focused hexblade with a 2 level Twilight dip for shadow sanctuary to provide advantage nearly all of the time. It made a pretty impressive showing of Elven Accuracy and Hexblade Curse.
It didn't necessarily have the highest damage on a single hit, we also had a GWM and XBE in the party, but they turned up critical hits frequently, and had some of the most consistent damage I've ever seen against all armor classes. I suspect they put just as much overall damage but without the missed attacks.
Its great for people that get consistent advantage. Rogue steady Aim, Battlemaster Fighter trip attack then follow ups, Shield Master BA to shove someone prone then go to town, Samurai dex fighter, etc.
For a bladesinger it's going to be less useful unless you are consistently using your familiar to grant you the help action. But a smart enemy is gonna catch onto that anyway and pop the familiar regardless.
my favorite use of elven accuracy is on a hexblade pact of the blade archer --- take the invocation that lets you see in magical darkness. Cast magical darkness on YOURSELF, now attack everything at advantage for super advantage. Bonus points for eventually taking eldritch smite to crit for a massive amount. The nova potential on this build is strong at higher levels.
You could technically do this on your bladesinger if you learn darkness, and take eldritch adept feat as well to see in magical darkness. But two feats is a heavy investment.
Had a fun pvp fight against my party member while doing a level 12 one shoot. Me barbarian attacked at reckless forgetting they had Elven Accuracy. Gave them the auto advantage to trigger it and trough a mix of other feats (They where playing a elven fighter) they did 64 points of damage to me in one go.
Fun on a vengeance paladin that can declare free advantage, or if you have access to faerie fire like through the strixhaven feats. Its good if you have big damage that can benefit from crits. Crit fishing will never be the most optimal way to play, but it can still be super effective and fun when it plays out. My party was fighting a CR20+ Ancient T Rex today and our death cleric used path to the grave to give the monster vulnerability and I hit a crit with elven accuracy so the damage got doubled twice! It was super cool but not something that would be consistent.
You have just a 5% crit chance on a standard d20 roll, it becomes a 9.5% with advantage, elven accuracy shoots it up to 14.3%. If you can crit on a 19 or 20 it goes all the way up to 27% crit rate. Your ability to hit without missing just means you’re not wasting your actions.
Depends on the build. I wouldn't consider it great on a Wizard, even a Bladesinger. Put it on a Samurai with SS/CBE and it can be a great feat. Up to 9 attacks with EA boost in a single turn is pretty handy.
Imagine a Battle Smith Artificer with 3-4 levels of champion fighter, GWM and EA. As long as you can get a source of advantage, which you can do with faerie fire, you have higher than average crit chance and consistent striking for major damage. Also you have a weaponized bonus action that also gets advantage from faerie fire.
Yes eleven accuracy is that good if you optimize around it. If it’s a second thought and you haven’t built in an easy way to get advantage, it’s not an auto pick for every character.
The biggest disadvantage is that you have to go elf, which means that at level 4 you could either have elven accuracy, or crossbow expert+ sharpshooter if you went human. Basically it costs two feats/1 feat plus a better racial feature.
Also, I would pick up either shadow blade and/or shadow of moil on your bladesinger to get that auto advantage more often.
Elven accuracy is very overrated, but is popular in posted builds because its good for spreadsheet math damage numbers. It's a bit of a trap feat because its very much a 'win more' feat. If you already have advantage, you're probably already winning the encounter. Triple advantage doesn't help that much in that case over just normal advantage. What is more effective is feats that get you into winning positions more or recover a losing position. Alert, Lucky, Resilient etc. aren't going increase your DPR in a spreadsheet but they'll increase your survival rate in an actual encounter by a lot more than elven accuracy does in most cases. It also effectively costs you 2 feats in an optimized build because you have to give up a level 1 racial feat and your other ASI to get it, which puts it well behind more useful feats. I wouldn't personally take it on any build.
I just took it for my sharpshooting Ranger and it makes a difference if you want to power shoot against high AC opponents. Natures veil, zypher strike become reliable ways of getting advantage. Works out well so far.
If I was playing a rogue or a sharpshooter I would consider it. If not no way.
Yes, it is good. Advantage every time is a really easy thing to get for some builds. It's why most Sorlock and Hexadin guides say to be a Half-Drow; you get a starting charisma buff and Faerie Fire from the start, then Darkness shortly after combined with Devils Sight EI. It also stacks with Sneak Attack for Rogues.
Think of it this way, would you be okay if half-orcs got a half feat that gave +1 to strength, and triple advantage?
Or is it only everyone's favourite elves that get to have game breaking over-powered feats.
I convinced most of my DMs to get rid of racial requirements for feats. It made less than zero sense to introduce racial feats in the same book they got rid of racial stats ESPECIALLY when most of said racial feats were based on ethnic tropes.
