Broken things errata'ed, July 2009

[Garthanos]

Dwarves might add Wis to combat challenges (attack and damage) with a feat,

That might be interesting ..... but I am seriously not a Dwarf fan arent they all AXE/Hammer fighters and everyone a BRV candidate.

and Pit Fighter is good, and I believe a couple other feats use Wis. And, with Marked Scourge,

Oh I see paragon path ---- hmmmm ok, with Marked Scourge coming in there it is.. a feat that really brings Wisdom home. Starting out the box it does seem to get much love (unless people are running away) but by Paragon it does seem real nice

Wis is pretty decent for all fighters really.
And Combat Superiority, of course.

If there were a reason for CON to be tertiary, the Tempest build recommends CON as a Tert... but does it actually make compelling use of Wisdom?

I found a feat which makes somewhat intriguing use of Wisdom, ie the Cruel Cut Style. Blade opportunist .. enhancing the benefits of Combat Superiority emphasizing wisdom sort of by proxy.

A cruel cut blade opportunist sort of seems stylish... but I bet at that point you almost really wanted a rogue or ranger hybrid.

(I wonder about tempest style in general, if I want a two weapon fighter that seems what ranger is for, isn't it?)

 

[DracoSuave]

There's one feat for dwarves that add their Wis mod to the damage of all melee basic attacks, and Polearm Gamble is Wisdom-based as well, both in prerequisites, and in that it increases your options with opportunity attacks.

 

[keterys]

Wis is the second most useful stat for all fighters except battleragers, most likely. Not sure what to say beyond that. They're not like the sorcerer who focuses on that second stat to add to damage.

 

[Cadfan]

Basically that means there is a CON focused build but not a WIS focused one.

Eh... the battlerager is a constitution focused build, obviously. Without as much constitution as you can afford, you're screwed.

To a lesser extent the tempest is dexterity focused, because a handful of two weapon attacks use dexterity for bonus damage, and you need those to make use of your entire raison d'etre.

But the weapon talent fighter builds aren't really attached to a stat. In fact, Wisdom is the only stat that always provides some benefit regardless of power choice. A fighter specializing in, say, axes, only needs constitution for feat prerequisites and maybe, somewhere, a power that uses it slightly. Once you've got enough to qualify for whatever feats you care about, there's really no meaningful downside to spreading your points around to qualify for other important feats. Like a few points to qualify for scale armor specialization, for example. Or one of the choicier wisdom based feats.

Actually, if you DO want to make a wisdom-build fighter, Polearm Gambit provides both the reason and the means. Check out the optimization forums at the WotC site for some ideas.

 

[WalterKovacs]

In the previous version, they specifically felt the need to include language that allocated the temp hit points after the attack against the battlerager was resolved. No such language is present here. That may or may not mean something. It may mean they meant for the HPs to be granted immediately after the hit. It may mean there is something in the language of the ability that means something to the author or editor that makes it unnecessary or redundant. It may have been removed due to formatting restraints on reprints.

Well, the reason for the original wording about the thp only coming into play after the attack was fully resolved is to make it clear that it does not mean you gain the thp before taking damage from the attack (and they can't just say after taking damage as there are some attacks that deal no damage, as well as fighter powers that can reduce damage to zero, not to mention resistances and the like that come from items, powers, race that could all make for being "hit for no damage".)

The question is ultimately "when do you get thp from an invigorating power", as basically battlerager gives thp in addition to any thp you would normally get, which would imply you get it at the same time that you woud normally get the thp. The problem of course being that the exact timing has never come up before as it wasn't really that important to know ... as they could be effectively simultaneous without really triggering any special conditions previously.

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Other points:

Basically, the extra damage is split into two things:

(a) Is the change into chain armor worth the slight damage increase? Now, part of this question is going to be how bad does the AC drop matter for your party. For some parties, it may make the fighter a better defender to drop his AC a bit more and make a more tempting target. A chain and heavy shield fighter has the same AC as a plate and two handed weapon fighter basically ... so the damage increase needs to be comparable to wielding a two handed weapon to be worth it (which would require the "gain thp before resolving damage thus getting +1/+2 nearly all the time to make it good).

(b) Is the choice of an axe or hammer a good choice? In this case, it's a valid choice even BEFORE you consider your armor. Yes, you lose out in accuracy. However, you get to use your constitution synergistically with the various fighter powers that work with axes and con. STR/CON also works better for qualifying for the axe/hammer feats. There is Brash Strike that makes up for the attack roll deficiency and gives you extra damage for having the high con. If, for whatever reason, you were fine going in chain, the extra damage from wielding an axe or hammer is just icing on the cake to the other benefits of wielding an axe or hammer.

