D&D 4E 4e Ranger: New God of Damage? Armor Splinter + Blade Cascade + High Wisdom Ranger

[hong]

Well, take a warlord with that super daily power that adds +5 to attacks for the rest of the encounter. Add Armor Splinter and Wis 20 for another +10 (effectively). Add flanking for another +2, so the total is +17 on your normal attack. If you normally need a 19 to hit Orcus, you now hit him on a 2.

 

[Nifft]

If you only miss on a 1, the half-life of this tactic is about 13 attacks.

If you miss on a 2, the half-life is a little under 7 attacks.

If you miss on a 3, the half-life is around 4.5.

If you miss on a 4, the half-life is less than 3.5.

That's not rounds of attacks, it's just plain attacks. Half-life means "50% of Rangers will be done by now". Of course, it's possible to keep going forever, but it's quite unlikely.

Cap it at 20 attacks (10 pairs of attacks), if you want. You're unlikely to see it come into play, and therefore it shouldn't hurt the actual damage much, if at all.

Cheers, -- N

 

[Njall]

I would like to see how it actually plays before jumping to massive conclusions. There are some serious limiting factors here:

1) After getting hit by armor splinter the target gets a full round to act before you go again. So for example you armor splinter Orcus (lowering his AC but for the moment doing around 2(W) damage) he's either going to get away - or more likely he's going to focus all his attacks on your lightly armored not so high HP self.

[edit: hadn't considered using an action point. still if you're using an encounter power, an action point and a daily on one creature that combo should be nasty]

Yes, but it's a solo monster. A lvl 33 solo monster.
The party is supposed to burn AP and dailies to kill solo monsters, IMO...

2) You then have to blade cascade - which if you're lucky - massive damage (I'd like to see the math - I bet it's highly unlikely even against a lowered AC that hitting more than 5 times in a row is statistically likely). If you're not - congrats your daily just did 2(W) + strength damage.

Well, from what I've seen, there's a good number of options that would bring the roll down to 2+. I believe the warlord character in KotS has a feat that gives his intelligence bonus as a bonus to any attack they make when they use an action point; Action Surge gives +3 to hit when you use an AP. Furthermore, IIRC there are a couple of powers or abilities that grant you a reroll...so you can probably land 30ish attacks with blade cascade. That's 60[W] damage + modifiers. I don't really think a 15th level character is intended to deal that much damage in 1 round...

3) Considering the team nature of D&D other 15 level dailys may actually be nastier with Armor splinter. Consider both with confounding arrows and stunning steel you have multiple chances to stun your target (which is very nasty when others then have a go at him).

Well, being dead is generally worse than being stunned or immobilized

 

[Nifft]

How much damage is the Ranger expecting to do at that level?

Missing on a 2 gives him expected damage equal to 10 times (2[w] +Str +whatever else).

Orcus has over a thousand hit points.

Cheers, -- N

 

[Lore Raithbone]

Well, take a warlord with that super daily power that adds +5 to attacks for the rest of the encounter. Add Armor Splinter and Wis 20 for another +10 (effectively). Add flanking for another +2, so the total is +17 on your normal attack. If you normally need a 19 to hit Orcus, you now hit him on a 2.

Well, level 30 Ranger: level + magic + feat + strength = 15 + 6 + 1 + 7 (16 base + 6 stat ups). Total to-hit of +29; Orcus has an AC of 48, so to hit him on a 2 we go: Warlord +5, Armor Splinter, Flanking (though if both Armor Splinter attacks hit, flanking is not needed) or Combat advantage. Die roll of +2 (1 is an auto-miss so we don't care about it).

Yup, exactly like hong just said. 41.812033523% chance of 16 attacks; 37 damage per hit (1d10+7(str)+6(magic), 2W gives us 2d10+26 per hit, or 11 avg + 26 = 37 avg damage per hit.

37 avg x 16 gives us 592; this math does not include, say, being a Divine Trickster and using your re-roll ability (I believe they get two). That raises the probability as well; frankly, a level 15 power that does over 200 damage is stupid, even if its a daily. Sure, it spends an action point, but its not like those are any kind of finite resource.

Basically as long as you miss on a 1, 2, or 3, the power is balanced. If you only miss on a 1, its broken.

 

[Lore Raithbone]

Forgot to include +3 proficiency bonus. So, its possible to pull this combo without the warlord helping. Also damage is pretty much straight and unoptimized, if you had a Titan's Belt you could add +10 to every attack you make for 47 avg damage, so with 12 attacks, 564, with 16 attacks, 752.

To completely kill Orcus in one go you'd need... umm... about 3 or 4 "reroll" powers.

 

[rhm001]

It's more like "I killed orcus in under 6 seconds and now my arms feel like jelly"

That's the T-shirt you get for killing Orcus the first time. (Have to kill him twice before you get the "I killed Orcus and all I got was this lousy shirt" T-shirt.)

 

[Mort]

How much damage is the Ranger expecting to do at that level?

Missing on a 2 gives him expected damage equal to 10 times (2[w] +Str +whatever else).

Orcus has over a thousand hit points.

Cheers, -- N

I think people see - "attack until you miss" and don't realize the math makes "infinite" damage staggeringly unlikely even with large bonuses. There was this almost exact power in Bo9S (7th level maneuver - can't remember the name), which my group thought was huge until, in play it turned out merely ok.

 

[Njall]

How much damage is the Ranger expecting to do at that level?

Missing on a 2 gives him expected damage equal to 10 times (2[w] +Str +whatever else).

Orcus has over a thousand hit points.

Cheers, -- N

He's only missing on a 1, a 2 is a hit
I'll assume he deals what? 1d8 damage+4(stength) +4(magic weapon)+4(kensei PP) /hit per hand, is this fair? ( I don't have the books yet >.< )
If he hits 30 times, that's 60d8+360.
60d8 averages to 270 damage.
That's 610 damage right there, and I don't really think a 30th level character only has 18 strength and a +4 weapon.
Each point of bonus damage is worth 30 points of damage in this scenario.
So, in order to deal 1000+ damage we only need [(1000-610)/30] more damage per attack; that would be +13 damage.
As I said, I don't have my books yet, but I bet it can be made easily, from what I've seen

 

[Njall]

I think people see - "attack until you miss" and don't realize the math makes "infinite" damage staggeringly unlikely even with large bonuses. There was this almost exact power in Bo9S (7th level maneuver - can't remember the name), which my group thought was huge until, in play it turned out merely ok.

Uhm...it should be "avalanche of blades".
However, that maneuver imposed an increasing penalty on the character's attack rolls (-4/attack) .