Battle Engineer for Avengers?

[TarionzCousin]

Hey, what about the Cleric PP from PHB 1 "Angelic Avenger"?

Spend an AP to get +4 to hit.
Damage bloodied enemies within 5 squares with your chosen energy, damage equal to your Charisma bonus.
Gain proficiency with the Heavy Blade.
Gain combat advantage for you and your allies when you are bloodied.

L11 Power: 2d8 + Wisdom damage, each enemy with burst 8
L12 Power: Enemies gain a -2 to attack rolls vs. you until the end of the encounter or you are bloodied
L20 Power: 5[W] and fly (hover) until the end of the encounter.

I might have to go this route with my Deva Unity Avenger.

 

[Obryn]

Problem is, standard character starting above 1st level gets three items and some cash for sundries. In addition to a weapon, a character needs armor and a necktie. If you throw in an implement, something's gotta give. I suppose you can just resign yourself to having lousy NAD's and cheap out on the necktie.

You get cash for a Level-1 item. If you're fine getting an implement of one lower +, it will cost somewhere in the neighborhood of 20% of that cash. Really, that's not a huge deal. I'd still rather have a ranged At-Will for those sticky situations.

Or, you could always go with a Weapon/Implement. Divine characters have several to pick from. None of them are particularly ideal for avengers, but the rare Mordenkrad avenger will love that Crusader's Hammer.

-O

 

[mneme]

Actually, for a paragon Deva Avenger, a Weapon of Oaths Fulfilled is a fine weapon/Implement -- if not the stupidness that a Radiant Weapon starts becoming in Paragon and becomes in Epic.

 

[Felon]

Felon: why assume we're talking about characters starting above 1st level? Isn't that the exceptional case?

Well, I was talking about my character and he is starting above 1st-level. IME, that's not exceptional. The considered opinion of the folks I game with is that tarting at first level is strictly for nubs learning the basics. OTOH, in a lot of threads where people post builds, they regard epic-level characters as if they were commonplace, and that's also not my experience. YMMV.

I disagree about the Avenger melee at-wills. Leading Strike is a nice leaderish at-will; Overwhelming Strike is lovely and can be a basic attack with Power of Skill. Focused Fury is a trap, but you don't have to take it, so that's ok.

Personally, I play a striker to strike, and avenger melee at-wills don't really confer that. I don't care about giving out damage bonuses as much as I do receiving them, so Leading Strike doesn't blow my skirt up. Shuffling a foe with Overwhelming Strike is useful, but nothing to write home about. And you don't seem to be raving about Focused Fury, so that's that.

 

[Felon]

You get cash for a Level-1 item. If you're fine getting an implement of one lower +, it will cost somewhere in the neighborhood of 20% of that cash. Really, that's not a huge deal. I'd still rather have a ranged At-Will for those sticky situations.

Maybe. At least Versatile Expertise has made that a "maybe" instead of "too much hassle". There are some nice boots and belts and whatnot I want as well.

Or, you could always go with a Weapon/Implement. Divine characters have several to pick from. None of them are particularly ideal for avengers, but the rare Mordenkrad avenger will love that Crusader's Hammer.

Well, I did talk about the whole axe/hammer thing a bit.

 

[Lancelot]

Hey, what about the Cleric PP from PHB 1 "Angelic Avenger"?

Spend an AP to get +4 to hit.
Damage bloodied enemies within 5 squares with your chosen energy, damage equal to your Charisma bonus.
Gain proficiency with the Heavy Blade.
Gain combat advantage for you and your allies when you are bloodied.

L11 Power: 2d8 + Wisdom damage, each enemy with burst 8
L12 Power: Enemies gain a -2 to attack rolls vs. you until the end of the encounter or you are bloodied
L20 Power: 5[W] and fly (hover) until the end of the encounter.

I might have to go this route with my Deva Unity Avenger.

Not bad, but I prefer Radiant Servant or Warpriest. The Angelic Avenger AP is less useful than bonus damage (...as avengers already hit more frequently than most classes). The Cha power is useless for a Wis/Int build. The CA-when-bloodied ability is kind of dangerous to count on, and actually works against the L12 power. The L11 power is awesome as a minion clearer, but less "game-changing" than the Warpriest or Radiant Servant L11's. Which really just leaves the L20... which, admittedly, is the hot sauce. 5[W] and hover is hella impressive... but the rest just doesn't match up.