The chain armor thing seems to be an artifact of what they had originally. The tempest fighter gives up some AC (maybe not, especially if he has a good dex with his hide ... it can be as good as scale easily) to get more damage. The old battlerager not only didn't mind scale as much, they wanted to be easier to hit so they'd be more likely to have thp to use the damage boost. This version is making it easier to lose the thp in order to get a conditional bonus that requires he keeps the thp.

 

[WalterKovacs]

On the subject of the wisdom for fighters thing, a battlerager fighter would do well to invest at least a 14 into wisdom to start off, because qualifying for Uncanny Dodge at paragon tier improves brash strike. There are a number of powers (utility and attacks) that take your wisdom modifier into account as a fighter, and unlike dex or con, those powers are generally neutral in terms of weapon type. So while con = hammer and axe while dex = blade, spear and flail; wisdom is pretty much weapon netural (except for the polearm gamble feat ... which works nicely with Uncanny Dodge as well ...)

 

[Garthanos]

A fighter specializing in, say, axes, only needs constitution for feat prerequisites and maybe, somewhere, a power that uses it slightly..

An axe fighter who isnt also a con heavy BRV? are you sure about that... Con is one that I thought I seen enough feats or powers boosting axes based on it that well by the time you said I was building an axe fighter or hammer fighter ... the con/brv build became THE course of action.

I would say the BRV build isnt about weapon tying its about a form of defense. (so I dont really get why they put in axe hammer limit on the damage bonus)

A wisdom build fighter might also use it for defense ...Call the feature Battlefocus focuses on ;-) noticing attacks and attack plans based on your enemies body language. (because you have to be able to see the enemy well it could be limited to non ranged attacks - arggghh ). Wisdom as the bearer of discipline sounds like a power reuse specialty sneaking in too. Another shtick you might see from a wisdom build... ignoring of various impairing effects and similar distraction are put aside. It could be something like allowing one to ignore an effect till next round.

 

[Victim]

An axe fighter who isnt also a con heavy BRV? are you sure about that... Con is one that I thought I seen enough feats or powers boosting axes based on it that well by the time you said I was building an axe fighter or hammer fighter ... the con/brv build became THE course of action.

I would say the BRV build isnt about weapon tying its about a form of defense. (so I dont really get why they put in axe hammer limit on the damage bonus)

Axes feats need less CON than say Hammer ones - there's nothing like the CON mod miss damage on Hammer Rhythm. They do tend to use CON as a secondary stat on powers.

So, yeah, CON is somewhat important. But they can easily go with a more even spread of spread of secondary stats (or put more weight on STR) and still have enough CON to get all the Axe stuff.

 

[Cadfan]

An axe fighter who isnt also a con heavy BRV? are you sure about that... Con is one that I thought I seen enough feats or powers boosting axes based on it that well by the time you said I was building an axe fighter or hammer fighter ... the con/brv build became THE course of action.

I'm not knocking the battlerager vigor fighter with an ax.

But if you go with an executioner's axe and the greatweapon fighter talent, or if you go with an axe and a shield and the weapon talent, you really don't need a lot of constitution.

The highest con feat prereq is, I believe, axe mastery. It requires 17 constitution. Lets assume you want an 18 by the end of your career, and a 17 at the start of epic tier. That just requires you to start with a 14 and bump it twice, or a 16 and never bump it, leaving you with 4 to 6 discretionary points to place wherever you like.

Now maybe you'll want to put those into constitution to get even more healing surges, or to mildly improve some of the powers that deal additional damage equal to your constitution modifier on a hit with an axe. Or to take Invigorating powers.

But you might also want to put those points into wisdom to get some of the wisdom based feats, or to improve your opportunity attacks, or to boost your will defense (since con won't help your fort due to your higher strength overwhelming it).

Or really, you could put them mostly anywhere. Even dexterity has its advantages, since it improves a languishing reflex defense, boosts initiative and improves several important physical skills.

 

[Garthanos]

Axes feats need less CON than say Hammer ones - there's nothing like the CON mod miss damage on Hammer Rhythm. They do tend to use CON as a secondary stat on powers.

OK I guess I was thinking of the hammer feats not the axe ones, now that BRV will more rarely see his bonus for using an Axe or a Hammer it actually loosens up the connection, is it weird that I consider that a positive thing.

Thanks guys for the help absorbing impact of the errata