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theironjef posted:Definitely trying to slant towards actual controller. Is there a good druid build in general for that? I figure probably the regular caster ones, whatever they're called. It always helps to ask what level you are starting at and if you're rather do more ranged controller, summons controlling (Druids have a ton of summoning powers) or you want to spend most of your time in beast form and in melee range.
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Jun 6, 2011 20:47
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Zereth posted:Immunties are not resistances? I thought actual immunity was fairly rare. The Burn Everything feat (Adaz links to it upthread) reduces fire resistances by your Int mod (5+Int at Paragon, 10+Int at Epic) and also treats fire immunity as Resist 25 Fire (which would then be reduced by about 18, so effectively Fire Immune becomes Resist 5-7 Fire depending on where you are in the tier). The Assassin Venom Hand Master feat lets you flat-out ignore poison resist/immunities. Speaking of Druids, there is a Druid feat (Venomous Fang) that lets you ignore the first 5*Tier points of poison resist.
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Jun 6, 2011 20:50
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Locus Cosecant posted:Good golly that's a loaded question! Next you'll be asking me why I hate freedom, or when I stopped beating my wife. Why, it's almost like someone read things into your post that you didn't put there and responded to that imaginary stuff!
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Jun 6, 2011 20:52
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Locus Cosecant posted:Good golly that's a loaded question! Next you'll be asking me why I hate freedom, or when I stopped beating my wife. Can you please CHILL OUT?
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Jun 6, 2011 20:56
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+1 to hit means less for avengers than for other classes once your to-hit increases enough. Example: Let's say your to-hit is 75%, but because Avengers roll twice against their oath of enmity target their ACTUAL to hit is 93.75% (because that's the probability that at least one dice will hit). However, if you were to increase your raw to-hit to 80% (or +1) your actual to hit only increases to 96% meaning your marginal gain is 2.25% which is equivalent to slightly less than +0.5 on your dice. If you do the numbers at higher levels the returns diminish further. There are plenty of other cases where having 18 vs 20 is a better idea so while taking 20 in a stat is something I definitely consider it's not a universal rule.
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Jun 6, 2011 20:58
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nvm don't want to get probated or whatever
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Jun 6, 2011 21:04
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There are also many circumstances where your secondary stat is strength and having strength balanced with your main stat means you don't have to take the melee training MEANING you have an extra feat to work that could possibly give you +1 to hit. Brutal rogues are one such example especially since strength also increases sneak attack damage.
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Jun 6, 2011 21:05
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adaz posted:It always helps to ask what level you are starting at and if you're rather do more ranged controller, summons controlling (Druids have a ton of summoning powers) or you want to spend most of your time in beast form and in melee range. Looking presumably at ranged controller, and if summons is actually pretty good (I was initially underwhelmed) then by all means suggest away. I dig controlling multiple squares.
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Jun 6, 2011 21:16
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theironjef posted:Looking presumably at ranged controller, and if summons is actually pretty good (I was initially underwhelmed) then by all means suggest away. I dig controlling multiple squares. IME, Druids tend to emphasize their off role more than most other controllers. Your beast form is sort of the classes main draw and it tends to emphasize melee (or short range) as well. The Druid does have some great summons though. They use instinctive actions so it allows you to still do stuff on your turn and have the summon actually do something useful (most of the time). Honestly, it sounds like you might like playing a Wizard or an Invoker, though.
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Jun 6, 2011 21:26
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Danhenge posted:nvm don't want to get probated or whatever I don't want to give the impression that I'm stomping in to bust people for having opinions, just that I'd hope for a more measured discussion.
