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ImpactVector posted:Is there a graph or something of expected damage output per level? I suppose it'd be easy enough to figure out by looking at how monster HP scales, but I'm just curious if there's some actual data on how all the classes stack up. The CharOp assumption is that a striker should be able to kill a standard monster of the same level in two turns, so roughly speaking that means your average damage per round should be around 4*level+12. The problem is that the CharOp assumption and the developer's assumption don't seem to line up. Almost all strikers have no problem meeting that damage guideline at early levels, and so the expectation in CharOp is that they should be able to maintain that performance throughout the character's entire career. However, meeting those goals in the later levels require some very specific choices for all classes, and for some classes -- most notably some of the newer strikers -- it is essentially impossible. So the developers might be working on the expectation that strikers should take different amounts of time to kill monsters in low levels versus later levels.
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Jun 7, 2011 15:13
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Gomi posted:I know for a fact our twinstrike Ranger isn't doing anything close to 36 DPR on average in our level 6 party. She definitely doesn't play optimally, but I'm a little surprised any level six ranger can do that on average as opposed to in a burst. Rangers are weird, because they tend to be a little behind the curve at low levels. A ranger hits the 2-round-kill standard in early paragon, IIRC. CharOp thinking on strikers tends to be dominated by a few builds. The problem is that the striker role is one-dimensional and really easy to quantify.
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Jun 7, 2011 16:50
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dirtycajun posted:Is there a program that allows me to make a quick forum friendly print out of my character? Using the online character builder? Character Sheet Style "Character Summary", then copy to clipboard.
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Jul 13, 2011 18:50
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Like thespaceinvader says, armor and shield check penalties are basically something you just need to accept as "stupid jock" legacy crap. Starting with an odd-number primary stat is usually a bad idea. Given that you're a defender and will probably be taking a lot of hits, I'd suggest starting with a (post-racial) 18/18/12/8/12/10. Your AC is a bit low at the moment and this will bring it up, as well as getting you more mileage out of Crippling Crush. Go With The Flow is probably a bad choice for utility, as it competes for your immediate action in a bad way (no point ending up adjacent to the enemy if you can't punish). Endure Pain is not as problematic, since it punishes someone for attacking you, and Nature Sense is good. The only thing with feats is that I'd normally pick up Sudden Roots before Crippling Crush. The thing Wardens need to work at is keeping enemies adjacent, so the upgrade to your opportunity attack is more of a priority than damage.
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Jul 15, 2011 13:03
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Well, he's starting at level 3 for certain. So, if you know your campaign is going to end after 4 but before level 8, after 11 but before 14, after 18 but before 21, or after 24 but before 28, odd primary is the better option.
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Jul 15, 2011 15:25
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Sudden Roots vs Crippling Crush is touch and go. You certainly have more than enough to make use of Crippling Crush already, and it's pretty much a question of "which do I take at fourth level?" What makes up the rest of the party?
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Jul 15, 2011 16:21
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Gay Polymers posted:We've got a Melee Rogue/Wasteland Nomad, a Beast Ranger/Gladiator (at least, I think so on the last part), and the other player is currently rerolling right now, possibly into an Ardent or a Sorceror, not sure which. Drewjitsu: Does your DM let you know how much you missed by?
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Jul 15, 2011 18:41
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Drewjitsu posted:No, but the group that I'm in figures out the AC pretty quickly. I can see Noble adept being more valuable if I know how much I missed by. If you're planning to use the power point for anything but Adept's Insight, knowing the target number is mandatory. Even then, the problem is that on any given roll, there's only a 5% chance that unaugmented Adept's Insight is going to be useful, so it's not really an encounter power. (Augmented isn't even much better for you, since as a rogue your miss range should be miniscule.) On the other hand, Takedown Strike is a reliable power that helps you do exactly what you want to be doing every encounter, and the defensive boost when bloodied is a great freebie for the theme. Flowform armour is good, but Resilient Focus is probably the better way to buff it in my books. Gay Polymers: Only suggestion I would make is that animist shamans, more than anyone else, really want Sudden Call as soon as possible, so I'd probably take it before Spirit Vigor.
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Jul 16, 2011 09:24
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Gay Polymers posted:Is that true with Sudden Call only being 1/encounter?
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Jul 20, 2011 19:17
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While there are no Int-primary strikers, the warlock is a perfectly serviceable Int-secondary striker with great control. If you want to simply retrain your enchanter, fey pact is a very similar flavour at the expense of reduced damage. If damage is your focus, either Infernal Pact or Sorcerer-King pact.
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Jul 27, 2011 17:51
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J. Alfred Prufrock posted:Compared to the strikers, the 5 damage from Rain of Steel was peanuts, so I went with something a little more defensive. Invitation to Defeat cutting monster damage by half should help keep us alive in the face of double monsters. Thoughts? Is your striker an MBA class? If so, I might think of Fate Exchange instead of Invitation to Defeat.
