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

[Lore Raithbone]

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.

That power imposed a -2 penalty per attack made; it was also not part of a normalized system where bonuses and penalties to hit mean so much more.

 

[Nifft]

He's only missing on a 1, a 2 is a hit

Okay. If he only misses on a 1, expected damage is 20 times (2[w] +Str +whatever).

That's a lot, but I doubt it's Orcus-breaking all by itself.

Cheers, -- N

 

[Njall]

Okay. If he only misses on a 1, expected damage is 20 times (2[w] +Str +whatever).

That's a lot, but I doubt it's Orcus-breaking all by itself.

Cheers, -- N

I don't know what the stats for Orcus are, ATM...I was shooting for 1000 damage/round.

If you wish and you have the books handy, and can provide some hard numbers ( Orcus's HP and AC, Special defenses and so on, as well as other 15th level powers, paragon paths and feats that deal additional damage ) we can try to see how much damage/attack we need to kill him in 1 round, and how much damage bonus we're likely to get with a high level pc

 

[GoodKingJayIII]

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.

That's not correct. Bonuses are not multiplied, so your example would actually be 2[W] + 13. Granted, you haven't included feats and bonuses from other party members that might get factored in. I imagine that a +26 to damage is pretty doable at level 30.

 

[Zaruthustran]

That combo was posted last week: www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=227936

The real meat comes when you multi into Fighter, and take the Pit Fighter paragon path. That gives you + Wis to all your damage rolls, and another +2 to your attacks (from Deadly Payback, assuming the target damaged you the previous round). Action Surge feat adds another +3 to the attack roll, as well as + (1/2 level) damage due to the paragon path property Extra Damage Action.

At 16th level the combo is a +21 on your attack vs. a target that is suffering -4 to AC, for 2d10 + 12 + 10 damage per hit. None of that is counting bonuses from magic items. So, going with the "10 hits before you miss" benchmark, that's 240-420 damage. Not bad!

Anyway, it's all explained here: www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=227936

 

[Ander00]

In a similar vein: as with many things, I am not sure it is intended to work like this but... the level 29 attack power "Follow-Up Blow" allows for additional melee basic attacks if you hit an enemy with a melee attack power. Since a melee basic attack "is an at-will attack power", it'd chain off itself.

So with this power, for one encounter per day, every melee attack power the ranger uses has a chance to allow for an infinite number of follow-up attacks (basically turning whatever he does into a sort of Blade Cascade with only the offhand, at a -2 penalty).


cheers

 

[Nifft]

That combo was posted last week: www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=227936

The real meat comes when you multi into Fighter, and take the Pit Fighter paragon path. That gives you + Wis to all your damage rolls, and another +2 to your attacks (from Deadly Payback, assuming the target damaged you the previous round). Action Surge feat adds another +3 to the attack roll, as well as + (1/2 level) damage due to the paragon path property Extra Damage Action.

At 16th level the combo is a +21 on your attack vs. a target that is suffering -4 to AC, for 2d10 + 12 + 10 damage per hit. None of that is counting bonuses from magic items. So, going with the "10 hits before you miss" benchmark, that's 240-420 damage. Not bad!

Anyway, it's all explained here: www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=227936

I saw something else cool over on the CharOpt forum, which is Fighter multi-classing to get Kensei.

+1 to attacks: nice.
+4 to damage: partial compensation for some of the Pit Fighter loss.
Action Control (re-roll an attack): solid residuum.

With Action Control, so long as you don't need to spend an Action Point to set up your attack, you can double the expected run of hits. That turns the expected run of 20 hits ("miss on a 1") into an expected run of 40 hits.

Cheese, -- N

 

[Mirtek]

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

Unless you're an elf and you have your warpries buddy near you (and I guess a warlord certainly also gets to allow an ally to reroll a 1). Now you can roll three 1 without fear

1) After getting hit by armor splinter the target gets a full round to act before you go again.

No, not of the ranger uses his action point after armor splinter. I wonder if this stacks with other abilities of his pals that also make the target easier to hit

 

[Nifft]

Unless you're an elf and you have your warpries buddy near you (and I guess a warlord certainly also gets to allow an ally to reroll a 1). Now you can roll three 1 without fear

Okay: Elf, Warpriest, and Kensei (and NOT spending an Action Point to do the setup). That's expected damage of 60 attacks. Now we're one-shotting Orcus.

I don't see any Warlord powers which allow a re-roll. Which power were you thinking of there?

Cheers, -- N

 

[AllisterH]

I'd be very careful about houseruling this as the more "stringent" the houserule, the more it punishes the non-optimizer.

For example, the TWF ranger usually has a stat breakdown of STR, DEX, and then equal weight to WIS and CON.