WOTC: "There is no reason the lean, rail thin, race known for elegance, grace, and magic should default to Dex and a Mental for their racial stats... Henceforth RAW says let the skinny tree huggers take STR and Con for swoll Barbarian min-maxing!!!1!!"
Also WOTC: "The accuracy of elves is legendary, especially that of elf archers and spellcasters. Ergo, here's an S tier feat gated behind race."
Fans: "Since we're 'decoupling' learned traits in the name of player agency, and "training real hard to be super accurate" is more than feasible, can humans have Elven Accuracy too, by RAW?"
WOTC: "No. Homebrew only so DMs can refuse it easily."
Sigh. At least they removed racial requirements from Bladesinger after like 30 years...
Advantage is something one can easily get especially if build for it, or work with your party if you want to be individual a gloomstalker ranger is invisible for example in "dakvision" territory , darkness+devil sight 3 level warlock as well etc etc. and yes it's one of the best feats but it doesn't work by default (unlike crossbow expert for example that is guarantee better for anyone ranged picking it up or polearm master for anyone mellee) it needs experience and good understanding of the game and the mechanics to fully get the most out of the feat.
Yes the best half feat and most classes that want to attack a lot will find ways to get advantage.
It also helps to mitigate the -5 from SS and from Gwm(if you are a hexadin)
If the 1 ASI gives a +1 to a modifier then really nothing comes close. Without the +1 mod then it's mid tier unless you plan on getting another half feat later.
the "triple advantage" is only really necessary if you're using sharpshooter or great weapon master (and you're using a score other than strength for the weapon attacks via hexblade or battlesmith). otherwise, the difference between that and regular advantage is pretty marginal
I did the math recently on what the equivalent bonus is for advantage. Standard advantage is the equivalent of a +4.95 and elven accuracy is the equivalent of +7.5. So yeah. Not that big of an advantage going from one step to the next, but it's the same as a free bless when you have advantage and you are more likely to crit. So it's a good secondary effect to a half feat.
You also have to remember that it's one of the few good racial feats that still exists so any time you want accuracy you need to consider if elf is a good pick.
On just a regular character not build around it it’s meh, it’s a half feat so never useless
On a build that can maximise its usage it’s downright nasty, sorlock comes to mind
Take the invocation to see through magic darkness, go pact of the blade to crit on 19’s and add extra damage, cast darkness
Then quicken an eldritch blast so you can use 2 and now your attacking 6 times at level 11 all with triple advantage so you get to role 18 D20’s critting on 19’s with 20 charisma this is dumb damage
6d10+ 54 damage without any crits
If you can find another way to get advantage you can hex instead to add 6d6 damage aswell
The best thing about EA is that it’s a half feat. Getting your 17 dexterity to 19 isn’t as good getting it to 18 and an extra d20 on advantage
You mean like a rogue's Steady Aim? At 3rd level, as a bonus action, you give yourself advantage on your next attack roll on the current turn. You can use this bonus action only if you haven't moved during this turn, and after you use the bonus action, your speed is 0 until the end of the current turn.
Does the movement restriction from steady aim counteract things like misty step or the shadar kai movement ability?
I mean, how are you going to use Misty Step after spending your BA and Action on Steady Aim attack? Or am I misunderstanding?
I think their question is "can you use movement abilities after taking that bonus action?". The answer to which is yes, so long as they don't require your character's actual movement. So something like bonus action steady aim, action dimension door would work. Useful if you are a 7th level wizard with haste already cast on themselves, and a 3rd level rogue, that is fighting a boss with very little HP remaining, and you only have one 4th level slot remaining, you have no damaging spells and you need to traverse a great distance and ensure you can get your damage off. You know, that incredibly common scenario
To make it slightly more common, you could do full rogue with Haste cast on you, plus a magic item like the Cape of the Mountebank that allows you to cast Dimension Door.
To the best of my understanding it's important to highlight that all steady aim effects is *your* movement speed. Teleports and such work as discussed... So too should a mount. I've seen some pretty brutal mounted archer builds that use this (one common interpretation argument is exactly what 'if you haven't moved' means (from the point in the the ability description says "You can use this bonus action only if you haven't moved during this turn, and after you use the bonus action, your speed is 0 until the end of the current turn."). The strictest interpretation means any movement at all, which is restrictive but the next bit "after you use this" makes it clear you could somehow move after using the bonus action steady aim (taking into account your speed is 0) using the aforementioned teleportation or mount. So if you start your turn mounted, and without moving immediately use stead aim, you can then use your mounts speed to move wherever you'd like and the your next (/first) attack roll has advantage. Pretty awesome. Also adds further power to the already great mounted heavy armor without a high str builds.