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Jun 6, 2011 21:28
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theironjef posted:Looking presumably at ranged controller, and if summons is actually pretty good (I was initially underwhelmed) then by all means suggest away. I dig controlling multiple squares. As Dr. Nick said the summons are great because they use instinctive actions, allowing them to act and attack things without burning your own actions. It's like giving your party another member for a fight. So you can have multiple summoned creatures out, all doing attacks, and still have your own set of actions to work with. Those creatures can take OAs and so forth, so you are controlling by putting yet another psuedo-defender in the mix, plus they give your melee folks another guy they can use for flanking, always a bonus. A summoner (ranged) druid would likely use Fire Hawk (http://www.wizards.com/dndinsider/compendium/power.aspx?id=9634) and probably fire seed (http://www.wizards.com/dndinsider/compendium/power.aspx?id=5505) or grasping tide(http://www.wizards.com/dndinsider/compendium/power.aspx?id=7411) for your at-wills. For your summons I'd recommend something like Level 1 Daily - Summon Giant Toad - http://www.wizards.com/dndinsider/compendium/power.aspx?id=5367 Level 5 Daily - Summon Fire Beetle - http://www.wizards.com/dndinsider/compendium/power.aspx?id=5371 Level 9 daily - Summon Great Eagle - http://www.wizards.com/dndinsider/compendium/power.aspx?id=7414 Depending on how often your DM gives you extended rests that will allow you to bring out one of your summons every fight by paragon tier. To enhance your summons there is strong willed summoning to give them +1 to their attacks (http://www.wizards.com/dndinsider/compendium/feat.aspx?id=1876) and a couple other feats I need to look up, been awhile since i've played a druid. For your paragon path Primal Summoner is always a good choice (http://www.wizards.com/dndinsider/compendium/paragonpath.aspx?id=485) as is Pack Lord (http://www.wizards.com/dndinsider/compendium/paragonpath.aspx?id=484) e: You can also play a beast summoner, you just need to take some feats that allow you to shift in/out of beast form relatively easily so you can summon your dudes and shift back into beast form. adaz fucked around with this message at 22:10 on Jun 6, 2011 |
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Jun 6, 2011 21:42
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ImpactVector posted:
They're... okay. Especially at lower levels (and as a Fey Pact so you can exploit the poo poo out of light blade support) they're not bad at all, but they tend to fall behind offensively as time goes on. Rogue multiclass is good, because Surprising Charge is amazing for a Hexblade.
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Jun 7, 2011 04:33
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adaz posted:Those creatures can take OAs and so forth, so you are controlling by putting yet another psuedo-defender in the mix, Druid summons generally don't have OAs; they get the instinctive actions instead. So while they take up space and can provide a damage sink, they're not going to get any free attacks beyond the instinctive one. Enemies can just walk away from druid summons (not that most summons won't follow them next turn).
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Jun 7, 2011 05:08
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Does the Sentinel companion make OAs? e: never mind, Compendium says "If an enemy provokes an opportunity attack from your companion, you must take an opportunity action to command it to attack" so that's a yes Hwurmp fucked around with this message at 05:22 on Jun 7, 2011 |
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Jun 7, 2011 05:20
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Really Pants posted:Does the Sentinel companion make OAs? Right; they use their MBA when an OA is provoked. Summons don't have MBAs (though I suppose it's possible one could have one, I just don't know of any that do), so they can't make OAs unless they have a particular OA power listed.
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Jun 7, 2011 05:26
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Animal Attack isn't listed as an MBA, and that threw me off.
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Jun 7, 2011 05:28
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Sefer posted:Druid summons generally don't have OAs; they get the instinctive actions instead. So while they take up space and can provide a damage sink, they're not going to get any free attacks beyond the instinctive one. Enemies can just walk away from druid summons (not that most summons won't follow them next turn). You are right, although other classes summons do. I guess that's the tradeoff with the druids, no OAs but you do get instinctive behaviors. I had forgotten the rule that summoned creatures have no actions of their own just whatever the summoning power gives them. I've been playing a lot with Shaman spirit companions and the cool Psion PP dreamwalker (which do have OAs) and just spaced the relevant entry in the rules quote:Commanding the Creature: The summoned creature has no actions of its own; the summoner spends actions to command it mentally. The summoner can do so only if he or she has line of effect to the creature. When commanding the creature, the summoner shares its knowledge but not its senses. The summoning power determines the special commands that the summoned creature can receive and gives an action type for each command. If a command is a minor action, it can be given only once per round. If a summoned creature’s description lacks a command for it to move, the summoner can take a minor action to command it to take one of the following actions, if it is physically capable of taking that action: crawl, escape, run, stand up, shift, squeeze, or walk. adaz fucked around with this message at 07:14 on Jun 7, 2011 |
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Jun 7, 2011 07:04
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RPZip posted:They're... okay. Especially at lower levels (and as a Fey Pact so you can exploit the poo poo out of light blade support) they're not bad at all, but they tend to fall behind offensively as time goes on. Thanks for the replies, guys. Yeah, I read about the Surprising Charge thing on the Wizards CharOp forum. Didn't know about their damage being lackluster later on, but I'm not sure how long the campaign is really going to last. Also we're pretty liberal with respecs so if I wanted to switch to a regular Warlock down the road that'd probably be fine (hell, I let the dude who's running the game switch races in my campaign). 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.
