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LazyAngel posted:Just a thought on the wizard nonsense for my campaign-in-planning. I would take less toys away from the unsuspecting Wizard player and give more toys to the non-casters instead. All it does is encourage them to not play a Wizard or penalize them for their choice when their intentions could be more fun, group-oriented and less game destroying. Now, if the player in question IS going to be a dick if they're a Wizard then talk to them and tell them to knock it off or play something else. Or drop them from the game if they are so disruptive.
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# ? Sep 12, 2014 11:02 |
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# ? May 30, 2024 14:12 |
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Kai Tave posted:There, problem solved. I'm still confused by how many people are jumping in with "well it's not good buuut we have to play it, so..." AlphaDog posted:edit: This goes way back to the first thread. This how I thought they might actually pull off modules - have cheap pamphlet/PDF mechanics-only supplements for stuff like psionics, and bundle those with the appropriate setting guides. I've said before that the dev team doesn't understand modular design (and wow they don't!) but I wonder if Mearls actually intended for Quake-style "mods" and assumed mod was short for "modular" instead of "modification." His misunderstanding of how modules change the core game work better in the context of how DooM mods affect DooM. He still managed to touch on a good concept then ruthlessly cock it up, which seems to be a running theme in Next design. I think that's what's so compelling about 5e: it seems so very close to being OK that we want to fix all the broken parts, like back when you started dating and thought people worked that way.
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# ? Sep 12, 2014 11:53 |
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I'm having fun playing 5e because I'm playing the party Wizard and solve all of the problems, while the Fighter and Barbarian are for some reason content with hitting things that are in my way.
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# ? Sep 12, 2014 11:59 |
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Babylon Astronaut posted:I think they are trying to make us forget Greyhawk and Forgotten Realms are two different things, unless they really have officially been mashed together somewhere. Arivia posted:There have always been connections, but literally taking one of Greyhawk's signature villains and plopping it in the Realms to the detriment of anything pre-existing and similar in the Realms is a new, and terrifying, thing. Mearls, as part of his OSR CRED, is a big Greyhawk fan. This is absolutely not the only time you're going to see bleeding between the two. Every new edition changes FR to fit it, and this edition is Mike Mearls' D&D, so expect a whoooole lot of (likely small but numerous) changes. And you know what? Sorry Arivia. But most FR fans are going to completely eat it up, changes and all. They probably won't even notice the changes!
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# ? Sep 12, 2014 12:00 |
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ProfessorCirno posted:And you know what? Sorry Arivia. But most FR fans are going to completely eat it up, changes and all. They probably won't even notice the changes!
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# ? Sep 12, 2014 12:27 |
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Angrymog posted:I thought that some FR fans went ballistic at the changes to FR for 4E? (RUINED 4EVA!!!!OMGBBQ!!! and all that), or do you mean that they won't notice any changes to the ToEE stuff? The Realms are a setting which contains mountains of third rate schlock in its background. It appeals to the sort of people who like mountains of background and don't care if it is third rate schlock. 4e Realms were a much saner, more sensible, and more manageable setting. Much better for playing in. But people who want a setting that's good for playing in don't pick the late 2e or late 3.5 Realms. They pick something like the Nentir Vale or Eberron. 4e turned the Realms into a setting that the people who liked either PoLand or Eberron would like - and I'll say both are better settings than the Realms. But people who like good settings wouldn't touch the Realms anyway, and people who like the Realms had their toy taken away.
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# ? Sep 12, 2014 12:34 |
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Boing posted:I'm having fun playing 5e because I'm playing the party Wizard and solve all of the problems, while the Fighter and Barbarian are for some reason content with hitting things that are in my way. To be fair this is a genuine thing. Like, I've had this exact experience too. It boggles my mind, but there really are people content to say "I hit it with my axe" and do nothing else.
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# ? Sep 12, 2014 13:08 |
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Jack the Lad posted:To be fair this is a genuine thing. Like, I've had this exact experience too. It boggles my mind, but there really are people content to say "I hit it with my axe" and do nothing else. I once had a player who spent the entire time reading the PH/DMG/MM/etc and only had his character do two things. "I sharpen my axe!" if it was noncombat, or "I hit it with my axe!" if it was combat.
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# ? Sep 12, 2014 13:38 |
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Daetrin posted:I once had a player who spent the entire time reading the PH/DMG/MM/etc and only had his character do two things. "I sharpen my axe!" if it was noncombat, or "I hit it with my axe!" if it was combat. I watched a dude play 4e only making loving basic attacks. That's just what he'd done the few times he'd played before (in AD&D, I think). He wasn't very effective, didn't have much fun, and wasn't interested in finding out why. Like, dude isn't a weird grognard trying to make a point, he was just kind of disengaged with the game, probably because he'd rather be playing "drink the booze". I'm pretty sure you can't fix that with rules.
