evilbob
Explorer
I'm not sure if this is really even a good place to mention this, based on what you're trying to accomplish, but I've been playing in an all-striker party for a while now. And not some namby-pamby "multiclassed" or "hybrid" striker party: I mean we're all as pure of a striker as our class allows us to be (sorcs are going be part controller just about any way you slice 'em, for example). And honestly, we hold up just fine.
In fact, we do great. And while I apologize that I have not read this entire thread completely, I can tell you that some of the assumptions made in it are not exactly correct.
First, our all-striker party doesn't (necessarily) do better against solos or brutes. In fact, the role, type, or number of enemy creatures doesn't really have much to do with how well we do. How well we do has everything to do with one major factor: speed. And by that I mean how fast we are able to lay down our ridiculous amounts of damage. For example, I play a barbarian, and everyone else is Dex-based (avenger, sorc, and ranger), so I go LAST. And if we haven't dropped at least one enemy by the end of my first turn, I should get worried. If we have a battle that lasts more than 4 or 5 rounds, I should get worried.
The reason it's all about the speed is because really 4.0 is all about the healing. We have NONE - other than a few ways to give ourselves temps - so we have to kill things quickly, before they can kill us. Over many battles, the thing that just takes us out is anything that reduces our raw damage output. So far, that mainly includes: anything with a really high AC (to the point that we have to roll better than 13s to hit it and everyone isn't having a good night), and anything that can weaken us constantly (I assume that insubstantial creatures would be similar). We recently fought two battles in a row: one was against 8 creatures (brutes and flying skirmishers) and the second was against 5 (3 brutes and 2 controllers). The first battle was a cakewalk, and the second was extremely difficult and made us use up everything we had because the brutes had a normal melee attack that weakened us (save ends). While you might normally concentrate on the controllers first, we had to take out those weakening brutes before we did anything else and that made the battle really tricky.
Second, when you play an all-striker party, your tactics change a bit - and I'm not sure this is being fully taken into consideration in this thread's theories. You can't just play like you would play a balanced party. Healing is basically worthless. Second wind is worthless; healing potions are worthless. Most of our party even uses bloodclaw weapons - that's right, we're hurting ourselves on each hit - because we honestly don't care how much we get hurt so long as they die first. Anything that ups your damage is great, even if it half kills you to do it. Conversely, any time you spend not dealing damage is time wasted.
Also, potions of clarity are everything - and I mean, EVERYTHING. We all have tons of ways to make rerolls - avenger, barbarian, and sorcerer especially - because we cannot really afford to miss. We land dailies pretty much 100% of the time and I only miss with encounter powers if I've rerolled a ton already. Part of that is a greater-than-normal chance to hit, but loading up on rerolls is vital. We purchase potions of clarity by the gross. Level 5 potions are just 50g, and to a paragon-level character, that's practically free.
Personally, I also enjoy playing a character who has lots of attacks that don't happen on my turn and others that trigger off normal attacks. Almost a full half of my character's items and powers concentrate on attacking with immediate actions, and I use the "drop someone and get a free charge" power every encounter.
The results: even with a crap AC and being a front-line character, I rarely get bloodied and haven't gone down yet. Why? Because they're already dead. And I get hurt worse than anyone else in the group - heck, I hurt myself every round, often multiple times. But you can't play this kind of party like you're playing a balanced party.
My point? Well partially, that an all-striker party can do just fine. But mostly that even comparing apples to oranges like this thread is attempting to do, you're really even further off-base than you think because tactics are radically different based on party composition.
In fact, we do great. And while I apologize that I have not read this entire thread completely, I can tell you that some of the assumptions made in it are not exactly correct.
First, our all-striker party doesn't (necessarily) do better against solos or brutes. In fact, the role, type, or number of enemy creatures doesn't really have much to do with how well we do. How well we do has everything to do with one major factor: speed. And by that I mean how fast we are able to lay down our ridiculous amounts of damage. For example, I play a barbarian, and everyone else is Dex-based (avenger, sorc, and ranger), so I go LAST. And if we haven't dropped at least one enemy by the end of my first turn, I should get worried. If we have a battle that lasts more than 4 or 5 rounds, I should get worried.
The reason it's all about the speed is because really 4.0 is all about the healing. We have NONE - other than a few ways to give ourselves temps - so we have to kill things quickly, before they can kill us. Over many battles, the thing that just takes us out is anything that reduces our raw damage output. So far, that mainly includes: anything with a really high AC (to the point that we have to roll better than 13s to hit it and everyone isn't having a good night), and anything that can weaken us constantly (I assume that insubstantial creatures would be similar). We recently fought two battles in a row: one was against 8 creatures (brutes and flying skirmishers) and the second was against 5 (3 brutes and 2 controllers). The first battle was a cakewalk, and the second was extremely difficult and made us use up everything we had because the brutes had a normal melee attack that weakened us (save ends). While you might normally concentrate on the controllers first, we had to take out those weakening brutes before we did anything else and that made the battle really tricky.
Second, when you play an all-striker party, your tactics change a bit - and I'm not sure this is being fully taken into consideration in this thread's theories. You can't just play like you would play a balanced party. Healing is basically worthless. Second wind is worthless; healing potions are worthless. Most of our party even uses bloodclaw weapons - that's right, we're hurting ourselves on each hit - because we honestly don't care how much we get hurt so long as they die first. Anything that ups your damage is great, even if it half kills you to do it. Conversely, any time you spend not dealing damage is time wasted.
Also, potions of clarity are everything - and I mean, EVERYTHING. We all have tons of ways to make rerolls - avenger, barbarian, and sorcerer especially - because we cannot really afford to miss. We land dailies pretty much 100% of the time and I only miss with encounter powers if I've rerolled a ton already. Part of that is a greater-than-normal chance to hit, but loading up on rerolls is vital. We purchase potions of clarity by the gross. Level 5 potions are just 50g, and to a paragon-level character, that's practically free.
Personally, I also enjoy playing a character who has lots of attacks that don't happen on my turn and others that trigger off normal attacks. Almost a full half of my character's items and powers concentrate on attacking with immediate actions, and I use the "drop someone and get a free charge" power every encounter.
The results: even with a crap AC and being a front-line character, I rarely get bloodied and haven't gone down yet. Why? Because they're already dead. And I get hurt worse than anyone else in the group - heck, I hurt myself every round, often multiple times. But you can't play this kind of party like you're playing a balanced party.
My point? Well partially, that an all-striker party can do just fine. But mostly that even comparing apples to oranges like this thread is attempting to do, you're really even further off-base than you think because tactics are radically different based on party composition.
