Broken Ranger with Barbarian MC

[Angellis_ater]

A few questions and replies here:
1. Ok, if doing 1d12+4d8+16 on a normal at-will is expected at this level, what should strikers like the Rogue or Warlock be doing in such a case? Perhaps I'm not good enough in helping others design characters "to spec" in that case and this player IS.

2. If I don't misremember, he's at +17 when not power-attacking (+6 level, +5 Str, +2 prof, +3 enh, +1 expertise) so when he meets enemies with slightly higher AC he just foregoes his Power Attack and uses the flanking to hit more often, bringing him up to +19.

3. To me, there is a huge difference between the damage of the Rogue which IS situational - no combat advantage, no bonus damage. For the Ranger, its one minor action a turn and pop up the quarry. With his wolf around, he has two "points" to determine closest foe from, so he's getting it spread out pretty fast.

4. Twin Strike: I see 1d12+2d8+7 in the above example, where does the additional 1d8 come from? As far as I can see, that means an average of 22.5 damage on a hit and an additional 13.5 if both attacks hit. That gives us an average of 36 damage, 18 if assuming that we have an equal 50% to hit rate. And this includes the "hitting twice" numbers, so no "additional 4+ damage" as far as I can see. Perhaps I'm mathematically blind?

5. What kind of "level appropriate soldiers" are you guys throwing at your players with an AC of 29? I'm taking my players through King of the Trollhaunt and I promise you that so far, there haven't been any AC29 monsters around. Do I need to tweak the written adventures that much?

6. Regarding what Encounter powers this build has he tends to use Encircling Strike, the Barb power that lets him "hit back" as an immediate action, the "I attack and then my pet attacks" Ranger power (sorry, no character sheet or books available right here) and another one I can't remember right now.

Now, I've been trying to optimize a Brute Rogue so as to do comparable damage and the best, damage-wise, that I can come up with is something like a Half-Orc with Surprising Charge, Rapier Proficiency, Backstabber and racial ability and managing something like 6d8+10 on a charge into someone who gives CA (and thus has better to hit) - but that is still "just" an average of 37 damage and expends an encounter power AND is even more situational.

So, some of you are saying that I am simply overreacting and this is very much how an average striker SHOULD be behaving and I can agree that since this is my first time into Paragon and we're hitting levels 11-14 now, perhaps I'm just unused to the high numbers being thrown around. However, the "resident" Rogue and Warlock aren't doing the same kind of damage, so if that is the case, how do I help THEM become better Strikers?

 

[Mad Hamish]

A few questions and replies here:
3. To me, there is a huge difference between the damage of the Rogue which IS situational - no combat advantage, no bonus damage. For the Ranger, its one minor action a turn and pop up the quarry. With his wolf around, he has two "points" to determine closest foe from, so he's getting it spread out pretty fast.

In my experience if a character wants to get combat advantage they basically can.
It's especially true for an artful dodger rogue who doesn't generally worry about attacks of opportunity.
It does mean that they can become exposed and ganged up on but the same is true for the barbarian/ranger.

Also note that a ranger can only have 1 quarry at a time (which doesn't really matter for a hth ranger unless you have to charge as you can always just use a minor action to shift the quarry)

4. Twin Strike: I see 1d12+2d8+7 in the above example, where does the additional 1d8 come from? As far as I can see, that means an average of 22.5 damage on a hit and an additional 13.5 if both attacks hit. That gives us an average of 36 damage, 18 if assuming that we have an equal 50% to hit rate. And this includes the "hitting twice" numbers, so no "additional 4+ damage" as far as I can see. Perhaps I'm mathematically blind?

the extra d8 comes from me stuffing up.

However I think your maths is also slightly off.
If you have a 50% chance of each attack hitting you have a 75% chance of at least 1 attack hitting. That gives you average damage of .75 * 22.5 = 16.875 damage per round from the 1st hit with a 25% chance of 2 hits in the round. Which gives an additional 3.375 damage per round from the second attack.

So a total average damage of 20.25 which is exactly the same as the ranger/barbarian if he has the 50% hit chance as well.

So I think the damage the barb/ranger is doing isn't unreasonable.

 

[outsider]

A few questions and replies here:
1. Ok, if doing 1d12+4d8+16 on a normal at-will is expected at this level, what should strikers like the Rogue or Warlock be doing in such a case? Perhaps I'm not good enough in helping others design characters "to spec" in that case and this player IS.

A half orc brutal scoundrel rogue could be doing 1d8+3d8+17(+6 dex, +4 str, +3 enh, +2 iron armbands, +2 weapon focus). Average damage per attack would be 35. That was a quick spec, there may be errors or ways to improve it. All I did basically was spec for 18/14 dex/str(pre racial bonus), and grab all the phb feats/items that boosted damage/to hit that I could remember off the top of my head.

