Avenger Experience?

[Herschel]

I shifted one square and was still able to hit him (reach weapon) because the Invoker had him slowed.

Huh, an actual instance where a reach weapon was okay. I'd still rather get adjacent so I can roll the attack twice in most cases, even if it means an opportunity attack against the defensive build. Plus, there's a bunch of teleport powers for the Avenger that come in mighty handy for just such a case.

I hate lowering my chance to actually hit the darned thing.

 

[Ktulu]

Huh, an actual instance where a reach weapon was okay. I'd still rather get adjacent so I can roll the attack twice in most cases, even if it means an opportunity attack against the defensive build. Plus, there's a bunch of teleport powers for the Avenger that come in mighty handy for just such a case.

I hate lowering my chance to actually hit the darned thing.

huh...I misread that. I thought it was worded "no other enemy is adjacent to you" not "you're adjacent to only one enemy"...

Soo...yeah, don't do the polearm Avenger...you'll come up short.


Thanks for the heads up Hersch. Dont' know how I missed that.

 

[occam]

I've been playing a Pursuit Avenger. The bonus damage almost never happens. The double roll to attack happens almost always. That doesn't necessarily mean that the bonus damage isn't useful- part of the reason it never happens is because enemies fear it. If I engage a spellcaster or an archer, there's at least a chance that they'll forego their best attacks, which would require provoking OAs or shifting back to attack and provoking my bonus damage, in favor of attacking with weaker melee or close attacks. The fact that my opponent is fighting with a second choice attack in order to avoid the bonus damage means that my bonus is doing its job.

My (limited) experience echoes this. In three combats with an avenger, I got extra damage from censure of pursuit once, I think. But it made opponents consider whether to move away or see if they could take what I had to dish out. And the double attack roll is wicked good, and gets used all the time. An avenger is about hitting more often, not necessarily hitting harder.

When your oathed target does decide to move away, it behooves you to have a good movement rate, so you can get right back up in his grill. I would think an elf might make an ideal pursuing avenger.

 

[Storminator]

When your oathed target does decide to move away, it behooves you to have a good movement rate, so you can get right back up in his grill. I would think an elf might make an ideal pursuing avenger.

When I statted up an Avenger I made an Elf and gave him him Fast Runner, Powerful Charge and Invigorating Pursuit. Grab the power that can be used as a charge...

Lots of high speed running around and pounding on things when he gets there. At least I hope.

PS

 

[My Lego]

The funny thing with the avenger is that the censure has to trigger every turn or you are doing less damage then any other striker out there. If it triggers you are doing on par with the encounter powers and with your at wills you will be doing a little bit more compared to the Barbarian.

Compared to a ranger or rogue you will be doing about the same amount of damage with an at will if the the censure triggers. For all these cases I am assuming the avenger gets to use the oath.

Really it looks like the CoP Avenger is assumed to be triggering its censure about as often as a rogue is getting CA. Otherwise you will be doing substantially less damage.

 

[Snotboy]

The funny thing with the avenger is that the censure has to trigger every turn or you are doing less damage then any other striker out there. If it triggers you are doing on par with the encounter powers and with your at wills you will be doing a little bit more compared to the Barbarian.

Compared to a ranger or rogue you will be doing about the same amount of damage with an at will if the the censure triggers. For all these cases I am assuming the avenger gets to use the oath.

Really it looks like the CoP Avenger is assumed to be triggering its censure about as often as a rogue is getting CA. Otherwise you will be doing substantially less damage.

I suppose it could be considered a tradeoff between damage and utility, however. Whereas rangers and rogues are getting more raw damage, Avengers could provide their own slant on controlling their target, or even the battlefield, dependent on which Censure they take. This is only off the top of my head, though. It can be argued that the best way to control an enemy is by killing it.

 

[Cadfan]

The funny thing with the avenger is that the censure has to trigger every turn or you are doing less damage then any other striker out there. If it triggers you are doing on par with the encounter powers and with your at wills you will be doing a little bit more compared to the Barbarian.

Compared to a ranger or rogue you will be doing about the same amount of damage with an at will if the the censure triggers. For all these cases I am assuming the avenger gets to use the oath.

Really it looks like the CoP Avenger is assumed to be triggering its censure about as often as a rogue is getting CA. Otherwise you will be doing substantially less damage.

Its not about damage, its about expected damage per round. Expected damage per round is based on both damage and accuracy.

If you do the math, Avenger damage per round with at wills is very similar to damage per round for other striker classes.

Here's a spreadsheet that calculations average damage per round for rangers and avengers given set in puts and assuming that the ranger uses twin strike while the avenger gets his oath bonus. I input starter values so that it would be more clear how the fields work. The starter values are a level 1 ranger with twin bastard swords, and a level 1 avenger with an executioner's axe, assuming that the ranger hits on a 9+, and the avenger on a 10+ (due to lower proficiency bonus).

The Avenger actually wins this lineup.

Heaven only knows how things change if you start messing with it and advancing the characters by level. Rangers double benefit from enhancement bonuses, but Avengers double benefit from accuracy bonuses. And Avengers have a lot of routes to improve things other than damage, like armor class, which aren't available to Rangers, so of course this sort of straight up damage comparison is only part of the story. Plus once in a while an Avenger DOES get that bonus damage that I've neglected.

You can add magical weapons to this chart, but for the record it assumes that whatever magical weapons the ranger has will have equal damage and critical values, and I don't feel like changing it to accomodate multiples because I'm bored now.

The document was originally created as a .odf, so I'm blaming any errors in it on the transcription to .xls for upload.

 

[Mithreinmaethor]

I have thought about taking the "Bravo" multiclass feat from Dragon #373 for my Avenger.

Anyone else looked at this?

 

[My Lego]

Its not about damage, its about expected damage per round. Expected damage per round is based on both damage and accuracy.

If you do the math, Avenger damage per round with at wills is very similar to damage per round for other striker classes.

Thank you for the file. The thing is that assuming the ranger and avenger both take superior weapons, find appropriate items and take weapon focus the ranger comes out on top unless the avenger has it's censure damage. If the avenger on the other hand gets censure damage it does more damage then the ranger and is closer to a rogue. (The rogue with CA on the other hand out damages both the avenger and the ranger by quite a bit)

I may have missed something and if so please tell me.

Edit: The thing is that avengers (CoP especially) would be fine if they had a way of triggering the CoP damage. CA is right now way WAY easier to get the CoP is, CA would be on par with triggering the oath double roll. In my opinion a at will that forces the enemy to run or face a penalty if they don't is something that is sorely lacking from the class. Also a clause that says you can't trigger censure damage more then once per round. One final thing, increased accuracy help other classes more then they help the avenger, even without the rangers double attack feature.

View attachment Basic Ranger_Avenger comp_update.xls

 

[cmbarona]

Quick nitpick:

The word is "Censure," which means a strong expression of disapproval; close in definition to "rebuke."

Not "Censor," which is someone who prohibits offensive material from being released to the public.