Great Weapon Fighting

Great Weapon Fighting is a Fighting Style passive feature.

Description

When you roll a 1 or 2 on a damage die for an attack with a Two-Handed melee weapon, that die is rerolled once.

How to learn

Classes:

• Class level 1: Fighter
• Class level 2: Paladin

Used by creatures:

• Arden, Arensen, Azari, Baretha, Bella (Bloomridge Park), Bennel, Beorn Wunterbrood, Bradi'ith, Brandella, Brelal'reth, Brinn, Broadhorn, Ch'guth, Corlos, Crosse, Dead Whitburn Servant, Dor'il, Dresten, Duddamoor, Ebber, Elda (Flaming Fist), Elthira Gossen, Ernestus, Falcäo, Falla, Fernhollow, Fist Attacker, Fry, Goodge, Granitdatter, Gyordi, Halfar, Hextra, Iogar, Ith'dul, Jerbold, Jimi Borleas, Karoline, Kepso, Khunaruth, Klaas, Klen, Krizt, Kuthbert, Lae'zel, Lewis Morell, Leythim, Liara Portyr, Lochan, Ma'aryk, Ma'athal, Malik (zealot), Matthew, Miller, Munish, Nadi, Nateen, Nephel, Nestor, Ni'ima, Niram, Oathbreaker Knight, Oriona, Pantella, Patrick, Preyn, Qen, Qirahe, Quickstitch, Renan, Rylveth, Samwell Staxford, Saunder, Serrik, Shargil, Silena, Soreni, Starrlet, Taraji, Teth'ka, Thauniel Rusk, Togarr, Ulder Ravengard, Virry, Vu'un, Watcher Guardian, Xon'ar'as, Yeva, Yr'rk, Zira

Notes

• This also applies to Versatile weapons when off-hand is empty.
• Unlike in 5th Edition rules, added damage dice from sources like  Superiority Die,  Divine Smite, and a  Fire or  Simple Toxin-dipped weapon may also be rerolled.
• This feature increases the average of a dice with $x$ sides by $1-\frac{2}{x}$, e.g. by 0.5 for a d4, by 0.666... for a d6, and so on.
• When used in combination with  Savage Attacker (Or  Brace (Melee)), Great Weapon Fighting is applied before selecting the highest damage roll. So on the first roll any 1 or 2 is rerolled, then each dice is rolled one more time and uses the highest result. If used with both Brace and Savage Attacker, the dice are rolled one more time at the end and the highest result is chosen.
  • The tooltip is showing 3-4 rolls but it appears to be a bug as of patch 6.

Math

Average bonus damage of Great Weapon Fighting alone

Average bonus damage per dice rolled

Damage dice	Average bonus damage	Average damage roll
1d4	0.50	3
1d6	0.67	4.17
1d8	0.75	5.25
1d10	0.8	6.30
1d12	0.83	7.33
2d6	1.33	8.33

If we compare to the 2 bonus damage of  Duelling fighting style, at least a few damage dice need to be rolled for this feat to be equivalent or better. For example using the  Halberd of Vigilance dipped in fire, this feat would on average add 2 x 0.5 + 0.8 = 1.8 bonus damage. If it is a critical hit it would add 3.6 bonus damage on average.

Average bonus damage of Great Weapon Fighting with Savage Attacker (or Brace)

Average bonus damage per dice rolled

Damage dice	Average bonus damage	Average damage roll	Average bonus damage added by Great Weapon Fighting	Average bonus damage added by Savage Attacker
1d4	0.88	3.38	0.25	0.38
1d6	1.27	4.77	0.30	0.60
1d8	1.63	6.13	0.31	0.88
1d10	1.97	7.47	0.32	1.17
1d12	2.31	8.81	0.32	1.48
2d6	2.54	9.54	0.59	1.20

Comparing with the 2 bonus damage of the Duelling fighting style, at least 6 damage dice need to be rolled to be equivalent or better.

This fighting style is less efficient when used in combination with  Savage Attacker (Or  Brace (Melee)) but it can still be worth taking if:

• Many damage dice are rolled, which can be achieved with e.g Divine Strike or when building characters based on critical hits.
• Someone wants to take a feat other than Savage Attacker, whose efficiency is slightly reduced by using Great Weapon Fighting instead (0.25 to 0.5 less bonus average damage, or 50% to 25% less bonus average damage for a d4 to d12 die)
• There are no better fighting styles to pick anyway.

Average bonus damage of Great Weapon Fighting with Savage Attacker and Brace

The average bonus damage is even lower when used with Brace and Savage Attacker: ~0.16 damage/die. However, Brace can only be used once per short rest so it could still be worth taking.

External Links

• Savage Attacker and Great Weapon Fighting calculations by Kalaeman