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Oct 5, 2011 08:22
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Lt. Shiny-sides posted:I put these number together before reading the OP so I know I need an 18 but any other advice before I start making changes? A tempest fighter, particularly one using light blades, needs a lot of Dex. At the minimum, you'll want a 16. Personally, I'd consider a pre-racial stat array of 16/11/16/8/13/10 -- that shores up your Will a bit.
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Oct 26, 2011 10:09
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Echophonic posted:Actually, I'll turn this into a question. Is it worth the slight amount of effort it takes to get as many healing surges as I can get on a fighter? Already have Heir of Delzoun, planning on taking Dwarven Durability, hunting down an Iron Ring of the Dwarven Lords, that sort of stuff. Then taking a bunch of powers that let me use them to make saves and such and just in general be a wrecking ball? What else am I missing to really get the most out of them? An artificer. More seriously, the problem with surges is that you're limited by the first person to run out of them. Optimising for lots of surges is pointless if the rest of the party it out before you've gone through half of them. What artificers can do (or any Ritual Caster with Comrades' Succor) is effectively spread your surges to the rest of the party, which means you won't waste any surges.
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Oct 27, 2011 13:14
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Harold Ramis Drugs posted:The way I see it, you can MC wizard as a warlock and then use orbs as implements. Or is there some kind of divide between "Arcane" and "Divine" implements? This makes the special property of "Ioun" or "Correleon" implements (can use them for arcane powers) seem somewhat redundant though. Short answer is there used to be a divide, but isn't any more. The MC rules used to specify that getting proficiency in an implement only let you use that implement for powers from the MC class. That rule was stupid and awkward, though, so with errata having proficiency with an implement lets you use it with any implement power you know. Holy symbols are slotless. You can put them in your off-hand if you want, but they work anywhere. As for the light shield, I'm pretty sure that the rule is that you need to wield, not hold, a weapon or implement to get its benefits. So having a light shield would prevent you from getting the benefits of the weapon.
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Nov 1, 2011 19:11
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For what it's worth, the general consensus from the pure optimization perspective is that it's better to dump Int and go (in your case) primary Strength with Dexterity right behind it. Dex/Int leaves you with much weaker defences, and it actually gains you very little. Everything bladesinger-specific depends on Dex and you are relying on an MBA for most things (so Strength can be used as easily as Int). Wizard encounter powers are not so good as dailies that they're worth dropping your defences, and besides they have a good selection of powers where the best part comes from an effect and thus it doesn't matter if you hit -- Charm of Misplaced Wrath, for example. Also, generally at this point you're better off going with a light blade than any heavy blade, unless you're aiming for particular axe/heavy blade combos. They have much better feat support. Not least of which you could take the Light Blade Expertise feat for a consistent damage upgrade. Terrain Advantage is not of much use to you. Between Dancing Fire and Shadow Sever you should have combat advantage most of the time. My gut reaction would be to take Improved Defences but I play defenders a lot. Lastly, starting with Int 19 is usually a bad move, unless you're sure you're going to get to level 4 but not much beyond that. Basically, you've spent quite a few ability points on something that doesn't get you anything extra. So I think I'd tend to suggest a pre-racial-bonus array of 16/11/16/11/12/8, with your racial bonuses to Strength and Int.
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Nov 9, 2011 21:43
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Cipher Pol 9 posted:One last question! Dedekind, you said 16/11/16/11/13/8, but is there any reason it's better to put the 13 into Wisdom instead of Constitution? Just out of curiosity. Mostly because Will is an important defence in my experience. The extra hit points for 13 Con won't make much of a difference, but the extra Will might. Again, though, I tend to play defenders which might skew my perspective.
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Nov 12, 2011 16:40
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Dick Burglar posted:Okay but that 13 Wisdom only makes a difference once you hit Paragon tier and you get +1 to all ability scores, and he's level 2. Sure, that's a reasonable case for going 12/12 Con/Wis. I suggested 13 Wis because my default assumption is that a campaign hopes to reach epic, in which case a) you'd get the Will boost at level 11 and b) 15 Wis at 21 allows Superior Will. If the campaign is going to be heroic only though, the 12/12 spread is better.
