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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mengu" data-source="post: 5096285" data-attributes="member: 65726">I see what people are saying with Expertise being a choice, and that adjusting the game math is in the hands of the DM, as they determine the difficulty of encounter, and encounter compositions. But it is a choice that simply trumps so many others, that it pushes itself in front of other feats. Before Expertise came along, Nimble Blade was a fantastic feat. However Expertise is clearly better, and should be taken before Nimble Strike since it applies to every attack. You look at the plethora of feats that give a conditional +1 attack bonus (Combat Reflexes, Arcane Spellfury, Oncoming Storm, Coordinated Explosion, Reckless Curse, Prime Strike, Resonating Covenant, Strong Willed Summoning... it's a very long list), and Expertise trumps every single one of them. At level 15, it trumps all the conditional +2 attack bonus feats.So if a character is planning on spending one feat on boosting accuracy, it will be Expertise. As tactically important as it is to land encounter and daily powers, I can't really come up with a good reason why one would make the choice to not boost their chances to hit.Let's not call it a feat tax, because it's not really required to make a character function in his role. You can still hit without Expertise albeit less often. And if all you care about is soaking up damage, then maybe you don't care about hitting anything, fine. Something that is necessary for a character to play their primary or secondary role would be considered more of a feat tax. For instance for Rageblood Barbarians who are supposed to be secondary role defenders, Hide Armor Expertise sure feels like a feat tax. For many Hybrids, Hybrid Talent is a feat tax for them to function at all (and this tax is clearly intentional).Expertise is maybe not a feat tax, but it's a feat that's very difficult to pass up for many characters, and it's a feat that can change a sizable accuracy difference between characters (say a 20 dex halfling rogue with dagger and a 16 strength dwarf warden with an axe have 4 points of attack bonus difference), into something unsurmountable at epic (7 points of attack bonus difference if the warden won't take expertise).Call it tax, or not tax, Expertise is simply not a good feat on it's own. In games I run or play, I prefer if it is either disallowed, or given for free. Otherwise, I'll just pick it up before level 6, and call it a day, but I also will not play a character who relies on multiple weapons, or a weapon and an implement in such a game.</blockquote>

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