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Jun 7, 2011 14:57
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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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Don't go looking for graphs like that. You'll find them on the CharOp boards, but they're all based around stupid one trick pony builds (usually involving charging every round)
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Jun 7, 2011 15:15
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Dedekind posted: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. Maybe the devs we counting on the leader to pick up the slack by way of buffs/granted attacks/etc in later levels.
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Jun 7, 2011 16:10
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Dedekind posted: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. 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.
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Jun 7, 2011 16:16
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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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To reiterate: rangers really come into their own when there's a lot of static damage modifiers to add to their multiple attacks per round. That usually doesn't happen until paragon.
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Jun 7, 2011 17:05
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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. Actually, the at-will DPR numbers I generally see quoted are 20/60/90, for levels 10/20/30. The ability to kill standards that quickly assumes the use of encounter and, later on, daily resources. That's where the new strikers tend to fall behind- no ability to expend limited resources to go nova and take monsters out of the fight early on. The new strikers at-will DPR numbers tend to be pretty good, other than the Vampire. Really Pants posted:Animal Attack isn't listed as an MBA, and that threw me off. I don't know that HotFK ever explains the monster manual notation used in the animals' stat blocks, but the circle around the dagger next to Animal Attack means it's a MBA.
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Jun 7, 2011 17:07
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Dedekind posted: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. That is incorrect. 4*level+12 is actually just about game breaking if not outright too much damage for the game to handle. It's more like 3-5 rounds for a striker to solo a EL level mob (using at-wills) to keep it more in line with what the game designers seem to have intended, and how encounters work. 2 rounds to solo is about the most you ever want to try to play a real game with, and less than that is just broken. e: 4*level+12 is like best-of-designs for charOp damage basically adaz fucked around with this message at 18:13 on Jun 7, 2011 |
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Jun 7, 2011 17:55
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adaz posted:That is incorrect. 4*level+12 is actually just about game breaking if not outright too much damage for the game to handle. It's more like 3-5 rounds for a striker to solo a EL level mob (using at-wills) to keep it more in line with what the game designers seem to have intended, and how encounters work. 2 rounds to solo is about the most you ever want to try to play a real game with, and less than that is just broken. There's a poster on CharOP that has this in his sig: Baseline Striker DPR: 2*level + 6 Optimized: 4*level + 12 Nerfbat Please: 8*level + 24 Looking at the totals that I have for the first P1 - King of the Trollhaunt warrens, the optimized archer ranger was doing about 59 dpr from level 11 to 12, and the dark pact warlock was doing 37.8 dpr in the same span. Granted, the Ranger was getting all the love from the Warlord. Adaptive stratagem + a few granted attacks helped out a bit, I think.
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Jun 7, 2011 20:04
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Drewjitsu posted:There's a poster on CharOP that has this in his sig: Ahh yeah that warlord probably made up (most) of the difference between them, although the archer ranger is still going to out DPR him even without the warlord I would guess. Trying to think, at mid paragon tier (level 15) MM3 style monsters are rocking ~140 ish HP. So by his formula optimized would be 72 DPR and baseline would be 36 DPR. So yeah, right in that 2-4 round window that seems to be about right with game mechanics. Although if you really do have a 3 strikers running 4*level+12 DPR you're probably going to have run EL+3/4s to keep things interesting.
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Jun 7, 2011 20:13
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adaz posted:Ahh yeah that warlord probably made up (most) of the difference between them, although the archer ranger is still going to out DPR him even without the warlord I would guess. Is this 72 DPR with at wills? I've only just started DMing a 4e campaign at first level, so I've never played paragon tier or even studied the books very hard, but how can you build a 72 DPR (for example) rogue? For damage from dice, with a sneak attack you are dong at best 4d8 (so expect 18). Where is your + 54 damage coming from? (or more really, because you have some miss chance, pushing down your expected damage). With max in dex and one damage producing secondary, along with all the obvious +damage feats I can see getting to +25 or so, but where does the rest come from? I'm just curious, how do people push out those kind of DPRs at level 15?