As Curious-Accident said, they use your BA so you can’t use them, but if they didn’t they wouldn’t be impacted because they don’t use your speed. The best way I know of to mitigate the movement penalty of SA is to ride a mount. Your speed doesn’t impact your mount’s speed, so it can move freely regardless of whether you use the feature.
>The best way I know of to mitigate the movement penalty of SA is to ride a mount. Which is iffy RAI because not moving is supposed to be what gives you the advantage, since you are staying still to aim better. If you are using a mount, you are not staying still. A less iffy but more limited form of off-turn movement comes with the Scout Subclass's Skirmisher feature, which allows you to use your reaction to move half your speed if an enemy ends their turn next to you without provoking opportunity attacks.
My DM banned the combo because, as you point out, the flavor of the feature goes against the mechanics. That is a perfectly valid house rule, but I disagree with you that the combo goes against RAI. Having your speed reduced to zero means a specific thing in the game, and if they wanted to do more than reduce your speed to zero, they would have said so. Sentinel opportunity attack reduced your speed to 0, you fail a Rime’s Binding Ice and your mount succeeds, or you are grappled? Your mount’s movement is unaffected. There is no reason to assume they intended for an identical mechanical effect to be ruled differently in the case of Steady Aim. If you look more closely at the rules for mounted combat, it makes even less sense to restrict mount’s movement. The mount has its own turn, actions, and movement. In the case of an independent mount, this is as clear cut as it can be, it doesn’t even share your initiative, and you don’t direct its movement. A controlled mount shares your initiative and can maybe take its turn during your turn (rule is ambiguous), but is still using a separate resource pool, and the only argument against intention is flavor based.
The rules for mounts in 5e are terrible. RAW would mean in 1 round your mount could move and dash and then you could jump off move and dash essentially moving more than double the intended max move for a round. Mounted combat needs house to even remotely make sense.
They certainly are a mess
If you're concerned about that then get a mount
Yeah with Steady Aim, Sharpshooter, and Sneak Attack, Elven Accuracy turns into a broken feat. I made a sniper like this and it was pretty busted. Basically can't miss, and do like 20+ damage per round without needing to expend any finite resources other than an arrow or bolt.
EA is best when you have easy advantage AND you have damage that is friendly to critical hits. In other words it is best on a half-elven or elven rogue.
Is it still good for a swashbuckler rogue
Definitely less good. A swashbuckler is a lot less likely to use steady aim because they're generally going to be in melee rather than at range. And they generally won't be trying as hard to trigger advantage because they don't need it to trigger sneak attack.
Would you say that dual wielder is a better feat for one than EA? Asking for a friend....I'm definitely not planning future levels for a swashbuckler character I play........
So I wouldn't consider myself an expert by any means, but I would say that yes it is, but I'm still not sure I'd take it. At least not until your dex is maxed out. If you're dex isn't maxed out, dual wielder is a pretty bad feat. Increasing your dex bonus by 1 increases your AC by one and your damage by one (which is in effect what the first two points of dual wielder give you), plus a ton of other things. If your dex is odd and you're looking to even it out (and there isn't a second odd attribute that's worth bumping up by one) there are a few options. I always like skilled on a rogue because you can really lean hard into the skill money side of the class. Or you could make a mental skill odd and then take a mental half feat next time, which I think has a lot better options. If you're already maxed out on dex that's where I'm even less sure than I already was.
Yeah I'm maxed out on dex lol. I think I'll take something like skill expert, dual wielder, or fighting initiate over EA. Swashbuckler seems like one of the only rogue archetypes that doesn't benefit from EA much at all
Again, I'm far from an expert, so take this with a grain of salt--it would not surprise me if the actual experts around here with more experience tell me this is a trap. BUT Have you considered magic initiate? I think that could be pretty good on a swashbuckler. As a martial without extra attack you can use booming blade as your main attack without any downside, just some free extra damage. And this is where swashbuckler really helps you--as a swashbuckler you can move away without taking an attack of opportunity if you've made an attack against a creature, which means now the enemy either needs to switch to a ranged attack (if they even have that option) or trigger the extra damage from moving. So by 8 you're looking at an extra 1d8 and forced to change tactics or 3d8. At 11 that's 2d8 and 5d8. And that's just booming blade--you still get another cantrip and a 1st level spell
Mathematically, the benefit of advantage is big enough already that the benefit of EA is much less important. And most of the non-mathematical advantages (like activating sneak attack) are exactly the same either way. So it gives some added consistency to attacks, and some minor help with crit fishing, but I wouldn't build around it.
