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[DnD 4E Discussion] Staff Fighter and Pyromancer essentials builds released on time!
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On the whole, more variety is great but if each class coming out from now on has as few options as this, I'm going to be pretty sad. The beauty of the at-will/encounter/utility/daily system was how modular it was. If I choose a build, I don't want to be straight-jacketed into it...
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I like the id moss.
POCKET SAND!
Edit: I really hope they get the one-handed military melee proficiencies in the class overview, and not the simple and guild proficiencies only in the writeup part.
I kinda liked how the ki focus and weapon proficiencies meant that you could do the whole Manji from Blade of the Immortal thing. At least until you finally admitted that you needed a mordenkrad or fullblade just to keep up with other strikers.
Steam PSN: DerWaffleMous Origin: DerWaffleMous Bnet: WaffleMous#1483
Some people felt the modularity was a form of strait-jacketing; hell, that's one of the more common complaints, that every character is the same because each and every one has 2 at-wills, 4 encounters, 4 dailies, and 7 utilities.
It's not a sentiment I agree with, but it has put several of my friends in the 3E-forever camp.
"Go up, thou bald head." -2 Kings 2:23
Borderlands 2 PA Xbox Metatag - Bazillion Guns
Then just play a Thri-Kreen Executioner, and be able to stow your weapon AND shield as free actions.
Edit: I like the weapon-specific at wills. Very flavorful.
GT: batshido Hit me up on ME3.
If you're not going to use one of the niche guild at-wills centered around various superior weapons, then you're going to make a basic attack. If you're going to make a basic attack, if you want to keep up with other strikers, then you need a big [w]. All the big [w]s belong to big two handed weapons.
As before, so now; no reason to use a shield. Just wield a big Fullblade unless you need to keep a dude from talking (garrote) or guarantee deliverance of your (weaker) poisons (blowgun). Even if you plan on abusing the spear grab power, you're still better off switching to a Fullblade before you deliver your coup de grace.
I originally thought they'd given those at-wills enough punch to make Assassins want to use small weapons in different ways than a Rogue does. I no longer think that's the case, based on damage expectations in reference to other Strikers. Would it have been a crazy idea to give Assassins a feature at level 1 that increases die size of one-handed simple/military melee weapons by one? d6 daggers, d10 rapiers?
I cannot imagine a Martial/Shadow Poison Expert Assassin Executioner that walks around with an Executioner's Axe strapped to his back (even figuring for the synergy inherent in the name) any more than I can imagine one who wields a spear and a shield. I was excited last night when I first read the article; right now I'm a little let down.
Oh, and an At-Will that starts at 2[W] damage at 1st level to counteract the required use of a d4 or d6 weapon should rise to 4[W] at 21st level, not 3[W]. Unerring Shuriken does this correctly, while Garrote Strangle and Kukri Lunge do not.
Assassin Attack Finesse reads:
Would that added damage turn Precision Dart from a "Dex Modifier damage" power into a "1d6 + Dex Modifier damage" power, such that you'd gain bonuses to damage rolls from Enhancement and Weapon Focus and etc?
What about powers like Unarmed Throw or Bolas Takedown, which deal no damage at all but instead apply forced movement and/or status effects? "Extremely Few" is the number of situations in which I'd find it acceptable to forgo all my damage for a Standard Action in exchange for knocking prone or immobilizing a dude.
On the other hand, Essentials Assassin is basically Batman. Just stock up on Bat Bolas and Bat Shuriken, and work up home-brew themes / PP / ED : Vengeance / Night / Batman.
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I imagine that they will address that later, or implement an essentials paragon path for the assassin. As it is out of normal continuity (I'm assuming it's still DDI specific), it makes sense.
There is a Paragon Path in the article; every Essentials class released so far has one PP that goes with it. But you can take other PPs you qualify for if you want.
Some would say the PP in the article is lackluster, but there's nowhere else to go, really.
GT: batshido Hit me up on ME3.
Better to pick up proficiency in a Katar (for the High Crit) or an Axe (for Deadly Axe) then.
I don't understand why they attached Helpless to an at-will for only one guild. Then again, I don't understand why they attached it at all, since it's so strong. The "best" build would be one that MCs Brawler Fighter and picks up feats designed to make it harder to break grabs. Then, dual wield a Spear and some High Crit weapon and go to town.
The idea seems to be that you should have one At Will to start for each weapon you're holding, so you can do Spear/Kukri or Unarmed/Kukri or whatever.
Yes, you can expand beyond that, but the class doesn't directly support it.
GT: batshido Hit me up on ME3.
They added a power that causes helplessness so that Assassin's Strike would trigger its special condition:
Otherwise, it would have a harder time showing up in regular combat.
I believe they added that line to Assassin's Strike so that it's damage could be maximized if used at range. Ordinarily, a Coup de Grace can only be performed while adjacent to a helpless creature.
If they added Helpless to one of the at-wills in order to make the condition show up more often, then they should have added it to one at-will from each of the two guilds. Two reasons;
1) Doing that wouldn't give any one Executioner twice the opportunities to cause it, as you only get access to the at-wills from your Guild.
2) NOT doing that leads to a situation in which one guild is (vastly?) stronger than the other, which is the shitty situation the original Assassin finds itself in.
I'd argue that Precision Dart is the best, perhaps the only really good at-will on the Whispers side, and all it's good for is accurately applying your poisons and getting an extra round of effect guaranteed. So that's +1 round of Dazed, +1 round of Cannot Heal or +1 round of Ongoing 2/5 Poison damage. Is there any situation in which those effects, available once per day, are equal to at-will generation of Helpless?
