"Bruiser Brigade" & Fighter DPR

So my buddies and I are putting together a "bruiser brigade" party for our next adventure. The concept we are going for is an adventuring company made up of a bunch of rowdy, in-your-face rebellious types whose main combat strategy is "tear **** up hard and fast."

So I thought I'd make a Half-orc fighter to give us a defender, but still stay true to the party concept. I've been toying around a bit on the CB, but I am not a very good number cruncher. So my question to everyone is this: between the tempest fighter and the great-weapon fighter, which build is capable of dishing out more DPR?

If you want DPR, I think one of the better options is a Tempest Fighter with a Double Sword (AV). At least, that's what people were hailing as "OMG Broken" when Martial Power came out.

I've got a greatwweapon fighter with a mordenkrad, and he puts out some serious damage. When he's got something marked, the whole party tries to make sure that creatures whack them to trigger his immediate attack.

I gather the main difference with a tempest fighter is that you'll get a titch more damage during your turn, but your mark's counterattack is less impressive. Tempests will also generally have better defences.
-blarg

The fighter's autodamage stances are more effective with a greatweapon fighter.

The update to Marked Scourge makes Tempest somewhat less attractive.

Good good! The advice is helpful so far, Keep it coming! Anyone else have any experiences/details/advice to add?

Rani said:

So my buddies and I are putting together a "bruiser brigade" party for our next adventure. The concept we are going for is an adventuring company made up of a bunch of rowdy, in-your-face rebellious types whose main combat strategy is "tear **** up hard and fast."

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Well, here's the sort of party I'd put together:
* Battlerager fighter with shield and high-damage 1H weapon (defender)
* Greatweapon or tempest fighter (defender)
* Strength cleric with fullblade (leader)
* Two-weapon ranger (striker)
* Sorcerer with dragon magic (striker)
* Predator druid (controller)

Note that all members of the group have melee capability and dish out good melee damage...even the druid. The battlerager is your primary defender - less damage than the other fighter, but he can take a TON of hits. If you're worried about not having enough healing, you could drop one of the strikers to add a bard.

Depends on how much you care about defenses. If you don't care much about defenses, Battlerager with Brash Strike is one of the best damage dealers, at least at heroic levels. A 20 strength 16 constitution Goliath with a great axe can attack with a +9 and do 1d12+12 damage when he has temp hit points at first level, of course he'll be sitting at an effective AC 14, Fort 15, Refl 8, Will 9. So you really have to play him more like a striker, and less like a defender.

If you want to do some actual defending (other than being an easy to hit punching bag), an 18 strength 18 dexterity half-orc fighter with a doublesword, wearing Hide can start out with AC 19, the equivalent of the sword and board fighter, but retain speed 6, and only have a -1 skill check penalty. Damage is not very impressive at first level, but as you pick up weapon focus, expertise, and a magic weapon, you'll be doing pretty good damage. Not quite striker, but close. And you have reasonable starting defenses at AC 19, Fort 16, Refl 15, Will 11.

Fedifensor said:

Well, here's the sort of party I'd put together:
* Battlerager fighter with shield and high-damage 1H weapon (defender)
* Greatweapon or tempest fighter (defender)
* Strength cleric with fullblade (leader)
* Two-weapon ranger (striker)
* Sorcerer with dragon magic (striker)
* Predator druid (controller)

Note that all members of the group have melee capability and dish out good melee damage...even the druid. The battlerager is your primary defender - less damage than the other fighter, but he can take a TON of hits. If you're worried about not having enough healing, you could drop one of the strikers to add a bard.

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I really like this! I'm going to have to suggest this to my friends for sure! One question though, as there are only five of us, which of those would you take out? I'm sure they'd want to remove the battlerager but I'm interested to see what you guys think. Anyone else have any suggestions for what kind of fighter I should make?

Mengu said:

Depends on how much you care about defenses. If you don't care much about defenses, Battlerager with Brash Strike is one of the best damage dealers, at least at heroic levels. A 20 strength 16 constitution Goliath with a great axe can attack with a +9 and do 1d12+12 damage when he has temp hit points at first level, of course he'll be sitting at an effective AC 14, Fort 15, Refl 8, Will 9. So you really have to play him more like a striker, and less like a defender.

If you want to do some actual defending (other than being an easy to hit punching bag), an 18 strength 18 dexterity half-orc fighter with a doublesword, wearing Hide can start out with AC 19, the equivalent of the sword and board fighter, but retain speed 6, and only have a -1 skill check penalty. Damage is not very impressive at first level, but as you pick up weapon focus, expertise, and a magic weapon, you'll be doing pretty good damage. Not quite striker, but close. And you have reasonable starting defenses at AC 19, Fort 16, Refl 15, Will 11.

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Wow! You certainly make a strong case for a Goliath there, guess I'm really going to have a tough time deciding here. Thank you very much!

Ignoring dual strike and other at-wills for a sec ...

Let's simply compare [W]s

Execution Axe +2/D12 brutal 2
Double Sword +3/D8 +2 tempest tech

1[W] average damage:
Execution Axe: 7.5
Double Sword: 6.5

2[W] average damage:
Execution Axe: 15
Double Sword: 11

Two weapon fighting is an additional option for +1 damage, making 1[W] damage equivalent (outside a crit).
Since my sword builds often pick up a mage's weapon early (for proficiency), 1[W] for a tempest fighter stacks up very well against the highest damaging superior weapon.

That there is a question of style .. tempest fighter deals their damage from lots of 1[W] attacks ... *cough* rain of blows *cough* ... whilst their higher [W] attacks fall behind.

So stances, close powers, multi-hit powers, triggered powers, the more attacks you get, the better a tempest fighter performs.

But weapon & board fighters aren't that far behind, either.
Craghammer and Waraxe both average 6.5, and if you're wearing scale & shield, you can happily live with 10 dex ...
Say, a hammer & board warforged goes 20 str/ 16 con ... that's just nasty with brash strike ... and since you have nice AC (plate proficiency is an option), granting CA is not that much of a disadvantage.
Oh, and I hear "they were flanking me anyway, so there's no downside" and similar lines in LFR games.

At the end of the day, though ... I just like using a shield 'cos shield push is one of my favourite feats, ever.