Nimble Strike, Careful attack, Twin Strike

[Mengu]

I hope I won't be flame broiled for this one.

I've been looking at the math behind these three ranger powers for a while, and however I look at it, the expected damage from Twin Strike beats the other two in just about every scenario. So I started messing with different bonuses for Careful attack, and different penalties for twin strike. I think I found the sweet spot to be the following: Careful Attack gains +3 bonus instead of +2, Twin Strike suffers -2 penalty.

I'll attach an excel sheet if you want to examine my findings. They are a bit messy, I was more experimenting than trying to prove a point.

Basically with this configuration, if the attack rolls needed are typically somewhere between 8 and 17 (17 is probably a bit high but go with it for now), there is a fairly even distribution of best approaches for each at will power, against normal opponents, against quarries, and against minions. I've tried -1 and -3 for twin strike, -1 was still yielding results that were too good, and -3 put it below par on everything. For careful attack, I tried +2 and +4, and again +2 comes out weak except when you need very high rolls, and +4 becomes overpowering.

Also with the +3/-2, the expected damage is rather close between all attack powers, so it becomes more of a tactical decission, instead of a mathematical decission to make.

The math will change a bit at paragon levels, but it shouldn't be too different since both the plusses to damage will increase, as well as the hunter's quarry damage. This is of course conjecture, and not based on actual calculations.

What I'd like to hear is if you would still be willing to grab Twin Strike as an at will power if there was a -2 penalty, or if you would consider Careful Attack more seriously if the bonus was +3.

 

[Zurai]

No way in hell I'd take Twin Strike if it had a -2 penalty. Attack bonuses are hard to come across in 4E.

 

[Gladius Legis]

Careful Attack needs to be +4 like it was in DDXP. And even then, Twin Strike would still be better for most cases.

And Twin Strike most definitely does NOT need an attack penalty.

 

[Zurai]

My suggestion for Careful Attack, which I posted in a different thread, is to give it the same text Magic Missile and Eldritch Blast have: "You may use this power as a ranged basic attack". That gives it a nice niche to occupy without having to change numbers all around.

Also, I'm not sure why Nimble Attack is in the thread title. It's got a plenty fine niche of its own.

 

[Anax]

Is the idea here to adjust both powers in the suggested way, or just one?

 

[On Puget Sound]

The issue isn't "is twin strike better than careful?" The question is, "is twin strike better than eldritch blast, or healing word, or...." Nerfing twin strike would nerf the ranger, and it's not been demonstrated that that needs to be done. Careful strike? yeah,not much point to it in isolation. But with hunters strike or flaming weapons, being more certain to hit might be worth some damage trade-off. Or with a low STR build of some sort that I'm having trouble imagining right now.

 

[Otterscrubber]

No way in hell I'd take Twin Strike if it had a -2 penalty. Attack bonuses are hard to come across in 4E.

Totally agree. At this point even a basic melee or ranged attack is better if you have good stat bonuses to damage. One decent hit is better than 2 total misses.

Back in previous versions of D&D you had penalties to hit from mulitple weapons, but you at least got some partial benefits from stats for damage. This is not the case in 4e.

Now as far as Careful strike goes, +2 just ain't worth it if you lose out on your damage bonus. At that point you're probably just looking to drop a minion and 2 rolls are gonna win out over a +2 to hit most of the time I'd think. Don't think the fix is to reduce twin strike to the point where it is not as good as a basic attack, but rather give careful strike more of a bonus.

 

[Gladius Legis]

being more certain to hit might be worth some damage trade-off.

But the thing is that it's been mathematically proven that Careful Strike is NEVER as good as Twin Strike.

 

[Mengu]

Also, I'm not sure why Nimble Attack is in the thread title. It's got a plenty fine niche of its own.

Because 90% of the time, Twin Strike is going to be *the* at will power to use for the ranger. It simply has better expected damage. And I'd like there to be more reason to use your other at will power, whatever it may be.

I realize pluses to hit are hard to come by, but powers that allow multiple attacks against a single target are also hard to come by, and this is an at will power we're talking about.

Let me pose the question this way, when you are in a position to be able to use Twin Strike, would you ever consider using another Ranger at will power?

 

[Zurai]

Because 90% of the time, Twin Strike is going to be *the* at will power to use for the ranger. It simply has better expected damage. And I'd like there to be more reason to use your other at will power, whatever it may be.

Let me pose the question this way, when you are in a position to be able to use Twin Strike, would you ever consider using another Ranger at will power?

Yes, if it's Nimble Strike. NS can be used to set up flanking, to provide extra movement, to avoid OAs for ranged attacks, and its damage isn't that far behind Twin Strike until Epic thanks to adding Dex mod to the damage.

I realize pluses to hit are hard to come by, but powers that allow multiple attacks against a single target are also hard to come by, and this is an at will power we're talking about.

Not for rangers, they aren't. There's a ranger power at every attack level that gives multi-attack capability, and all but one of those (Split the Tree) is usable on a single target.