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Dwarven Battlerager - Hows it gonna play out?
- Thread starter JiffyPopTart
- Start date
I don't mind the MMO references, but what "threat" are you giving up exactly to take DBR? +2 to hit and +1 to damage (assume -2 STR over another fighter and lack of great weapon feature)? That's not enough especially given that a fighter is more like a striker these days than a defender. The problem with DBRs and fighters in general is that at higher levels, plenty of creatures can simply skip by them. I play a 26th level DBR and he is hard to take down and dishes out plenty of damage (taking all the IMBA options like Marked Scourge, Bloodclaw Mordenkrad, etc). He plays much more like a striker with a mark that can range from merely annoying (-3 from the enemy he's targeting) to a real pain (using powers like Howl of Defiance). A -3 to hit unless it's against him is potent.
That said, he almost died in a combat recently filled with minions who could throw area powers. It's the downside. His defense is atrocious, his single target damage is EXTREMELY good, and he's about as sticky as he could be without wielding a reach weapon.
To get back to my original comment, I don't know what threat you're referring to that he's lacking, honestly. Unless I'm mistaken, there is no threat mechanism in 4e besides the mark.
Opportunity Attacks. If a creature moves away from an adjacent enemy etc... A good fighter will be good at OAs and prevent enemies from running past. But a fighter that can't hit can't stop those enemies from running past.
Bagpuss
Legend
1st - It is a fallacy to assume a Con build Battlerager can't hit. He won't hit as often as a Strength optimised normal fighter but he can still hit.
2nd - Devoted Challenge goes a long way to making a Dwarf Battlerager still a significant threat with his Mark. Knockback Swing doesn't mater if you hit or not.
Couple issues with OAs
1) All fighters get two stats to hit with OAs (STR and WIS) which makes OAs a very good to hit chance anyway, no matter the race or class feature.
2) At higher levels, OAs becomes harder and harder to get because there is no way to have threatening reach in the game, aside from a paragon path for a 3rd party class written by Ari Marmell. Enemies can just teleport and fly around the defenders at epic levels, in my experience at least.
Fighters can stick to one target fairly well, especially with Combat Challenge and the Daunting Challenge feat (extra -1 to hit another target) but that makes them even more striker-ish IMO. Just focus on a single target and burn them down.
In fact, the most "threatening" defender I've seen over all is our Swordmage with Aegis of Shielding since he can mitigate quite a bit of damage against an ally of his choice so that encourages the enemies to just attack the Swordmage instead. It also helps that he can mark all enemies for the encounter in a 6 square radius as a minor action since he's a Wandering Swordmage as well.
JiffyPopTart
Bree-Yark
Well....he didn't take long to "die".
Combat 1 - Vs. some lich dragon thing
Round 1: Ran at it, Ran at it.
Round 2: Ran at it, Charged it, Critical hit for 37 damage.
Round 3: Got breathed on for 20 points of damage, hit it with Invigorating Strike for 15 points.
It died before it went again. In that battle we rolled 5 criticals in 3 rounds, three of which were delivered with Vicious Greataxes or Longbows.
Combat 2 - Vs. Medusa, Basilisk, 3 minion guys
Round 1: Ran at it, Ran at it.
Round 2: Ran at it, Charged a minion and missed. Beat on a little by minions (found out that things that do ongoing damage sort of mess up your THP plans). Blasted by the medusas slow-immobilize-petrify ray.
Round 3: Missed a minion with Invigorating Strike. Beat on by minions. Failed save and was immobilized.
Round 4: Missed with Dizzying Blow(reliable), used an AP and missed with it a second time an failed my save.
I was petrified.
That sucked and if I charted my opinion of 4e based on the last month it's tanked like my 401k. The unfairness of dying with two failed saves, however, is a different topic.
DS
Combat 1 - Vs. some lich dragon thing
Round 1: Ran at it, Ran at it.
Round 2: Ran at it, Charged it, Critical hit for 37 damage.
Round 3: Got breathed on for 20 points of damage, hit it with Invigorating Strike for 15 points.
It died before it went again. In that battle we rolled 5 criticals in 3 rounds, three of which were delivered with Vicious Greataxes or Longbows.
Combat 2 - Vs. Medusa, Basilisk, 3 minion guys
Round 1: Ran at it, Ran at it.
Round 2: Ran at it, Charged a minion and missed. Beat on a little by minions (found out that things that do ongoing damage sort of mess up your THP plans). Blasted by the medusas slow-immobilize-petrify ray.
Round 3: Missed a minion with Invigorating Strike. Beat on by minions. Failed save and was immobilized.
Round 4: Missed with Dizzying Blow(reliable), used an AP and missed with it a second time an failed my save.
I was petrified.
That sucked and if I charted my opinion of 4e based on the last month it's tanked like my 401k. The unfairness of dying with two failed saves, however, is a different topic.
DS
Iron Sky
Procedurally Generated
My simple fix that I'm implementing in the game I'm getting ready to run is:
Battlerage Vigor only applies to attacks by targets marked by the fighter.
I think that fix will still carry the flavor of the style without the brokeness: he's good at tanking the things that will probably be going for him, but not as good against others...
That and eliminating double-weapons seems to fix the two Martial Powers fighter builds, at least enough for me.
Battlerage Vigor only applies to attacks by targets marked by the fighter.
I think that fix will still carry the flavor of the style without the brokeness: he's good at tanking the things that will probably be going for him, but not as good against others...
That and eliminating double-weapons seems to fix the two Martial Powers fighter builds, at least enough for me.
eamon
Explorer
To be fair, many others would have been no better off (perhaps worse off) - and ideally a leader should have been around to grant you a save). You might also have looked into the Dreadnought PP, which can save automatically as a free action for 10hp damage.
JiffyPopTart
Bree-Yark
Already planned on the Dreadnought...but still only 8th level.
The party leader (WARLORD) was standing next to me and also got petrified. I don't think he had any powers to grant me a save and we discussed trying to make heal checks but neither was very good at it. He also was playing a brand new character.
DS
Our first level Dwarven BRV with a 16 CON soaked up 88 temporary hit points in the BBEG fight last night. About 18 of that was invigorating.
So, ~70 points of damage from BRV.
That's the equivalent of giving the hit points of a 13th level Fighter to a 1st level PC. That's the equivalent of 5 Healing Words (from an 18 Wis Cleric) without using up a single Healing Surge or a single minor action.
Toughness gives 5 hit points. If Toughness gave even half of this many hit points (35) at first level, people would be screaming about lack of balance and how every PC would take Toughness.
And this is with a 16 CON. An 18 CON Dwarf would have stopped more.
So, ~70 points of damage from BRV.
That's the equivalent of giving the hit points of a 13th level Fighter to a 1st level PC. That's the equivalent of 5 Healing Words (from an 18 Wis Cleric) without using up a single Healing Surge or a single minor action.
Toughness gives 5 hit points. If Toughness gave even half of this many hit points (35) at first level, people would be screaming about lack of balance and how every PC would take Toughness.
And this is with a 16 CON. An 18 CON Dwarf would have stopped more.