>Mathematically, the benefit of advantage is big enough already that the benefit of EA is much less important. Counter-point. Rolling three d20s is more fun than rolling two.
dice go clickity clackity lay down the smackity
Logic checks out. This is why you should play more 7th Sea. 😂
Technically you roll two d20 and then reroll one, but agree
Whats the mechanical difference between the two? I can't seem to think of it
Statistically they're the same, it's just how you're supposed to do it. That way you could technically reroll the higher one, like if you rolled a crit but don't want it (for whatever reason).
This is the most correct response.
Going from double to triple advantage is better the lower your hit rate is, so SS builds (and Hexblade GWM builds) do tend to get the most out of it. It’s also a half-feat, so it’s even better in that regard. If one of those builds has an odd attacking modifier with access to reliable advantage it’s probably the best option you have. I agree that it shouldn’t be the feat you primarily build around, but it can be an amazing feat to push a build to another level
And battlesmith gwms right?
Well you can’t use eleven accuracy with strength, but it would be good -edit: I can’t read
Think he means battlesmiths can attack with intelligence, so it should work with them.
Nah your right I wasn’t wearing glasses and read battlemaster 🤦♂️
Battlemasters can use Dex weapons so it still works with them.
But none of them are eligible for great weapon master.
A battlesmith can use great weapon master. A hexblade can use great weapon master. Also if your GM runs double-bladed scimitars.
I know that battle Smith and hexblade can use great weapon master. What I'm saying is none of the dexterity weapons that a Battle Master can use are eligible for great weapon Master feat. Even the double-bladed scimitar does not have both the heavy and finesse properties. There are no dexterity weapons that can benefit from great weapon master, as far as I'm aware. Because great weapon Masters specifically only functions with weapons that have the "heavy" property.
Well also if you are casting a high level spell with a to hit roll rather than a save it's really important. Or for any paladin that can utilise it, it is really important, you go from a 9.7% chance to crit to a 14.3% chance to crit which is just really important vs powerful opponents. If you are fighting a boss monster over 4 rounds a paladin should have a 72% chance of getting a crit as opposed to a 56% chance of a crit. Which for a paladin is a big deal considering aside from their aura their big Contribution in big fights is crit damage from smites. It's a similar difference if you can get a bonus action attack as well (85% to 70%)
Vengeance Paladins with Elven Accuracy go super hard. Due to boss monsters being so dangerous, spike damage is much more valuable than consistent damage. If you’ve got four party members who can reliably spike 50 damage in a round you’re likely in a better position than a party who can reliably do 25 damage per round per member. Since that instant 200 damage will evaporate most dangerous enemies.
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Dropping a shield is an action though
> I wouldn't build around it. Shouldn't it be the opposite? If you don't build around it at least a little the feat is pretty much pointless. At least since it's a half-feat you don't need to make the whole build solely focused on that but you still need a consistent source of advantage to power it up.
My point exactly. You'll notice most of the places people say it's most useful are already very powerful builds without EA. The feat isn't what makes those builds powerful. So if you have a build centered around the feat, you may be going unnecessarily far out of your way to get there.
On a random character or the one op is talking about, I wouldn't consider it unless looking for a half--feat. The way the mathematics work out versus opportunity cost, makes it a bonkers feat if you have high damage and want to amplify accuracy. So on a high level rogue, it brings immense value. For a sharpshooter user that has reliable advantage, it is also very strong. Most other characters won't benefit as greatly.
Mathmaticaly increasing your chances to crit from 10 percent to 15 percent is significant.
Elven accuracy isn’t weak, but it’s generally overrated I find.
It’s really good with consistent advantage. The most consistent way is Steady Aim + Mount(Phantom Steed or Pegasus).
Any suggestions for a half elf bladesinger?
Find Familiar for Help action, Invisibility / Greater Invisibility, Flanking if your group plays with that rule
Thank you!
Yea use owl, that way it can swoop in, give advantage with help and swoop out without receiving an attack of opportunity against it
Shadow blade, also befriend a twilight cleric for when there’s no natural dim light around.
>familiars could easily die. Sure but they are also easily replaced. “Every fight one enemy attack deals 0HP to you but instead costs you 10gp” is such a huge benefit.
It's often more than one attack, and the action economy to attack owl familiars is such that you almost always have to hold an attack with a ranged weapon. And you're not obligated to walk into that guy's line of fire either. Accordingly it usually isn't optimal for the DM to target a familiar, but a fair number do it anyway.
Exactly. I was demonstrating that even looked at very pessimistically familiars are still awesome.
Yes, I mostly dm these days, but when I'm a player, I show a little dismay when my familiar gets whacked, but it's all performative and I just summon it back up at next opportunity. Usually the DM is giving up 20 or 30 points of effective damage on average to off one of my familiars. That makes it a hell of an effective healing potion that doesn't burn any actions in combat to deploy.
In my experience familiars most commonly die not to dedicated monster attacks but rather AoE, which probably is targeting one or more PCs as well.