2. If I don't misremember, he's at +17 when not power-attacking (+6 level, +5 Str, +2 prof, +3 enh, +1 expertise) so when he meets enemies with slightly higher AC he just foregoes his Power Attack and uses the flanking to hit more often, bringing him up to +19.

When he's not power attacking, his average damage per attack is now 35, equal to the above described rogue. The rogue would have +20 to hit(+6 level, +6 dex, +3 prof, +3 enh, +1 expertise, +1 nimble blade). When the ranger power isn't power attacking, the brutal scoundrel is doing equal damage, and with a higher to hit bonus(even if the ranger has flanking and the rogue doesn't). Also note that attacking reflex via Piercing Strike is equivilent to over +3 to hit on average.

Let's assume that the ranger power attacks something, and has a 50% chance to hit it. 41x.5= 21.5 average damage per round. The scoundrel would have a 65% chance to hit. 35x.65= 22.75. If he was using piercing strike on the average monster, he'd hit 80% of the time. 35x.8=28.

3. To me, there is a huge difference between the damage of the Rogue which IS situational - no combat advantage, no bonus damage. For the Ranger, its one minor action a turn and pop up the quarry. With his wolf around, he has two "points" to determine closest foe from, so he's getting it spread out pretty fast.

Rogues are balanced on the theory that they will always have combat advantage, and they typically will. Optimally the ranger would be using his pet to as a flanking partner for the rogue. If not, the party defender absolutely should be doing so, as it's part of his job. If not, the rogue should be a drow. If not, he should be devoting his power choices to gain combat advantage(ie easy target, crimson edge, etc). If none of the above apply, he probably shouldn't be playing a rogue.

This is all 1:30 am theory crafting, but I think it all adds up. Note that I simplified things a bit by ignoring crits. I also took a very simple build, rather than something with complicated math like a Drow Daggermaster rogue. I think the key points to remember are:

To hit is king in 4th edition. If you can't beat the ranger's damage, beating him in to hit bonus may be easier and even more effective as far as round to round damage goes.

Contrary to popular thought, taking an 18 attribute is actually the best way to go some of the time. This is extremely important for anybody that has either Dex or Int as their attack stat, because a single stat controls all 3 of the most important numbers(to hit, ac, and damage), so you should spike that stat as high as you can.


Warlocks, unfortunately, do sucky damage. Maybe this changed in Arcane Power, but straight PHB they can't begin to compare to a fighter or a rogue, nevermind a dual wielding ranger.

 

[Goumindong]

Consider that I have a level 12 Fighter who could be hitting for 28.5 dmg/hit @ +18 to hit [Waraxe, Iron Arm Bands, 22 str, dwarven weapon training, +3 weapon, marked scourge@ +6, that at will from martial power that adds +con to dmg for another +3], compared to your ranger at 35dmg/hit at +17. Your guy had to paragon multiclass and he gets only 6.5 avg dmg/hit over the fighter. And the fighter can have a much higher AC, and mark, and toss out combat challenge attacks at 1d12+18 @ +24 when he needs to as well.

Frankly I don't think that the ranger/barb in your game is all that problematic.

 

[Elric]

Consider that I have a level 12 Fighter who could be hitting for 28.5 dmg/hit @ +18 to hit [Waraxe, Iron Arm Bands, 22 str, dwarven weapon training, +3 weapon, marked scourge@ +6, that at will from martial power that adds +con to dmg for another +3], compared to your ranger at 35dmg/hit at +17. Your guy had to paragon multiclass and he gets only 6.5 avg dmg/hit over the fighter. And the fighter can have a much higher AC, and mark, and toss out combat challenge attacks at 1d12+18 @ +24 when he needs to as well.

Frankly I don't think that the ranger/barb in your game is all that problematic.

A Dwarf with 22 Str at level 12 is rather impressive.

 

[Thanee]

archer ranger (assuming great bow) with twin strike
d12 + 3d8 + 7 (assume +3 weapon, weapon focus (bow), and bracers of archery) for the first hit of a round average 27

Why 3d8 ? Hunter's Quarry is just 2 dice at paragon levels.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Angellis_ater]

Ok, after reviewing a lot of what you say, one can assume that my problem is twofold:

1. My striker player is good at optimising and the rest of the group isn't. Fine, I can live with that and I'm gonna give all players a chance to revise their entire character and help them be better at "their thing"

2. I've been using sucky challenges for the ranger. In "I'm doing it wrong" style.

 

[legiondevil]

I don't think it's that bad, I often get surprised by how much damage the PC's in my group churn out. The Half Orc Shock Trooping Tempest Fighter is on level for damage with the Nimble Dodging Daggermaster Rogue, and they can waylay and eliminate Soldiers fairly quickly.