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# ? Sep 12, 2014 13:59 |
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If people who want to play wizards have fun playing wizards, and the people who want to play fighters have fun playing fighters, then I guess everything is fine? (apart from all the problems that aren't related to class balance)
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# ? Sep 12, 2014 14:11 |
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I contend that the game shouldn't cater to people who aren't actually interested in playing it. I know, I know, geek social fallacy # whatever means everyone is included, but for gently caress's sake are people really that starved for interaction that attending game night to say "I attack" every 10 minutes is the highlight of their week? Is this really a big enough demographic that the D&D rulebooks need to set whole classes aside for it? Can't these people just get together with their friends and drink beer and talk poo poo instead? I don't want to know the answer, do I?
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# ? Sep 12, 2014 14:44 |
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I don't think those players need to be catered to; if they want that play experience they can use any class, however complicated, and just make basic attacks or use the same maneuver over and over. The mechanics should be there to support people who want to engage with them. If you don't want to engage with the mechanics, you don't need mechanics to support that; you also don't need to actively not have mechanics. A good illustration of this is that the Champion is strictly worse than a Battle Master who only uses Feinting Attack. Here's an effort/math post I made about it on ENWorld: Me posted:The Battle Master is strictly better than the Champion, and I'm afraid anyone who thinks otherwise is making a lazy, face-value judgement. Jack the Lad fucked around with this message at 15:19 on Sep 12, 2014 |
# ? Sep 12, 2014 15:11 |
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Boing posted:If people who want to play wizards have fun playing wizards, and the people who want to play fighters have fun playing fighters, then I guess everything is fine? D&D trains people who don't want to play to play fighters. Players who actually want to play fighters are encouraged to not play.
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# ? Sep 12, 2014 15:15 |
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Jack the Lad posted:A good illustration of this is that the Champion is strictly worse than a Battle Master who only uses Feinting Attack. I definitely think you are correct, but my point is bumping critical damage to make the average in line with the Battle Master would not fix the class.
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# ? Sep 12, 2014 16:11 |
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It's not massive damage, though. Crits are really weak in 5e; at best it's +8.33 damage. In fact, 'doing massive damage every once in a while at the cost of doing less damage most of the time' more accurately describes the Battle Master than the Champion - except the Battle Master can control when it happens. I agree with you that bumping critical damage to make the average in line with the Battle Master would not fix the class. (It also takes something like a 12-20 crit range to do so.)
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# ? Sep 12, 2014 16:31 |
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Jack the Lad posted:It's not massive damage, though. Crits are really weak in 5e; at best it's +8.33 damage. JTL, what is the DPR comparison like for a frenzying half-orc barbarian with enough fighter levels to get a 19-20 crit range and super-crits, assuming it is going to be getting advantage every turn with Reckless Attack? Could being human w/ extra feat improve this (Great Weapon Master, maybe)? I think this would make the Barbarian level 12...*edited to add super-crits from barb level 9* Serdain fucked around with this message at 17:00 on Sep 12, 2014 |
# ? Sep 12, 2014 16:50 |
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Jack the Lad posted:I don't think those players need to be catered to; if they want that play experience they can use any class, however complicated, and just make basic attacks or use the same maneuver over and over. Does this hold up at level 20, when both characters are making 4 attacks and so the Battlemaster is out of dice (though, admittedly, a shitload of damage up) after a single action surge?
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# ? Sep 12, 2014 16:57 |
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Serdain posted:JTL, what is the DPR comparison like for a frenzying half-orc barbarian with enough fighter levels to get a 19-20 crit range, assuming it is going to be getting advantage every turn with Reckless Attack? Could being human w/ extra feat improve this (Great Weapon Master, maybe)? I'll do the math in 2-3 hours. Being human is no benefit to your DPR though, because anyone can take Great Weapon Master. Bear in mind that Frenzy is in no way whatsoever sustainable across multiple encounters: Jack the Lad posted:So 5e Barbarians who go the Berserker route have a feature that lets them go Super Saiyan 2 by upgrading their Rage to a Frenzy. This lets them make an extra attack as a bonus action on each of their turns, but when the Frenzy ends they gain a level of Exhaustion, which is a Really Big Deal:
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# ? Sep 12, 2014 16:58 |
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Jack the Lad posted:I'll do the math in 2-3 hours. Being human is no benefit to your DPR though, because anyone can take Great Weapon Master. I meant Frenzied Barbarian for the improved critical damage, rather than Frenzy (edited post above). Although, I notice that the Potion of Vitality removes all exhaustion levels.. though it is listed as rare. Perhaps the Barbarian saves his armour-money and just sinks it all into a Bandolier-o-Potions for every time he's about to die of exhaustion?