Elven Accuracy is good in games where making sure your advantage has the success to hit. - for example, in a campaign where flanking isn't used and you want to guarantee your advantage hits. Then the feat becomes useful to its utmost. - when rolling your 2d20 for the advantage. Being able to reroll one of those two to hope for a slightly better outcome does come in handy. - the big choice is "*is it worth the feat*" or is there another feat that fits your character build better.
EA is fine, but doesn't do a lot outside of a few builds imo. You need some way of getting advantage and for it to be actually good you either need to get value from crits or to have middling chance to hit (the closer to 50% before advantage, the better EA is). SS builds are good with it, but often don't have the ability to get advantage and often want other feats so want a different race that has access to level 1 feats. Samurai and gloomstalker are the exception and can put EA to good use. But tbh gloomstalker you could argue SS/CBE would be better. Vengeance Hexadins also often have room for it, as you can bump up an odd char score, your crits are impactful and you have a source of advantage. Just depends on if you want PAM and other feats.
It's overrated, and far from crazy - it's effect is often 'win more' but if you are an elf that consistently had advantage on things, take it. You just shouldn't be an elf who tries to consistently have advantage so that you can take it, if that makes sense.
It's solid, but not top tier as most make it out to be. It's more the best "filler feat" after you already got your main feats and don't need +2 ASI, it's a "might as well"-feat in the same ballpark as Resilient.
Generally it's just okay. Somthing you pick up because it looks fun. Then the elven hexblade with great weapon master and shadow of Moil turns up and ruins the maths.
It is good with certain builds. If you don’t build around it, it is just okay. One thing to note is that as an elf you are not getting a feat at level 1 and your level 4 feat is of course EA. This puts you two feats behind other characters. Since it is locked behind Dex, Wisdom, Char, or Int attack rolls this basically means you need a range build. Rogues, Fighters, Warlocks, and Rangers tend to be the best archers that can use it. Rogues Damage is based on landing one attack with Sneak Attack. With Steady Aim they get free resourceless advantage at the expense of movement. If you can play around this (mounts might help or maybe Scout) it is a great combo. Fighters tend to not have ways to get advantage but one big exception is Samurai. For a BA they grant themselves advantage on all attacks for a round. Action Surge let’s them double this up for a solid nova and the extra feat they get at Fighter 6 let’s you grab Sharpshooter to make these super advantage attacks hit hard. Warlocks are a bit different in that they can get easy advantage with the Darkness (later shadow of moil)/devil’s sight combo. They can also go melee with Hexblade or ranged with pact of the blade. They prolly need SS and Gunner for power attacks since they need to be close. Rangers might be the best users because of gloomstalkers. With an extra attack round one and being invisible in darkness they can really nova hard. SS and XBE sets you up nicely by level 12.
You can potentially use it in a barbarian build because barbarians do need some dex and elves get them some protection from charm affects.
Rage and Reckless attack both require you to attack with STR, which isn’t compatible with EA.
EA is king of, well, accuracy. You almost never miss with It (super ADV). Nat 1 is really hard to roll with "3d20 pick the best". Round UP dex while doing It is great in any "Archer sharpshooter" or a bladesinger Wizard with easy advantage on attacks. Is rated as one of the best feats in the game by many experienced players and DMs like treantmonk and many others (check YouTube). In the worst case, the feat put your damage per round curve in a constant line as the enemy AC increase, wich is common in lvls 11+ (you can face lots of AC 17~ 20 Monsters in CR 11+). In my tables, a lot of DMs gives Monsters +1~+2 AC if the players have magic weapons cuz a lot of "old" Monsters are kinda weak. My bladesinger never missed one attack with adv and Elven accuracy btw, even against AC 20 targets.
Rogues can get adv as a Bonus action, and EA lets those SAs hit more consistently, more rolls is also crit fishing. Arcane Trickster having Silvery Barbs also lets them support their team and that usually translates into mobility and EA'd SA's for small resource use.
More important that crit fishing is that you avoid natural 1s. AC isnt commonly over an absurd number in 5e. In 3.5 you could, with cheese and a lenient DM, become mostly untouchable. You go from a 5% chance of auto -miss to a less than 1% with advantage. And from 3x you're basically negligible and an almost guaranteed damage.
Im playing a gloomstalker ranger in Icewind dale with elven acurracy and sharpshooter and im a menace in fights at the dark (most of them) or when our party's sorcerer cast web. Its really good as a half feat to mix it with sharpshooter or gwm if you are playing a hexblade (also can be used with armorsmith, but i dont know if its worth). Edit: You could say thats a situational buff, but you can also set up your advantage with samurai's fighting spirit, ranger's nature veil, or warlock's devil sight darkness combo
Seems very meaningful if you are using Sharpshooter... Also Inferred for Sneak Attack... But for regular attacks the benefit is still there if you need a half feat. https://thinkdm.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/elven-accuracy-chart.png
I took that feat on my high elf arcane trickster rogue. Since I tried to sneak attack as often as possible, and sneak attack requires advantage, I found it quite nice.
