D&D 5E Fighting Style Balance: Offense vs. Defense

[FrogReaver]

The riposte gets better as your attacks get better and stronger by levelling ... and I think the thing to actually beat for most people's thinking.

The following assumptions have to be true for riposte to work as advertised:
1. The enemy you are wanting to focus down is attacking you. *Note Sentinel incentivizes enemies to attack you
2. The enemy you are wanting to focus down has to miss you.
3. An enemy targeting a high AC fighter should be prioritized by the party to be focused down quickly.

IMO typically there will be minimal benefit in prioritizing an enemy that's already attacking the high AC high HP fighter (Big Solo Enemies might be the primary exception here).

IMO - the tactical advantages of Sentinel + High AC + Rally outweigh the advantages of Sentinel + High AC + Riposte against all but Big Solo Enemies.

 

[FrogReaver]

It is indeed not guaranteed that my shove will move him out of the area. neither was the trip or the grapple... come again?
Mine is a pretty cheap trick and if part fails I can action surge to fix that too

The point was that there's a lot more points of failure when it comes to disarming an opponent than in tripping and grapping them.

A bow? with me five feet away because I moved into his vacated square? sure I get advantage for that. (or he beats feet and I get an opportunity attack)

Sure - but that's still a far cry from the advantage of being completely weaponless.

 

[FrogReaver]

The maneuvering attack can rarely give golden results ... the person taking that is gambling on his allies messing up in some specific ways and him fixing it... AND that one is either offensively valuable or defensively valuable, or not useful at all.

Maneuvering attack is great if you have a heavily ranged party. Allows any that get caught to move away for free.

 

[Garthanos]

The following assumptions have to be true for riposte to work as advertised:
1. The enemy you are wanting to focus down is attacking you. *Note Sentinel incentivizes enemies to attack you

It may or may not be involved many of those wanting striker hurt the bad guy all the time thinking arent doing sentinel (which the fighter is generally geared for anyway). Did I mentioned I consider sentinel a defender focus and riposte a striker punish the enemy do not not attack me striker focus means they do not synergize as well as they might in my opinion (yes I am agreeing with you sort of). They can work ok and result in a lot of beat down on that enemy it was I think @doctorbadwolf who was pointing out that they didnt necessarily conflict with one another.

The better scaling Riposte still should be measured along side the barely scales at all Rally without Sentinel as an assumed context (even if I do like it) LOL... or add a bit of rally scaling and I think its a match.

Buffing charisma instead of wisdom as a third impairs your more important saves too...

 

[Garthanos]

Maneuvering attack is great if you have a heavily ranged party. Allows any that get caught to move away for free.

Thanks!

 

[Garthanos]

A Variant humans can do a 16, 8, 14, 8, 10, 16
A Variant human could instead do 16, 8, 16, 8, 10, 14

Do you hate that Str fighters have crappy initiative?

 

[FrogReaver]

Buffing charisma instead of wisdom as a third impairs your more important saves too...

Sure - wisdom is my default preference for tertiary stat because of the saves. However, it's not so much better than going cha for charisma skills - and it's definitely not such a huge benefit that I would have any pause in playing any other kind of tertiary stat fighter.

Also it could just mean you want to multiclass warlock which is a heck of a good fighter dip.

 

[FrogReaver]

Do you hate that Str fighters have crappy initiative?

Really doesn't bother me. In some ways melee characters do better going after the enemy has had time to rush forward and get into their movement range.

 

[Garthanos]

Sure - wisdom is my default preference for tertiary stat because of the saves. However, it's not so much better than going cha for charisma skills - and it's definitely not such a huge benefit that I would have any pause in playing any other kind of tertiary stat fighter.

Wisdom feeds into some nice skills too... perception and Insight and survival

Also it could just mean you want to multiclass warlock which is a heck of a good fighter dip.

That is a different kettle I do not trust 5e MCing.

 

[Garthanos]

Really doesn't bother me. In some ways melee characters do better going after the enemy has had time to rush forward and get into their movement range.

To me it feels like those who would be planning to fight most likely aggressive and eager to fight are stuck reacting ... instead of well planning and thinking about it sure i suppose there is a feat for that but still i don't like it.