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# ? Sep 12, 2014 17:06 |
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OneThousandMonkeys posted:What, you're not excited that Literally Sauron is here to stay in the always really good and compelling D&D fluff? No, that's Iuz.
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# ? Sep 12, 2014 17:17 |
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Ferrinus posted:Does this hold up at level 20, when both characters are making 4 attacks and so the Battlemaster is out of dice (though, admittedly, a shitload of damage up) after a single action surge? Yes, most definitely. In fact, it gets much worse. The damage the Champion gains from its 15% crit range (10% more than the Battle Master) is very easy to calculate; it's 10% of the extra damage they gain when they crit, or 0.83, for each attack. Against opponents with 18+ AC the Battle Master does 8.9 more damage than the Champion each time they use Feinting Attack. If we assume 3-round encounters, both Fighters are making 12 attacks per encounter. After 6 Feinting Attacks, the Battle Master is 53.4 damage up. In the other 6 attacks of the first encounter the Champion pays off 5 of that damage, leaving the Battle Master up 48.4. Assuming no short rests, the Battle Master regains one superiority die per encounter after that with Relentless and so another 8.9 damage. In the 11 attacks each Fighter makes during each encounter after the first when the Battle Master is not making Feinting Attacks, the Champion gains 9.1 damage. So at level 20 it takes the Champion 242 encounters without a short rest to outdamage the Battle Master. I'll do the math with Great Weapon Master power attacks later, but I suspect they make it impossible for the Champion to ever catch up. Jack the Lad fucked around with this message at 17:55 on Sep 12, 2014 |
# ? Sep 12, 2014 17:41 |
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Out of interest, given how sucky 5e crits are, what are the chances that a crit deals less damage than an average hit would? I know it's possible but the probability maths are beyond me at the end of a long week. At least part of the problem with the Champion is that crits SUCK in 5e.
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# ? Sep 12, 2014 18:28 |
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Sure, the math is fucko, but the intent was the champion (of sucking) did huge crits at the expense of being interesting or fun to play. My theory is crits are so weak because they removed the larger die of damage you did when you critted and didn't replace it.
Babylon Astronaut fucked around with this message at 18:39 on Sep 12, 2014 |
# ? Sep 12, 2014 18:37 |
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Basically 5e fighters should be replaced with 2.5e ones that sever limbs on crits and interrupt casters.
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# ? Sep 12, 2014 18:55 |
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Melee critical hits should straight up kill things. It's a sharp chunk of hardened metal in an expert's hands, death ought to be the most frequent outcome of steel-to-skull collisions.
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# ? Sep 12, 2014 19:06 |
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mastershakeman posted:Basically 5e fighters should be replaced with 2.5e ones that sever limbs on crits and interrupt casters. So long as they have saves that say "gently caress you" then I'm fine with this.
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# ? Sep 12, 2014 19:10 |
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Jack the Lad posted:It's not massive damage, though. Crits are really weak in 5e; at best it's +8.33 damage. Or making the crit multiplier more than x2. Even then Champion would still be dogshit. Jack the Lad posted:Yes, most definitely. In fact, it gets much worse. Don't forget you can take that one feat to add another Superiority die to the Fighter's tally, bringing you up to 5 at the start of the day. Oh and I realize you are ignoring crits here, but isn't the likelihood of a Feint Attack to crit higher than a Champion Fighter as well? Strength of Many fucked around with this message at 19:17 on Sep 12, 2014 |
# ? Sep 12, 2014 19:12 |
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moths posted:Melee critical hits should straight up kill things. It's a sharp chunk of hardened metal in an expert's hands, death ought to be the most frequent outcome of steel-to-skull collisions. Regular enemies die, elite enemies can save vs death and still take lots of dmg if they do, solos take lots of damage but don't need to save But then you'd have to split the bad guys up like that so
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# ? Sep 12, 2014 19:15 |
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The primary reason to have crit hits is against solos and bosses and whatnot. Minions you'll just kill with hp damage.
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# ? Sep 12, 2014 19:18 |
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Minions are out because grogs don't understand HP, correct?
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# ? Sep 12, 2014 19:29 |
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Strength of Many posted:Don't forget you can take that one feat to add another Superiority die to the Fighter's tally, bringing you up to 5 at the start of the day. Oh and I realize you are ignoring crits here, but isn't the likelihood of a Feint Attack to crit higher than a Champion Fighter as well? I'm not ignoring crits, and I do take into account the increased (9.75%) chance to crit that the Battle Master has with Feinting Attack. Also, level 20 Fighters have 6 superiority dice, so 7 with Martial Adept. It adds another 4 encounters to the tally, so small potatoes.