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Nov 13, 2011 21:06
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Chaotic Neutral posted:2) Clarity tending towards secondary Wis is a bit of a thorny issue since it leaves your NADs exposed in two places by demanding you sit in Cha and Wis. That said, the riders don't tend to be massively powerful, and if you're sticking with the greatspear then you may eventually want to drop into Fighter and grab some martial feats and polearm feats along the way. The thing with Ardents is that it's important not to think that the choice of Mantle determines your choice of secondary stat. The Mantle of Clarity is good even with a Wis modifier of +1 or +2, and the same is true of most Wis-secondary powers. On the other hand, a good Con is important both for power riders, NADs, and feats, while the Mantle of Elation is very DM-dependent. All things told, taking Mantle of Clarity while putting your stat bumps into Con is usually a very good approach. Also seconding the vote for Demoralising Strike, for pretty much the same reason that Chaotic Neutral said. Energising Strike is great when you're constantly churning out the THP. If you've got a lot of competing demands on your standard action, it's less useful. quote:Tangential note: I really wish the Psionic guides were better. So far I've found them all stunningly mediocre at best, and often misleading or uninformative on certain important things. No, you can't just refer to the accessory item guide you lazy rear end, it doesn't cover three of the most important slot choices at all no matter how obvious you think they are. Argh.
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Nov 28, 2011 09:42
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Chaotic Neutral posted:Tempting, but you keep up with them better than I could - I just loving love to complain. As for items, though.. maybe I'll look it over and do a draft of that section if I get the time for it, because while it's awkward it's also potentially build defining. If you're prepared to do that, it would be fantastic. I don't have the time, energy, or interest to keep up an item section, so letting somebody else take care of it sounds like a great deal. Mostly I just rely on builds to showcase good item synergies, but the problem is that there aren't very many good ardent exemplar builds.
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Nov 28, 2011 11:05
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Accuracy bonuses on sorcerers are less important than on other strikers for the same reason that they're not so important on avengers: they have an in-built accuracy feature. In the case of the sorcerer, it's the fact that they're supposed to be a multi-target striker. If a sorcerer is targeting two creatures with a base accuracy of 65%, then +1 to hit makes only a 3% difference in terms of his ability to hit something, which goes down with both increases in the base accuracy and in the number of creatures you target (it's just over 1% improvement by 3 targets). So what really matters to a sorcerer is trying to target as many creatures as possible with every attack. +1 to hit and damage is peanuts compared to the return of targeting 3 creatures instead of 2: it's about the same accuracy increase but vastly reduced damage. Mobility is a huge part of optimising target selection, and this is why defences end up being valued so much on sorcerers. The better your defences, the more risks you can take with OAs in order to get to the best possible placement. Edited because vv fair enough. Dedekind fucked around with this message at 15:57 on Dec 10, 2011 |
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Dec 10, 2011 11:38
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Ferrinus posted:What really matters to a sorcerer is trying to hit as many creatures as possible with every attack, which is why you want to ensure that every attack hits. That stuff about "3% difference in terms of his ability to hit something" is a nonsense number; this isn't about hitting at least one guy, it's about hitting as many guys as possible. The last point is exactly what I'm saying. Here's another way of looking at the math of the situation. You're a sorcerer with a base 65% accuracy, and you want to hit two enemies with an attack. Your baseline chance is 42%. Add +1 to your to-hit, and it goes up to 49%, which is a respectable increase. But if instead you kept your 65% accuracy but targeted three creatures instead of two, your chance to hit at least two of them jumps up to 72%. In other words, as a sorcerer, if you have a choice between +1 to hit and being able to include an extra enemy in your area of effect, you are always better off choosing to target more creatures because you will end up hitting more creatures. For a fixed "I target this many creatures," of course you always want as high an accuracy bonus as possible. But it isn't optimising if you're just assuming best-case targeting, you've got to build your character to guarantee best positioning. Just to be clear, my point isn't "so this primary ability score is therefore necessary," it's "so focusing on the value of the primary ability is stupid." Optimised targeting ability is hard and depends an enormous amount on party composition and DM playstyle. Sorcerers have a core optimisation objective that isn't reflected at all in static bonuses, and so arguing that an optimal sorcerer is one who focuses on maximising a static bonus (as opposed to feat and party synergy) is daft.
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Dec 11, 2011 11:28
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Halloween Jack posted:Another question! I am also building a Star Pact Hexblade, just for kicks. I built it to take advantage of Dual Implement Spellcaster. I thought I'd done everything necessary, and that Wizards has clarified that yes, Virginia, you do get to double-dip on damage bonuses if you are holding an implement and your pact blade and you have Implement Proficiency (pact blade weapon type), but DDI doesn't appear to be adding it. It's a bug in the OCB. Poking at it, there's basically two version of the pact weapon in the character builder -- the pact weapon itself (e.g "Blade of Winter's Mourning"), and the pact weapon augmented by the off-hand implement properties (e.g. "Blade of Winter's Mourning (Adamantine +6)"). The bonus from DIS is added to the first version, but not to the second version, so presumably the issues is that the piece of code that adds the off-hand implement properties to the pact weapon doesn't properly interact with DIS.
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Jan 24, 2012 10:37
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Only obvious candidates I can find or think of: Glasya's Charming Words (paragon): +1 to hit with charm powers, dominate with crits on charm powers. Beguiling Enchantment (heroic): After hit with charm power, enemy takes -2 to hit you.
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Feb 1, 2012 16:10
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