For raw damage output, I don't know if anything's topping the Open Hand Monk + Tavern Brawler Build. Run STR instead of DEX, dip into Thief for an extra bonus action, and use some of the tons of unarmed attack bonus gear that the game throws at you.

Any persistent AoE damage spells seem to be extremely good, especially if you can set them up in a choke point and continually shove enemies back into them. Hunger of Hadar, Wall of Fire, Cloud of Daggers, Spike Growth, etc.

Spells that reposition enemies can also take the place of shoves: Thuder Wave, Eldritch Blast with repelling invocation. You miss out on loot if you kill a boss this way, but sometimes the cheese is too delicious.

Spirit Guardians has been good to me. Sometimes I just have Shadowheart cast it and spend her action dashing through all the enemies on screen.

Would definitely recommend giving Astarion the Thief subclass for the broken bonus action economy. It meshes well with his vampire bite ability.

Keep in mind this is theoretical, so assumes perfect setup + max damage rolls

Hasted sorcerer attacking a grouping of five enemies

• action 1: throw a bottle of water at them

• action 2: twinned spell Chain Lightning

• initial targets hit once, doubled for wet (80x2=160)

• each enemy aside from the initial two targets is hit twice, doubled for wet (80x2x3=480)

• (very) theoretical max damage of 640 for one spell slot and 6 sorc points

Meta it is not, due to the very specific use-case and the setup required, but it's a great opener or closer, and I pretty commonly hit +200/250dmg using this. Cleared every single ad in the >!Orin!< fight in one shot this way lol

Another fun build I just tried out in my friend's game

Paladin/tempest cleric

Moving parts are as follows

• Thunderous Smite (spell slot)

• utilize Destructive Wrath to ensure max damage roll on the thunder damage (channel divinity - short rest)

• use Luck Of The Far Realms to ensure crit (long rest)

• use Divine Smite on Crit for more booku bux (spell slot)

Haven't played w this one too much, for stats you'll want to dump CHA tho, weird for a paladin build but the important bits of this build don't involve the actual spell effects for paladin so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ in terms of efficacy though, at level 7 I did 120 damage in one attack lol.

Another thing if found amazing success with is getting a party to strength 20 as fast as I can, which then I find 90% of enemies can be thrown off cliffs for instant kills. Throwing enemies off cliffs also only requires stealth checks where the body hits the ground and dies.

lmao, I've got to try this

My favourite tactic is based around Hunger of Hadar, a Warlock spell that creates a zone that a) deals damage to everything in it at the start and end of its turn; b) is difficult terrain (aka slows everything down); c) blinds everything in it; d) best of all, has no save. Plonk it down in the middle of the enemy team, use another control spell to slow everyone inside even more, use shove/repelling blast/whatever to push anything that's made its way to the edge back to the middle. Wait for everything to die, rinse & repeat.

But the greatest cheese in the game must be casting darkness (or shooting arrow of darkness) on your own party. As long as you're inside the cloud you are basically untargettable by spells and ranged attacks - and the enemies don't seem to be smart ebough to be throwing Fireballs on just any weird clouds they see. On your turn you just need to step out, cast/shoot, step back in. The only way they can get you is if they come inside the cloud with you (aka in range of whoever is on blender duty, Lae'zel or Karlach like this posting a lot), and the AI gets a bit confused when it can't see you so it's not a sure bet that they'll even try. It's a thing of beauty.