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# ? Sep 12, 2014 19:39 |
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moths posted:Minions are out because grogs don't understand HP, correct? Yes. I'm still using them because gently caress HP sack mooks who should be dying in one hit. Jack the Lad posted:I'm not ignoring crits, and I do take into account the increased (9.75%) chance to crit that the Battle Master has with Feinting Attack. Okay, good. I feel like its understated how versatile the Battle Master is by comparison, too. And it still falls flat before a spellcaster.. Jesus.
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# ? Sep 12, 2014 19:47 |
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Serdain posted:JTL, what is the DPR comparison like for a frenzying half-orc barbarian with enough fighter levels to get a 19-20 crit range and super-crits, assuming it is going to be getting advantage every turn with Reckless Attack? Could being human w/ extra feat improve this (Great Weapon Master, maybe)? Okay, Half-Orc Barbarian 9/Fighter 3. 16/17 starting Strength and 2 feats which we'll spend on Great Weapon Master and Polearm Master. We'll fight with a Glaive. While raging and using reckless attack, we can attack twice with advantage at +2 for 1d10+16 and once with advantage at +2 for 1d4+16. Our 10% chance to crit becomes 19% with advantage, and our crits are +3[W] instead of +1[W]. We do this damage: Which still isn't as good as the Crossbow Expert + Sharpshooter Fighter (redoing my math on that, will repost shortly). Jack the Lad fucked around with this message at 20:13 on Sep 12, 2014 |
# ? Sep 12, 2014 20:10 |
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moths posted:Minions are out because grogs don't understand HP, correct? Yes as rules entities, no in that there are a LOT of low CR monsters with single digit hp that die in one hit regardless. And bounded accuracy (theoretically) means they are still at least going to hit for small damage at high levels, so, minions basically. But half-assed and backwards thinking. So, Next minions.
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# ? Sep 12, 2014 20:31 |
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Why won't the argument about the Fighter just die? It's a lovely class with a kind of boring niche, but some nice abilities if you multiclass dip a few levels. Multiclassing is much improved in 5E, where martials don't sacrifice attack bonus, and casters don't sacrifice spell save DCs for doing it. Barbarians, Rogues, Rangers, and Paladins don't get full spell access, either, but seem to have plenty of utility and prospects in combat (Rangers look the worst of the bunch). Rogues especially could be damage powerhouses. Sneak attack outpaces the single-target damage anyone else is going to get, at least with the material we've seen. It's also arguable (I would argue it anyway), that Reliable Talent works on attack rolls. With +4 proficiency at level 11, and 20 Dex, you're hitting an 19 AC automatically. You're probably automatically passing any save you're proficient in. You're getting 23 as a minimum roll on Hide rolls (assuming you have Expertise in it), which you can make as a bonus action on your turn. A halfling can even hide behind other creatures when there isn't convenient terrain. Throwing out all below-average rolls is a huge, huge advantage in a system with a d20 + usually single-digit modifiers.
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# ? Sep 12, 2014 20:47 |
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I wonder if you could actually do bounded accuracy by having a band of levels at which you fight normally, treating everything below that as minions while everything above that treats you as the minion. So at level 1, kobolds are a regular challenge, but by 5 kobolds are one-hit minions. But a huge-rear end dragon treats you as if you only have 1Hp because it's a goddamn dragon.
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# ? Sep 12, 2014 20:56 |
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PeterWeller posted:No, that's Iuz. Iuz seemed like a god that actually got poo poo done by ruling his kingdom in person, rather then Sauron. moths posted:I wonder if you could actually do bounded accuracy by having a band of levels at which you fight normally, treating everything below that as minions while everything above that treats you as the minion. Kobolds are pretty much 1 hit minions at level one. Only surviving hits if they get lucky.
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# ? Sep 12, 2014 20:57 |
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Infinite Karma posted:Why won't the argument about the Fighter just die? It's a lovely class with a kind of boring niche Because in better games fighters are neither of these things.
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# ? Sep 12, 2014 20:58 |
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Hey, this got glazed over several pages ago, so here's the condensed version: Warlock Pact of the Blade is bad c/d
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# ? Sep 12, 2014 21:02 |
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# ? May 30, 2024 14:12 |
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mango sentinel posted:Hey, this got glazed over several pages ago, so here's the condensed version: Yes, it's bad. Also, here's the Hand Crossbow Fighter. I haven't yet found a build that beats it for at-will DPR:
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# ? Sep 12, 2014 21:20 |