Barbarians seem very effective, too effective?

[Bohemund]

I am running a level 5 party atm that includes both a barbarian and a ranger.

I am with MatthewJHanson on this, the difference is consistency. The barbarian drops huge damage, and, a barbarian with hot dice has the potential to single handedly roll over entire encounter. The ranger keeps doing damage and is susceptible to the fickle winds of fortune.

brassbaboon mentioned a level 9 ranger doing 100+ damage on a turn with actions points and a daily. My last session the level 5 barbarian topped 100 action points on a single turn, with only an encounter power and without using an action point. I am not saying that rangers can't do large amounts of damage, but they don't have the burst hitting power of a barbarian.

The burst damage of a barbarian is huge, and any attempt to calculate dpr which doesn't include the free charge and the extra attacks from crits doesn't give you a fair comparison of the class. In addition, if anyone in your part grants MBAs, the barbarian is going to shine in comparison to the ranger.

 

[brassbaboon]

While I'm here, if anyone has an opinion, I'd like to get some thoughts on how effective other ranger players have found "Spitting Cobra Stance" to be. I've only used it once so far, and wasn't overwhelmed with it, but it was a small encounter.

Also, if anyone else has ever had a spiked chain ranger, how does that compare to the spiked chain expert "Chain Ward" stance, which allows the character to threaten all squares in his reach. I haven't even used that one yet, I've been waiting for the right moment.

I do love the spiked chain. With it's reach ability plus the "exotic fighting style" feat which allows him to shift between twin strikes hits, he is amazingly effective and flexible in combat. I know he could do a bit more damage with other feats and a different weapon, but I love his ability to do just about whatever he wants whenever he wants to whomever he wants. Pretty darn cool character....

 

[Bohemund]

I have seen spitting cobra be quite effective in practice, but, in my experience, it really shines if you have the right party (one in which you can out-shoot your opponents). Chain ward looks amazing and I look forward to hearing how it works for you.

 

[brassbaboon]

Hmm... 100+ damage in a single round with no action point? Our barbarian has never come close to that at level 9. I'll be sure to pass that on since he prides himself on being an expert at the game. I'm assuming something special has to happen for him to get that high, it's not going to happen every time.

Again though, I don't play to be the most awesome damage inflicter. I play to have fun, and so far nobody's complained about the level of damage my ranger does, even if his typical one-encounter power attack is closer to 45 damage than 100+.

I'm pretty comfortable with where I am now. Maybe next campaign I'll go the full optimization route, but I get bored with cookie-cutter characters following published scripts for maximizing everything. I sorta like working this stuff out on my own.

 

[Iron Sky]

I was a tiny bit off on his damage. Here's our barbarian's damage break down on a charge(at level 8):

Howling Strike:
Hit: +15 vs AC.(+6 str, +4 level, +2 proficiency, +2 enhancement, +1 charge)
Damage: 2d6 brutal 1 (Mordenkrad) + 1d6 (Howling Strike) + 1d6 (Horned Helm) + 1d8 (Vanguard Mordenkrad) + 13(+6 str, +2 enhancement, +2 Iron Armbands, +1 Weapon Focus, +2 Powerful Charge). Mounted adds +7(+5 Obsidian Steed bonus, +2 Lancing Gloves).

If he really feels like going all-out, he uses Daring Charge instead(replacing Howling Strike's +1d6 with +2d6 brutal 1) and activates Furious Assault(adding +2d6 brutal 1).
Net total: 6d6 brutal 1 + 1d6 + 1d8 + 13(20 mounted). Average about 43(50). On Crit: 63(70) + 2d8.

The crit is relevant since in the fight where he killed the elite, he did exactly this combination and got a crit, taking the elite from almost full to very bloodied in a hit.


We also have a Wild-magic sorcerer in our group. It should be noted that, though he died in the fight I mentioned before, he killed an elite on his own, as well as doing almost 1/2 the damage to the two elites that survived the fight and escaped.

So, yeah, a well-built Sorcerer can dish out some pretty impressive damage AND can drop a few status conditions (ours seems to get daze, prone, and pushes mostly).

