Battlerager: Experiences?

[Krensus]

The Battlerager is not a terrible defender if you outfit him correctly. I have a 5 Dwarf Battlerager that uses a shield and has an impressive amount of defender feats/powers like Shield Push, Devoted Defender, and Shield Bash. He pretty much can't get hurt and deals sick damage with a Crag Hammer, which means marked enemies will always attack him for fear of him doing striker-equivalent damage.

If your players want to play the variant as an alternate Barbarian with a huge 2hander, that's one option, but don't count this option out as a viable defender.

 

[Rechan]

So, do you think that invigorating powers are worth taking if you're not a battlerager (and therefore can't stack the Temp HP with any other temp HP)?

 

[Mengu]

So, do you think that invigorating powers are worth taking if you're not a battlerager (and therefore can't stack the Temp HP with any other temp HP)?

Depends on the build. If you already have a relatively high Con (whatever the reason), and have not focused on other abilities that give temporary hitpoints, they are certainly good powers. Combining a regeneration power with an at-will attack that gives you temporary hit points as a dragonborn lets you safely stay bloodied for a good while. Or if I was playing a half-elf warlord, I'd certainly consider crushing surge as a diletante power.

 

[Pickles JG]

The Battlerager is not a terrible defender if you outfit him correctly. I have a 5 Dwarf Battlerager that uses a shield and has an impressive amount of defender feats/powers like Shield Push, Devoted Defender, and Shield Bash. He pretty much can't get hurt and deals sick damage with a Crag Hammer, which means marked enemies will always attack him for fear of him doing striker-equivalent damage.

If your players want to play the variant as an alternate Barbarian with a huge 2hander, that's one option, but don't count this option out as a viable defender.

Are you having a laugh? The issue is that he is stupid overpowered - "pretty much cant get hurt", "deals sick damage" not that he is in some way a poor defender.

 

[Lancelot]

Are you having a laugh? The issue is that he is stupid overpowered - "pretty much cant get hurt", "deals sick damage" not that he is in some way a poor defender.

I think it's a bit of both, really. He's a poor defender because he's "stupid overpowered".

Given my experiences (outlined earlier in the thread), I'll admit the battlerager is an excellent defender, if there are lots of chokepoints on the map, or he can mark multiple targets, or if the DM just chucks all the (non-ranged) foes at the defender. He's an excellent defender because it's nearly impossible to kill the blighter.

...which in turn makes him a terrible defender, because any half-smart DM/monster quickly figures out the only way to challenge the 'rager is to sic all the artillery on him, while the melee creatures run around him (even if they take some punishment) to whack his softer buddies.

I'm all for tough defenders. The paladin is a tough defender. Heck, fighters and wardens are tough defenders. But the 'rager makes the others look like a joke in terms of durability... and is giving up very little to do so.

 

[Dr_Sage]

Sage´s Battlerager

We gamed last weekend and we had our first "big boss" encounter: a white dragon.

My character is a dwarf battlerager with 18 con.

The fight lasted for 12 rounds and I have translated my HP to a sheet and analized it using 3 parameters:


*****************************
- BV: Passive temporary HP granted by getting hit by melee/close attack, with only the Battlerager Fighter has.

- Fg: Regular fighter survival powers/features: Comeback Strike, Second Wind, Crushing Surge (yes , every fighter can use it).

- Help: Healing granted by my conrades, like the Healing words from the cleric.


I have started the fight with 50 HP and ended with 13 HP, and I took around 150 damage during the fight, being healed/supported by these:

BV: 44 hp

Fg: 42 hp (+ 50 normal max hp) => edit: added the normal max HP to keep in line with the calculations.

Help: 32 hp



Considering the encounter as highly beneficial to my character tactics (enemy used melee/close attacks), I felt lI have done a good job, except that my AC served to nothing.

My conclusions?

The battlerager vigor contribuited with aproximately 25% of my survival capacity (44 / {44+42+32+50}), meaning I lasted aproximately 3 rounds more tham I would If I were not a battlerager. Of course I am comparing apples to apples, not apples to oranges.