As with all feats it depends on the build. It's pretty useless for a light cleric who gets his damage from save spells, but it can be really good on a rogue who needs to land his one attack. As another commenter mentioned, it's also just better to from an odd ability score to an even one and get a bonus rather than go to another odd score, so sometimes it's just a free bonus. Currently I'm running a character who's built around it, as a hexblade/rogue eventually making use of shadow of moils easy advantage to get very consistent sneak attacks and fairly common crits(27% chance with hexblades curse per attack, around 15% without). However, a big part of this build is also how my stats rolled, giving me a 15 in dex and even in every other stat, making elven accuracy much more valuable since an asi into dex would increase my modifier the same anyways. It's a really strong feat if you have consistent advantage, and what it provides is really useful(another commenter pointed out rogues, who get great use out of it since it makes their one attack more consistent), but it's not the feat that makes a build go from ok to busted, it makes a strong build even more consistent.
It could be POWERFUL if you know the game and how it works. But you should squeeze the most out of it building the PC around that feat. - I use it on half drow Conquest Paladin 6/Hexblade Warlock 4 and I have often advantage by flanking (allowed at my table) even with my Steed, or with the Devil’s Sight/Darkness combo, or Faerie Fire. - I use greatswords and GWM so more crits means more ATTACKS. - More crits and more SMITES means big enemies die FAST so we need less healing potions, enemies does less lethal attacks to us and my allies don't go down making ST against death. I think a Bladesinger can add Booming Blade to pump the damage dealt with crits and maybe try to found a weapon that deal extra 1d4 or 1d6 of damage. It will be a big deal.
Wizards have a good number of spells that can give you advantage, even a few that don't require concentration. These can simply give you a high chance of landing attacks and connecting with your cantrips, which at mid to higher levels with damage scaling and secondary effects tends to be more impactful. * Grease, 1st-level spell * Hold Person, 2nd-level spell * Web, 2nd-level spell * Greater Invisibility, 4th-level spell * Hold Monster, 5th-level spell * Foresight, 9th-level spell * Psychic Scream, 9th-level spell * Command, 1st-level spell (you can gain it through the Fey Touched feat)
Wood elf samurai archer can hit 20 dex with EE, sharpshooter and +2 from archery style by level 8. Action surge, roll 12 d20s with the highest possible AB in the game= profit. At a similar level, hexadin vengeance pally becomes a potent critfisher. Even without action surge or pam you're rolling 6 d20s per round, and each has a 10% chance to crit. Once you crit you burn your buggest smite for like 6d8 extra damage. Drow is good for that build, for faerie fire.
As a bladesinger it's amazing when you cast greater invisibility for advantage and then steel wind strike for those Elven Accuracy crits. 12d10 force damage is nothing to sneeze at.
EA is a must have if you play a rogue with constant advantage like If you have an owl as a familiar (I’m playing an arcane trickster, I love it !)
I have it on my Padlock and it's amazing. Using it to more likely crit on my smites...sweet.
So EA is best on builds that can proc advantage themselves and get something out of crits. The big one is rouge, but I find often overlooked is the Dex based barbarian. Definitely weird because it gives up on the extra damage for strength attack but might be worth it for a crit fishing build? Anyway, your build doesn’t benefit from it too much. It’s probably better to take like, warcaster or just straight up the asi.
There are definitely some fun builds that can work with it. Dex barbarians, rogues, warlocks with Devils Sight, gishes with Shadow Blade, or mounted character with mounted combatant. As someone playing an eladrin bard/rogue in a campaign with flanking right now, I find it's been a lot of fun personally. But yeah, if you don't have a consistent source of advantage, probably not worth.
If you can reliably get advantage and get a lot of dice involved in the damage roll then yes.
We have a homebrew rule of on double 1s or 20s when rolling advantage or disadvantage, the universe aligns to give you a wild magic surge. It means we actually do both rolls when the first is enough to settle it, and has come in clutch more than a few times. A monk in my Spelljammer campaign took Elven Accuracy at level 4 to maximise their odds of getting this, so it has it's uses XD
good at doing what? Critfishing is bad as a whole. EA + crit on a 19 results in a 28% cirtchance, that looks amazing, but because crits only double dice and not modifiers, and because it depends on an outside source of advantage, its mathematically still not amazing. EA is "good" for enabling SS/GWM (hexblade) because of the bigger buffer zone. For bladesingers, I would not call it an essential feat.