 

[Bohemund]

Hmm... 100+ damage in a single round with no action point? Our barbarian has never come close to that at level 9. I'll be sure to pass that on since he prides himself on being an expert at the game. I'm assuming something special has to happen for him to get that high, it's not going to happen every time.

No, it is not likely at all. Rolling crits. I have see sessions where the bariabn never hits. Rangers are much less likely to miss consistently given the sheer number of attacks they can make. If you want sustained damage, the ranger is your man (or woman).

 

[keterys]

I did a 171 damage round with my barbarian at level 8 (counting the 3 minions as just 1 damage each, even)... it was a bit rude.

Which is an interesting point. Barbarian burst damage is immense, even if their expected damage is reasonable compared to rangers and sorcerers and such. Perhaps too immense.

That and apparently there's just far too much stuff to enhance charges.

 

[brassbaboon]

LOL, I clearly am still a noob at this 4e stuff...

I doubt I would ever create a charge-optimized DPSer though. Maybe it's just my DMs, but I'm pretty sure the opportunities for me to mount my obsidian steed and charge round after round at exposed bosses would last for, maybe, one encounter, and then I'd discover that virtually all of our encounters are occurring in tunnels, in marshes, in small rocky rooms, etc. I suppose there are DMs out there who would cater to such a character, but I haven't played with many of them, lol. I doubt I would BE one of them either.

Even so, beyond all the charge-specific stuff, that's an 8th level barbarian with a str of 22 and enough magic stuff to fill a dragon's treasure chest. Is that even a "legal" character, in the Character builder sense?

My ranger is intentionally built as a "do anything" character. To optimize him for one style of attack that could easily be engineered to uselessness by a bright DM was exactly what I was trying NOT to do. I made the conscious decision that I'd rather be able to do SOME damage in any environment than be made virtually useless with a little terrain, or a particular spell or monster type.

And I think he does OK. He's totally legit according to the Character Builder (and RPGA) rules and has mostly lower level magic items that are useful, but don't synergize into a massive DPS fireball under one or a few circumstances.

For example he has catstep boots because that's what a sneaky half orc raised in a slaver compound would want to have. He's got goggles of the eagle because he needed some help on ranged basic attacks. Etc.

It's probably good that the group I play with isn't a group of hyper-optimizers. They'd probably throw me out.

 

[keterys]

Heh - my 8th barbarian had +2 Reckless and Iron Armbands at the time for possible damage modifiers (so nothing special for magic items). He did it by walking over to a group and doing Come And Get It to gather up 6 or so guys, followed by AP Macetail something (close burst 1 that knocks prone) triggering Rampage which triggered Swift Charge... and I took the 3 OAs and charged someone across the map.

So it was actually a lot less optimized and fairly spread out... but it killed like 4 guys (3 of them minions) and bloodied 2 others, all starting uninjured, and completely gutted the DM's encounter. Like, the other party members were like 'Huh, maybe we should leave and let him finish this up'

 

[brassbaboon]

Keterys, hmmm... using a burst power like "sweeping whirlwind" I'm sure my ranger could rack up some significant damage totals too. All of my damage talk so far has been targeted damage, not burst or aoe damage. Our tank is so good at rounding up the opposition and keeping them where he wants them, I even retrained sweeping whirlwind because I was never getting a chance to do any burst damage, and even if I had, the knockback and knock prone part of that attack would just have pissed off our tank.

So for the most part my ranger is a single-target DPSer now. And yes, when I said he could do 100+ damage in a round with an action point, that was against a single target.

Let me do some quick math.... Using his ninth-level daily, an encounter minor and all of his relevent item bonuses, if he hit with all of his attacks (which isn't that unlikely with a +15 to start, then combat advantage and a +2 item bonus trigger...) he would do, lets see...

6d4 + 12 + d6 + 2d4 (first attack)
6d4 + 12 (second attack)
2d4 + 12 (minor attack)

That's a total of 16d4 + 36 + d6 = ~ 80 damage.

If I trigger my "vengeful spiked chain" on top of that , that would add 3d10, so another 16.5 damage.... So getting pretty close to 97 damage without an action point....

I think he'll do.