I should add that I have missed almost ALL of my attacks, so the monster would have fallen earlier if I wasan' t using my build (less 2 points on attack, compared to a regular strenght build fighter). And we must consider that I could have hit more invigorating powers as well (trust me.. I missed all but one of my Crushing Surges).

So in my honest opinion its the best heavy constitution "tank" build, but its not unbalanced.

PS: People tend to ignore that the "Fg" factor that i mentioned above is NOT a battlerager exclusive feature, but its avaiable to all fighters.

I hope that helps.


Cheers!

 

[Mengu]

This past weekend our battlerager took on wave after wave of skeletons (both minions and not) and gnolls, sweating just a little bit here and there, but did not need any healing from the rest of the party. With Boundless Endurance and a constant stream of temporary hit points, he simply would not go down. The rest of the party was quaffing potions of healing right and left, trying to survive while we slugged our way to our objective through enemy defenses. The Battlerager's durability was simply leaps and bounds ahead of the rest of the party.

 

[Dr_Sage]

Just to make it clear

This past weekend our battlerager took on wave after wave of skeletons (both minions and not) and gnolls, sweating just a little bit here and there, but did not need any healing from the rest of the party. With Boundless Endurance and a constant stream of temporary hit points, he simply would not go down. The rest of the party was quaffing potions of healing right and left, trying to survive while we slugged our way to our objective through enemy defenses. The Battlerager's durability was simply leaps and bounds ahead of the rest of the party.

Just to keep in line with my previous post: boundless endurance is avaiable to all fighters, its not a BR feature. And it ONLY activates if the fighter is Bloodied, so in my opinion he was hurt and sweat.

I have been noticing that many features that the "heavy constitution fighter build" have been mentioned here, but I suggest we keep track of them separately for the sake of fairness.

Just my 2 cents.

 

[Lord Sessadore]

An appreciated detailed analysis of a fight.

Thank you for your analysis, it`s good to see some actual numbers.

However, I don`t think it proves that the battlerager is ok. I think it does the opposite. Just look at the numbers: BRV added more durability than either fighter powers or outside healing, and that is with Invigorating powers lumped in with the fighter powers. BRV alone accounted for nearly 40% of the HP increases you recieved in that fight. To me, that isn`t a fair trade for +1 to hit. Also, most of the non-BRV durability also costs surges, which increases the effectiveness of BRV.

+1 to hit increases your hit chance by 5%. If you hit 50% of the time without the +1, that means that you hit about 10% more often, so you do approximately 10% more damage. That means your 12 round fight might have ended a round earlier - you weren`t the only combatant, so the fight time won`t decrease by 10%. You traded that for a 25% boost in durability, which by your own admission let you survive about an extra 3 rounds, and with no extra cost in surges for that durability. Not a fair trade, if you ask me.

(Not trying to jump you, Sage. Just giving my view on the numbers. )

 

[Dr_Sage]

(Not trying to jump you, Sage. Just giving my view on the numbers. )

No problem at all. I agree that the "+1" is not a fair trade, but them we should discuss the Tempest as well that actually KEEP the "+1", get to use 2 weapons AND and receives bonus damage all in one package .

As I said, I agree that its the best build for tanks right now. I just think its balanced and I have added my 50 Base HP (which is also a basic high-con fighter feature) to make the math clearer.

And lets remmember was the best kind of encounter for the BR (all melee and close attacks).

PS: I am extremely unlucky with dice actually, so maybe I am not the best statistical example. My character hits pretty hard when the dice decides to help. I think I hit 2 times total: 1 crushing surge and 1 comeback strike. I suck with dice... the ranger has the same bonus as me (+6) and she kept piercing the dragon.

What I meant is: with +2 to hit and a couple of invigorating powers maybe the dragon would have fell earlier... maybe not. We will never know.

I hope that helps... I will try to keep the numbers comming if you guys want more.