Rogue, Sly Flourishing: 1d4 + 3d8 + 5 (Dex) + 3 (Enhancement) + 4 (Charisma) + 2 (Armbands) + 2 (Weapon Focus: Light Blades) and crits with the +3 Vicious weapon on an 18-20, along with...

Fighter, Dual Striking: 1d8 + 2 (Armbands) + 2 (Enhancement) + 2 (Tempest Fighter bonus) + 1 (Two Weapon Fighting) + 1 (Agile Tempest) + 2 (Weapon Focus: Light Blades); and all that again without the Two Weapon Fighting 1 point...and it gets rough on the people they're flanking quite quickly.

I honestly see no problem with the barbarians numbers...just throw more monsters at them to give the others something to do.

 

[Trevelyan]

Warlocks, unfortunately, do sucky damage. Maybe this changed in Arcane Power, but straight PHB they can't begin to compare to a fighter or a rogue, nevermind a dual wielding ranger.

Eh? Maybe the way you build them, but an infernal warlock can inflict plenty of damage out of the box. The only trick with the at-will powers is making sure you trigger the additional damage on Hellish Rebuke.

 

[Saeviomagy]

A few questions and replies here:
1. Ok, if doing 1d12+4d8+16 on a normal at-will is expected at this level, what should strikers like the Rogue or Warlock be doing in such a case? Perhaps I'm not good enough in helping others design characters "to spec" in that case and this player IS.

Warlock:
1d10 +2d6 +5(stat) +4 (bracers of the perfect shot) +3(implement)

A bit low, but that's warlocks for you. With anything other than fey pact, and a little tactics, you can do 2d6+ 10 (weapon, stat, bracers) plus another 1d6+10 when they violate the condition. Alternately you get to control some battlefield when foes don't attack you/approach you.

Rogue:
1d8(rapier) + 3d8(sneak) + 5(dex) + 3(cha or str) + 3(weapon) + 2(weapon focus) + 1(two weapon fighting).

All from the basic books, without even touching stuff like wintertouched, paragon classes etc.

2. If I don't misremember, he's at +17 when not power-attacking (+6 level, +5 Str, +2 prof, +3 enh, +1 expertise) so when he meets enemies with slightly higher AC he just foregoes his Power Attack and uses the flanking to hit more often, bringing him up to +19.

3. To me, there is a huge difference between the damage of the Rogue which IS situational - no combat advantage, no bonus damage. For the Ranger, its one minor action a turn and pop up the quarry. With his wolf around, he has two "points" to determine closest foe from, so he's getting it spread out pretty fast.

CA is something that happens basically every round. Surprise and first round from the rogue first strike power, subsequent rounds from flanks, hiding and conditions on foes.

4. Twin Strike: I see 1d12+2d8+7 in the above example, where does the additional 1d8 come from? As far as I can see, that means an average of 22.5 damage on a hit and an additional 13.5 if both attacks hit. That gives us an average of 36 damage, 18 if assuming that we have an equal 50% to hit rate. And this includes the "hitting twice" numbers, so no "additional 4+ damage" as far as I can see. Perhaps I'm mathematically blind?

The possible bonus there is actually "whatever your guy gets, minus his str mod", or +11. Incidentally - what are your guys 4d8 coming from? quarry is 2d8...

5. What kind of "level appropriate soldiers" are you guys throwing at your players with an AC of 29? I'm taking my players through King of the Trollhaunt and I promise you that so far, there haven't been any AC29 monsters around. Do I need to tweak the written adventures that much?

Every lvl 13 soldier in the mm is 28 or 29 ac.

6. Regarding what Encounter powers this build has he tends to use Encircling Strike, the Barb power that lets him "hit back" as an immediate action, the "I attack and then my pet attacks" Ranger power (sorry, no character sheet or books available right here) and another one I can't remember right now.

Now, I've been trying to optimize a Brute Rogue so as to do comparable damage and the best, damage-wise, that I can come up with is something like a Half-Orc with Surprising Charge, Rapier Proficiency, Backstabber and racial ability and managing something like 6d8+10 on a charge into someone who gives CA (and thus has better to hit) - but that is still "just" an average of 37 damage and expends an encounter power AND is even more situational.

See above: his at-will attack should be 4d8+16 with the same gear your ranger friend has, but he's targeting reflex and has at least +2 to hit more than the ranger does (+1 from better weapon prof, +1 from nimble blade feat).

So, some of you are saying that I am simply overreacting and this is very much how an average striker SHOULD be behaving and I can agree that since this is my first time into Paragon and we're hitting levels 11-14 now, perhaps I'm just unused to the high numbers being thrown around. However, the "resident" Rogue and Warlock aren't doing the same kind of damage, so if that is the case, how do I help THEM become better Strikers?

Make sure they realize that they're supposed to do damage, and that they take feats that help do that? Make sure your party realizes that giving the rogue a flank is far more useful than giving one to the ranger?