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Jun 8, 2011 05:29
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Escher posted:Is this 72 DPR with at wills? I've only just started DMing a 4e campaign at first level, so I've never played paragon tier or even studied the books very hard, but how can you build a 72 DPR (for example) rogue? For damage from dice, with a sneak attack you are dong at best 4d8 (so expect 18). Where is your + 54 damage coming from? (or more really, because you have some miss chance, pushing down your expected damage). With max in dex and one damage producing secondary, along with all the obvious +damage feats I can see getting to +25 or so, but where does the rest come from? Yeah you can do 72 DPR with just at wills, there are many examples on the char builder forums (http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/22105109/DPR_King_Candidates_2.0). The most popular ways to do so involve abusing slides with zone/area effects, stacking vulnerabilities, magic item interactions with feats/powers, avenger or avenger hybrids to get multiple attacks w/ oath, and loving with the battlemind brutal barrage (4 attacks) power. But there are many, many ways. It's actually kind of a fun game to try and play if you are bored and like building characters. As long as you don't try and use them, they really do upset game balance.
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Jun 8, 2011 07:36
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Speaking of rangers, I just started a brand new one last night and would like some help! I rolled an Eladrin Ranger for character/RP specific purposes, but the teleporting per encounter racial I believe has some potential for getting safely into combat advantage positions and busting out daily powers. Any ideas on what powers/feats I should be looking at? Also looking for advice on what my stats should be for the standard 22pt buy. Currently have it at 16 str, 16 dex (after racial), and 14 wis, but I'm guessing this isn't optimal since the OP was insisting on an 18. Problem is that this is quite expensive given my race, which I'm not willing to change. So what can we do with an Eladrin twin-blade Ranger that wants to use teleporting to it's fullest potential?
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Jun 8, 2011 18:27
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I'd probably drop Strength, pump Dexterity, and take Hunter Fighting Style with a mix of ranged & Dex-based melee attacks.
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Jun 8, 2011 19:03
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If you played a watersoul (I think) genasi you could get +Int and +Str and turn into water and call it teleportation. I know that's exactly where you said you couldn't compromise, though.
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Jun 8, 2011 19:08
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If you're not married to having "ranger" on your character sheet, you could play a rogue or a scout, and just call yourself a ranger. Then you could focus more on dex and have a chance of actually hitting something.
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Jun 8, 2011 19:12
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Mark of Passage boosts all your telports and shifts by one, and Rangers have access to lots of shifts. But many GMs don't allow dragonmarks outside of Eberron, so check. If allowed, i'd consider it practically mandatory. Unless you are targeting a specific build gimmick, really know what you're doing, or the rest of the party's to-hit matches yours, I strongly recommend 18 as a bare minimum for the attack stat. Going for 2 secondaries is not really optimal either.
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Jun 8, 2011 19:28
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Siets posted:Speaking of rangers, I just started a brand new one last night and would like some help! How do you feel about some hybrid action? If you like teleporting the class that comes to mind is a swordmage, and a swordmage/ranger hybrid might be interesting as an eladrin. The ability scores don't line up except for INT and you'd have to run a 16 int/17 or so, however there are ways of boosting your chances to hit so you'd only be a tad behind a pure striker. There are some cool eladrin feats for swordmages as well, giving you a free MBA when you teleport next to someone as an example. It'd be an interesting way to play a defender/striker. I guess that's what I got out of your post, if you love the eladrin teleporting, then it might be cool to mix in the class that does teleporting the most and try and make it work with your ranger, I think we could make it work. adaz fucked around with this message at 19:35 on Jun 8, 2011 |
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Jun 8, 2011 19:32
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Yeah I definitely realize the Eladrin race isnt the most optimal. Thanks the the suggestions though! I'm new to 4e and simply am not aware of all my options yet. Here's my character concept and why I'm stuck on it (see if you guys approve): Eladrin of age 47, both young an young at heart, who believes the seclusion of his people are very limiting for their intellectual growth. My character believes that the Eladrin emphasis on history and arcane inflections is crippling their knowledge of the world as it is at "present". As a result, he took it upon himself to leave his home city and become a sort of "elven Darwin" who believes that there may yet be more to be discovered out there than what is just currently archived in his people's history books. This concept fits in well with our Underdark campaign quite well, and also allows for some great Drow/Eladrin drama down the road. With that SAID, I want to deal as much single target surprise burst damage as I can and I want to look cool doing it!  The hybrid swordmage idea sounds kinda neat. I may investigate that a bit more. However, what is the cookie cutter "lots of melee attacks with bonus added damage Ranger" build that lots of (outdated?) guides seem to keep referencing? What would the core feats and powers be that might be associated with that?Thanks for all the ideas so far!