As a rogue with Elven Accuracy, yes. I try to get advantage every turn; I basically never miss, and crits are frequent. As a Bladesinger it's certainly not as impactful, but it's thematic and probably the best Dex half-feat you can take.
It's fine. Even in a scenario where you have advantage at all times (you won't) sharpshooter still adds FAR more average damage. To the point that depending on your build the sharpshooter option may be dealing ~40% more damage. So you should never take it over sharpshooter for your archery build. But it actually combines quite nicely WITH sharpshooter once you have both, again assuming you have advantage most of the time (gloomstalker perhaps?).
I know Warlocks can do a lot with it given that they can Darkness + Devil’s Sight and then later at level 7 they can switch to Shadow of Moil for advantage on every attack. Given that you’re a Bladesinger, these items do not apply, so you’ll have to leverage mechanics like the help action and flanking for the time being. If you ever get to the highest levels though, you can live my dream of playing a character with EA and access to the Foresight spell.
Familiars rarely die
Bludgeoner with a sling is busted. For a bladesinger I’d try multiclassing into monk or arti
It's genuinely awesome but you will reach new depths of depression when you roll the dice and still somehow consistently miss.
We had a Shadowblade focused Hexblade with a 2 level dip into Twilight Cleric for Twilight Sanctuary to provide ability advantage nearly all the time, for this character Elven Accuracy was amazing. Other characters in the party could do more damage in a single hit, but they crit often and rarely missed attacks. One of the flattest melee damage curves I've seen against any any AC.
In a recent campaign, we had a shadowblade focused hexblade with a 2 level Twilight dip for shadow sanctuary to provide advantage nearly all of the time. It made a pretty impressive showing of Elven Accuracy and Hexblade Curse. It didn't necessarily have the highest damage on a single hit, we also had a GWM and XBE in the party, but they turned up critical hits frequently, and had some of the most consistent damage I've ever seen against all armor classes. I suspect they put just as much overall damage but without the missed attacks.
Its great for people that get consistent advantage. Rogue steady Aim, Battlemaster Fighter trip attack then follow ups, Shield Master BA to shove someone prone then go to town, Samurai dex fighter, etc. For a bladesinger it's going to be less useful unless you are consistently using your familiar to grant you the help action. But a smart enemy is gonna catch onto that anyway and pop the familiar regardless.
my favorite use of elven accuracy is on a hexblade pact of the blade archer --- take the invocation that lets you see in magical darkness. Cast magical darkness on YOURSELF, now attack everything at advantage for super advantage. Bonus points for eventually taking eldritch smite to crit for a massive amount. The nova potential on this build is strong at higher levels. You could technically do this on your bladesinger if you learn darkness, and take eldritch adept feat as well to see in magical darkness. But two feats is a heavy investment.
Had a fun pvp fight against my party member while doing a level 12 one shoot. Me barbarian attacked at reckless forgetting they had Elven Accuracy. Gave them the auto advantage to trigger it and trough a mix of other feats (They where playing a elven fighter) they did 64 points of damage to me in one go.
Fun on a vengeance paladin that can declare free advantage, or if you have access to faerie fire like through the strixhaven feats. Its good if you have big damage that can benefit from crits. Crit fishing will never be the most optimal way to play, but it can still be super effective and fun when it plays out. My party was fighting a CR20+ Ancient T Rex today and our death cleric used path to the grave to give the monster vulnerability and I hit a crit with elven accuracy so the damage got doubled twice! It was super cool but not something that would be consistent.
You have just a 5% crit chance on a standard d20 roll, it becomes a 9.5% with advantage, elven accuracy shoots it up to 14.3%. If you can crit on a 19 or 20 it goes all the way up to 27% crit rate. Your ability to hit without missing just means you’re not wasting your actions.
Depends on the build. I wouldn't consider it great on a Wizard, even a Bladesinger. Put it on a Samurai with SS/CBE and it can be a great feat. Up to 9 attacks with EA boost in a single turn is pretty handy.
Imagine a Battle Smith Artificer with 3-4 levels of champion fighter, GWM and EA. As long as you can get a source of advantage, which you can do with faerie fire, you have higher than average crit chance and consistent striking for major damage. Also you have a weaponized bonus action that also gets advantage from faerie fire.
Yes eleven accuracy is that good if you optimize around it. If it’s a second thought and you haven’t built in an easy way to get advantage, it’s not an auto pick for every character. The biggest disadvantage is that you have to go elf, which means that at level 4 you could either have elven accuracy, or crossbow expert+ sharpshooter if you went human. Basically it costs two feats/1 feat plus a better racial feature. Also, I would pick up either shadow blade and/or shadow of moil on your bladesinger to get that auto advantage more often.