Heh. Nice zing on Iron Man, though.

 

[mneme]

I am bemused that nobody's commented on the idea in the topic.

Felon: I find it a lot more fun to play characters from first level rather than building them/playing them at higher levels. More accomplishment, and the low levels are more dangerous and hella fun.

Avengers really do have a paucity of MOAR DAMAGE at wills -- but then, the class is conceived as striker with a large does of controller, rather than the kind of striker that a ranger is. I'll note that every censure is intended as a control mechanism (except for Unity, maybe), even if you can quasi-abuse Retribution with resistance and playstyle. I will frequently go through fights (at 10th level) without using any at-wills other than charging -- as charging -is- the "more damage" at will for Retribution Avengers, for a feat; you get +1 to hit, +Int to damage for two turns for every foe that hits you during the charge...it's all upside as long as you don't have minor action moves you were planning on making and don't make the mistake of provoking from a monster that can drop conditions on an OA.

 

[Herschel]

Personally, I play a striker to strike, and avenger melee at-wills don't really confer that. I don't care about giving out damage bonuses as much as I do receiving them, so Leading Strike doesn't blow my skirt up.

This sounds....well, selfish, misguided and like poor team play to me. In my mind, Leading Strike is damage I cause. Just because the "extra" is applied to someone else's roll is irrelevent as that damage would not be there without me, and makes the defender (or leader) feel like a rock star. It's also static when they hit vs. an actual d6 roll like Howling Strike (or sneak attack/quarry/whatever). It's win-win.

 

[mneme]

Hershel, the problem with Leading Strike (and why I've never managed to use it yet, in about 3 sessions of play since I retrained to it at 10th level...no, I've used it once, I think) is that it's very conditional:

1. You have to hit.
2. There has to be an ally adjacent to you or the target.
3. The monster has to survive to their turn.
4. They have to hit.
5. If the extra damage would have been enough to take down the monster on your attack, it's completely wasted on their attack.

The result, given that set, means that Leading Strike with an Int bonus of, say, +4 does a hell of a lot less extra damage than 1d6 -- even if you assume that there's always , it's closer to 2 extra damage (and +1.5 dpr, wheras a d6 would be +2.62 dpr for an Avenger with her oath on). This is why I think that Greater Magic Weapon (+Wis or Con to hit and damage to all adjacent allies for 1 round as an effect, and an Int+3 2W weapon attack) is an amazing encounter power, even for a "striker", wheras Leading Strike is..ok. I'll probably retrain back to Overwhelming Strike when I get a chance; the shift/slide does more damage than that enough of the time to matter.

 

[Lancelot]

I am bemused that nobody's commented on the idea in the topic.

Sorry; part of the difficulty was that I didn't recognize the specific PP you were talking about (you didn't mention artificer in your original post, and I don't play in Eberron), so was only responding to the bits I knew about. i.e. the general suckitude of the avenger PPs...

After reading up a bit about artificers and their PPs, I think you could be onto something... but it's a tough decision. The powers rawk. Seriously. My jaw nearly unhinged when I saw the L12 utility. +5 (say) damage for the encounter, and ongoing 10 on a crit? Yes please. The L11 and L20 are very nice as well.

...but the class abilities are kinda weak. The ally-buffing powers are going to very limited (really only usable on the L11) unless you multi heavily into artificer, and my experience is that avengers just don't have the feat slots to spend. That leaves the AP ability, which is certainly nice... but is going to get eaten alive by the Radiant Servant and Warpriest AP abilities.

Again, for me, it comes down to the comparison vs Radiant Servant. The Battle Engineer powers are unquestionably superior (unless fighting a lot of undead and demons), but the Radiant Servant class abilities of 19-20 crit on radiant powers (including the at-will Bond of Retribution and Radiant Vengeance), and the AP ability to place ongoing [level] damage on a target (no attack roll required)... that's some serious striker power.

Still, personal preference and all. I'd certainly agree that Battle Engineer is better than the Avenger PPs...