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Jun 8, 2011 20:19
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Just be a Watersoul and call it an Eladrin.
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Jun 8, 2011 21:09
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Siets posted:Yeah I definitely realize the Eladrin race isnt the most optimal. Thanks the the suggestions though! I'm new to 4e and simply am not aware of all my options yet. The trick for Ranger is to take Twin Strike as your at-will. That's pretty much it. Nah, I'm kidding (kind of). The goal is to get your damage on each hit as high as you can so you can take advantage of attacking a bunch of times in one round. I played a twin blade ranger when 4e first came out and it really did feel like I was a human garbage disposal. What's going to happen is you're going to use twin strike for just about every standard action in the game (except against bosses you might start with a daily). This allows you to look into encounter and daily powers that use minor actions or that you can use off turn as an immediate action. Who the gently caress cares if they're situational? You're using twin strike and looking bad rear end while doing it. For getting a lot of damage on each attack, look into abusing cold damage with the Wintertouched feat, the Lasting Frost feat and a frost weapon. You can also do some fun stuff with radiant damage. Another possible route is critfishing. Basically you get a bunch of extra attacks so it's more likely you're going to score a critical hit so you consider maybe twinking out what happens when you get one. TBH, I didn't really go this route when I played one so I couldn't comment on it's viability (it's really good for an Avenger though). As I mentioned earlier in this thread, you're not going to hit super high nova damage until paragon but with multiple attacks, you're still going to be drat effective. Also don't forget to pay your feat taxes. You really want every attack to hit if you can.
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Jun 8, 2011 22:01
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Siets posted:With that SAID, I want to deal as much single target surprise burst damage as I can and I want to look cool doing it! Well, the swordmage isn't really about single target damage - they have a ton of burst/blast/zone powers and are a defender after all. With that said I was playing around with this today as I was bored and found some interesting little combos that might work. Really depends on what level you are starting at, I was playing around with this guy at level 11 trying to give you as many MBAs and attacks as possible for crit fishing. if you have Insider I can toss up the .dnd4e file somewhere if you want it. Eladrin Swordmage Advance - free MBA when teleporting adjacent to another enemy - http://www.wizards.com/dndinsider/compendium/feat.aspx?id=1129 Eladrin Soldier - proficiency with all spears + 2 damage rolls w/ longswords & spears - http://www.wizards.com/dndinsider/compendium/feat.aspx?id=64 Wintertouched/Lasting Frost - gain combat advantage against creature w/ cold power and give Vuln 5 cold to creature Two-Weapon fighting - +1 to damage rolls - http://www.wizards.com/dndinsider/compendium/feat.aspx?id=173 Hybrid Talent - Ranger Fighting style - Two blade fighting style. This lets you wield a long sword in one hand and a Tratnyr in the other (spear with 10/20 range, 1d8 damage, uses strength) to make your ranged attacks with. So your opening combo would be something like this, but you would need a cold weapon. 1.) Fey Step to be adjacent to enemy, use MBA to give them cold vulnerability. 2.) Use a ranger at-will/encounter melee power. At level 11 with hunters quarry and twin strike this would be two attacks, 20 vs. AC as we have combat advantage. Damage is (1d8 + 6 + 5) x 2 + 2d8 , I believe DPR off that attack plus the mBA will come to about 43 (without factoring in crit damage) for your opener. e: We could also go polearm/spear shenanigans with Polearm Gamble and a Great Spear to always make our attacks from two squares away and mark the enemy. The enemy would then have two choices, if they move to a square adjacent to you you get a OA thanks to Polearm Gamble. If they try to attack one of your allies since you have them marked then you use the Aegis of Assault to teleport next to them and give them a MBA for some sweet out of turn attacks. However, the ability score of 15 wisdom required for Polearm Gamble would mean you would have to make your int so low as to make nearly every swordmage power worthless adaz fucked around with this message at 22:19 on Jun 8, 2011 |
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Jun 8, 2011 22:01
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