That's still fulfilling your defensive duties, you're just being more aggressive about it. Artillery generally deals more damage with greater accuracy, and Controllers deal moderate damage to multiple PCs. The point of a Defender is to prevent damage to the rest of the party, and dead monsters can't deal damage. If one of your three hits per round is a crit you can pretty much guarantee that you'll be taking that monster down in a single round.
Getting Combat Challenge More Involved
Pickles JG
First Post
That's an oxymoron. It's the fact he has high defences, lots of HP (& low damage output) that make it a bad idea to prioritise defenders. If they get set up to be dogpiled then bad guy focusing may be better than spreading damage around but the point of defenders is they give bad options for the DM.
In LFR my fighter does gets to make CC attacks about once an encounter but often in clumps. There is often history between DMs & other players & they get carried away picking on their nemeses when they ought to be respecting marks. Ie with some DMs I get to use it every round & with others never.
When I DM my home game I probably proc the Paladin's mark twice a fight or so. I usually try to respect marks unless there is a good reason not to - like they get huge bonuses for CA & they can get it easily on my designated victim. I also tend to forget it's there a bit & just live with the mistake.
jbear
First Post
The best defense is a good offense? Yep, I was at that training session as well. That doesn't alter the fact that in geneal terms your main role as a defender is to keep the heavies off your allies. If the fragile yet deadly sorceror has an ogre on their tail, you're defending in a more standard way when you step in and say: 'Hey Frog-Eyes why don't you pick on someone your own size' and hence the ogre beats on you instead, as opposed to: 'Hang in there Mary, I'll just take down the shaman first, that stinging hex he's putting on us is irritating, if you can just hang in there a couple more rounds I'll be right with you...'
I know what you mean. A defender can contribute in many different ways.
The point is you can force artillery into a lose lose situation with mobile challenge and combat challenge. But that doesn't take away from the fact that you have lock down capabilities that make you better suited for keeping your team mates out of danger. A ranger could probably get over and take that shaman down in a round as well if he gets lucky. But he's not so suited to being a human meat shield. So defensive duties blah blah blah. I think you know what I mean.
Neonchameleon
Legend
It depends which side of the table I'm on 
My PCs play the provocation game enough that offering an attack of opportunity to provoke a mark is known as "Doing a Neonchameleon" in my group. Worst case here is the Bravura Warlord using Brash Assault with Harlequin Style.
My PCs play the provocation game enough that offering an attack of opportunity to provoke a mark is known as "Doing a Neonchameleon" in my group. Worst case here is the Bravura Warlord using Brash Assault with Harlequin Style.The mistake you're making is assuming that the brute is a heavy that needs to be defended against while the Artillery and Controller are not. This is wrong; Artillery are ranged single-target damage dealers, like the bow Ranger, and Controllers who manage to drop a burst power that does 15 damage per target is dealing 45 damage across three, far more dangerous than the Brute doing 30 damage.
Primitive Screwhead
First Post
As a DM with a long-running game.. I think Combat Challenge impacts play often enough. In the usual combats it deters the bad guys from leaving the Tank more often than not.
Then every so often the Combat Challenge gets to be the highlight of the fight, like the time when a Bearded Devil got cornered by Devon and desperately tried to leave...3 rounds of trying to run away before being slain by the Fighter.
Regarding which is the best for a Tank to go after... a Brute or an Artillery... that really depends on the encounter set-up and the rest of the group. My groups strikers would take care of the Artillery much faster than they could take care of a Brute, so the preference is for the Tank to tie up the big guy in a one-to-one match while the rest of the team mops up the opposition.
Anathos, I don't think jbear is making a mistake, its just a different way of looking at things. But last time I checked, a Brute doing 30 damage to a squishy PC is generally something to be avoided.
Then every so often the Combat Challenge gets to be the highlight of the fight, like the time when a Bearded Devil got cornered by Devon and desperately tried to leave...3 rounds of trying to run away before being slain by the Fighter.
Regarding which is the best for a Tank to go after... a Brute or an Artillery... that really depends on the encounter set-up and the rest of the group. My groups strikers would take care of the Artillery much faster than they could take care of a Brute, so the preference is for the Tank to tie up the big guy in a one-to-one match while the rest of the team mops up the opposition.
Anathos, I don't think jbear is making a mistake, its just a different way of looking at things. But last time I checked, a Brute doing 30 damage to a squishy PC is generally something to be avoided.
As is a Controller doing 45 damage. Defenders are supposed to lock down threats to prevent damage to their allies, and preventing any Artillery monster from using their high-damage, high-accuracy powers accomplishes this goal. You could argue that the Defender should focus on a Soldier even though it doesn't do much damage because the Soldier has ways of preventing your Strikers from attacking a more dangerous target. Honestly, I don't think there's any good hard and fast rule about what creature the Defender should engage other than "whichever one is the greatest threat"; every role is dangerous in it's own way.
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