At level 15, that could be +1 round of Weakened. None of the other level 15 poisons and none of the level 25 ones have (save ends) effects at all.
GT: batshido Hit me up on ME3.
So it essentially allows the Assassin a helpless maximizing option if they want that to trigger more often, at the cost of less direct attack damage and a more time-intensive process to get it to apply.
It's not that impossible of a situation. You need to be wielding a spear or javelin (lol @ Greatspear) and you need to be hidden from the target before the attack. If you hit, you grab the target. If you can hang on to him until the start of your next turn, you can CDG him.
If you're doing this with a javelin, that's 1d6+1d6+4 at first level, maximized, plus 1d10 from Assassin's Strike maximized. Not a lot, but notice how the power doesn't require to you keep the Spear equipped... wield a Javelin, use the power, grab the target, keep him grabbed, switch to Executioner's Axe and chop away. And keep chopping. Action Point and chop again. Chop until he's dead. Then move on to the next guy.
The Unseen Spearhead power gives you an Effect: 2-square shift before the attack. So you need to be hidden within 2 squares of the target; this is something of a challenge depending on the terrain. However, at 2nd level, Executioners get this;
This is tailor-made to be used with Unseen Spearhead. Now you just need to be hidden anywhere within 8 squares of your enemy, which should be much easier. Make an attack, then go hide. Next turn, use Silent Stalker to move close to your enemy, then Unseen Spearhead to close the gap.
There's plenty of feats and magical equipment you can get your hands on to make the process of hiding from bad guys easier.
Unseen Spearhead is a Weapon power, and Executioners deal 1d6 extra damage on all Weapon powers. I believe that Unseen Spearhead actually does 1d6 + modifiers (Weapon Focus, Enhancement, etc; not +Dex) damage and grabs the target, instead of just grabbing the target. I believe Attack Finesse is worded the way it is specifically to interact with all of these no-damage powers which are all careful to include the Weapon keyword and have a range of Melee Weapon, even the "unarmed" power.
And The Red Scales get both Unseen Spearhead and Garrote Strangle. You could use the former to begin your grab, then free action switch to your Garrote and just attack with the Garrote Strangle power from then on. Now you're doing 2d4+1d6+4 maximized, plus all your crit benefits, every turn and the target has a -4 penalty to escape and cannot call out to his friends. -6 penalty to escape if you pick up Garrote Training which also gets you constant CA.
One wonders why Garrote Strangle isn't more like Unseen Spearhead and Unseen Spearhead isn't more like... anything else.
They just don't get Dailies, yes?
To understand the Martial Essentials classes, it helps to think of the Encounter powers a 4e adventurer gains in his career as bursts of extra damage. Ignore the special effects such powers might have; Essentials ditches them in favor of simplicity. Essentials characters often gain extra Features that ease this loss in various ways.
Thieves never gain Encounter powers as they level up. Instead of them, they gain uses of Backstab, a Thief power that adds +3 to hit and +1d6 damage to an attack you've just made. The extra damage scales up as you level up. Instead of using an Encounter power like Trick Strike, you just use up a Backstab and get that extra damage. The end result is roughly the same, damage wise, over your career.
Executioners never gain Encounter powers as they level up. Instead of them, they gain one use of Assassin's Strike, an Executioner power that can be used once per fight that theoretically delivers all of their extra damage allotment at once. Imagine that all the extra [W]s that Encounter powers usually give you are instead piled up into one huge hit. Basically, combine all your Backstabs into a single uber-stab that does d10s of damage instead of d6s and loses the extra accuracy. Use it when you score a critical hit for maximum lols.
GT: batshido Hit me up on ME3.
Man, I can think of a bunch of uses for this:
Totally easy way to get rid of bodies.
Want to frame someone? Trap a body in a special coffin and affix it to their closet door in such a way that it breaks open when they open the door. Bonus points if guards are present.
Awesome traps! Instead of a falling rocks trap, you could build a falling corpses trap! (Or corpse trap, since I guess you can only do 1 at a time just kill a really fat guy or huge creature for the trap)
Not to mention actually justifying the use of their Garrote Strangle. How do you not only expect to switch from holding a guy in place with a spear to wrapping a garrote around his neck without letting them go, but also REMAIN HIDDEN, which is a requirement for using Garrote Strangle?
I just noticed Executioners don't have Intimidate as a trained skill. Imagine that. Can you guys think of an Executioner that you're not afraid of?
Mind you, if there was any reason to freak the fuck out over something, it'd be that, but the discussion immediately went from "the noncombat ability is pretty overpowered" to "ALL OF MY PC'S ARE GOING TO BE PARANOID ABOUT WHAT THEY TOUCH FROM NOW ON!"
Steam PSN: DerWaffleMous Origin: DerWaffleMous Bnet: WaffleMous#1483
Borderlands 2 PA Xbox Metatag - Bazillion Guns
I like everyone who thinks that "treat die rolls that are a 1, 2 or 3 as a result of 4" means the same thing as "when you roll a 4", in reference to "when you roll the maximum result on a die, roll that die again as extra damage, and keep rolling if you keep rolling the maximum".
AKA INFINITE DAMAGE WITH VORPAL WEAPON LULZ
Why do executioners have access to Arcana?
I bet you I can come up with a reason why Executioners are intimidating that makes more sense than any reason why they're well-versed in ways of the Arcane. I'm not saying said reasons don't exist, I just think they're more of a stretch.
Borderlands 2 PA Xbox Metatag - Bazillion Guns
Aegis; more helpful than your average shield.