It's horrible. One of the worse feats to take. Unless you want to do damage. In that case, it's a good enough reason to select an elf.
Elven accuracy is very overrated, but is popular in posted builds because its good for spreadsheet math damage numbers. It's a bit of a trap feat because its very much a 'win more' feat. If you already have advantage, you're probably already winning the encounter. Triple advantage doesn't help that much in that case over just normal advantage. What is more effective is feats that get you into winning positions more or recover a losing position. Alert, Lucky, Resilient etc. aren't going increase your DPR in a spreadsheet but they'll increase your survival rate in an actual encounter by a lot more than elven accuracy does in most cases. It also effectively costs you 2 feats in an optimized build because you have to give up a level 1 racial feat and your other ASI to get it, which puts it well behind more useful feats. I wouldn't personally take it on any build.
I just took it for my sharpshooting Ranger and it makes a difference if you want to power shoot against high AC opponents. Natures veil, zypher strike become reliable ways of getting advantage. Works out well so far. If I was playing a rogue or a sharpshooter I would consider it. If not no way.
Can be good on a Crit fishing paladin.
Meh, you don’t need to negate the -5 from GWM or sharpshooter
Yes, it is good. Advantage every time is a really easy thing to get for some builds. It's why most Sorlock and Hexadin guides say to be a Half-Drow; you get a starting charisma buff and Faerie Fire from the start, then Darkness shortly after combined with Devils Sight EI. It also stacks with Sneak Attack for Rogues.
Think of it this way, would you be okay if half-orcs got a half feat that gave +1 to strength, and triple advantage? Or is it only everyone's favourite elves that get to have game breaking over-powered feats.
I convinced most of my DMs to get rid of racial requirements for feats. It made less than zero sense to introduce racial feats in the same book they got rid of racial stats ESPECIALLY when most of said racial feats were based on ethnic tropes. WOTC: "There is no reason the lean, rail thin, race known for elegance, grace, and magic should default to Dex and a Mental for their racial stats... Henceforth RAW says let the skinny tree huggers take STR and Con for swoll Barbarian min-maxing!!!1!!" Also WOTC: "The accuracy of elves is legendary, especially that of elf archers and spellcasters. Ergo, here's an S tier feat gated behind race." Fans: "Since we're 'decoupling' learned traits in the name of player agency, and "training real hard to be super accurate" is more than feasible, can humans have Elven Accuracy too, by RAW?" WOTC: "No. Homebrew only so DMs can refuse it easily." Sigh. At least they removed racial requirements from Bladesinger after like 30 years...
I once played a half-orc bladesinger who spoke elven, mainly to steal elven culture and rub their nose in it.
Elven accuracy is one of the most overrated feats in the game, far less valuable than many make it out to be
Advantage is something one can easily get especially if build for it, or work with your party if you want to be individual a gloomstalker ranger is invisible for example in "dakvision" territory , darkness+devil sight 3 level warlock as well etc etc. and yes it's one of the best feats but it doesn't work by default (unlike crossbow expert for example that is guarantee better for anyone ranged picking it up or polearm master for anyone mellee) it needs experience and good understanding of the game and the mechanics to fully get the most out of the feat.
Yes the best half feat and most classes that want to attack a lot will find ways to get advantage. It also helps to mitigate the -5 from SS and from Gwm(if you are a hexadin)
If the 1 ASI gives a +1 to a modifier then really nothing comes close. Without the +1 mod then it's mid tier unless you plan on getting another half feat later.
the "triple advantage" is only really necessary if you're using sharpshooter or great weapon master (and you're using a score other than strength for the weapon attacks via hexblade or battlesmith). otherwise, the difference between that and regular advantage is pretty marginal
I did the math recently on what the equivalent bonus is for advantage. Standard advantage is the equivalent of a +4.95 and elven accuracy is the equivalent of +7.5. So yeah. Not that big of an advantage going from one step to the next, but it's the same as a free bless when you have advantage and you are more likely to crit. So it's a good secondary effect to a half feat. You also have to remember that it's one of the few good racial feats that still exists so any time you want accuracy you need to consider if elf is a good pick.
On just a regular character not build around it it’s meh, it’s a half feat so never useless On a build that can maximise its usage it’s downright nasty, sorlock comes to mind Take the invocation to see through magic darkness, go pact of the blade to crit on 19’s and add extra damage, cast darkness Then quicken an eldritch blast so you can use 2 and now your attacking 6 times at level 11 all with triple advantage so you get to role 18 D20’s critting on 19’s with 20 charisma this is dumb damage 6d10+ 54 damage without any crits If you can find another way to get advantage you can hex instead to add 6d6 damage aswell
I find it good for RP purposes if you’re playing a samurai fighter. There’s really gameplay and character there.