Mad Hamish
First Post
BA is still one of the best PPs there is for sure. The level 16 Battle Surge feature may not sound too exciting, but remember, you have Prime Shot and Defensive Mobility automatically. The whole idea of BA is you get right in the enemy's faces and fight from point-blank range. This also makes the multi-quarry nice since it will be easy to slap it on various opponents. Remember, you should have a pretty sick AC what with your nice 20 starting DEX that you did remember to take...![]()
One of the big factors is that you commonly want to be close.
With feats like
Called Shot + 5 Damage versus Prime Shot Targets
Improved Prime Shot
being closest to the enemy is huge
My level 30 BattleField Archer would commonly have AC 55 versus opportunity attacks
(45 Base, +2 Defensive Mobility, +5 action point bonus, +3 from Predator's Hide) and concealment against the quarry and as a daily item power that went to total concealment for the encounter after a milestone.
With the total concealment Orcus didn't crit against me on a natural 20 on an opportunity attack and I got +39 to hit against him (Improved Prime shot, Quarried, most commonly had combat advantage (flanking or distance advantage) so I hit him on a 9 or better without combat advantage or 7 or better with it.
It meant I took some attacks opening up for punishment from the defenders but he didn't do a lot of damage to me and it boosted my damage significantly with +5 damage on each attack...
Now when he attack Fortitude it wasn't fun but that was going to be the case unless I went back a long way which increased pressure on defenders and the str cleric leader and reduced my chance of hitting and damage significantly.
Battlefield Archer is still IMO the best choice for a ranged archer build