Can you throw a handaxe without training in any ranged weapon style?

[DracoSuave]

what encounter powers I can steal from Barbarian for heavy thrown weapons. It sucks that rangers get really sub-optimal Heavy Thrown attacks. Quick Throw is kind of...why?

If they're gonna support heavy thrown weaponry they need to...you know, support it. I don't even know of a single class that actually favors this fighting style in a good way (using Str as the attack stat).

Because originally, heavy thrown weapons were not meant as a primary combat style.

Strength-primary characters, until recently, had only melee attacks to choose from. However, fighters and str-paladins occasionally need to mark from a distance, with an enemy they can't close against. Without a ranged attack, a paladin's mark will fall off (if he could get adjacent, he wouldn't resort to a ranged attack) and a fighter can't mark at all.

Enter the Heavy Thrown weapon. Its damage? Poor. Its not meant to be a good weapon that does a lot of tricks, it's just a utility tool for those rare occasions that you need one.

Is it a sub-par option? Yes. Because its not there to be good, it's there to be the go-to option for characters that are subpar at range.

As for it being supported? Well, hunter style and marauder style rangers can use it well, and seekers have a build based on thrown weapons. There is support for them as a combat option. Barbarians, however, aren't designed around this sort of combat. They're strict melee characters, and their ranged attack starts with ch and ends in arge.

 

[WalterKovacs]

Because originally, heavy thrown weapons were not meant as a primary combat style.

Strength-primary characters, until recently, had only melee attacks to choose from. However, fighters and str-paladins occasionally need to mark from a distance, with an enemy they can't close against. Without a ranged attack, a paladin's mark will fall off (if he could get adjacent, he wouldn't resort to a ranged attack) and a fighter can't mark at all.

Enter the Heavy Thrown weapon. Its damage? Poor. Its not meant to be a good weapon that does a lot of tricks, it's just a utility tool for those rare occasions that you need one.

Is it a sub-par option? Yes. Because its not there to be good, it's there to be the go-to option for characters that are subpar at range.

As for it being supported? Well, hunter style and marauder style rangers can use it well, and seekers have a build based on thrown weapons. There is support for them as a combat option. Barbarians, however, aren't designed around this sort of combat. They're strict melee characters, and their ranged attack starts with ch and ends in arge.

To be fair, thrown weapons were not just as a ranged option for str based melee characters who can't reach something with a charge (mostly flyers or while immobilized, etc), they were also for mixed characters (dual wield rangers, artificers, etc) who have both ranged weapon and melee weapon attacks which means they don't have to invest in multiple weapons, etc.

One of the Barbarian builds (dual wield) does work well with the Hurl Weapon feat, but it doesn't really have anything in the class to support it. Other than the Ranger, the Warlord is the only class to have any strength based ranged weapon attacks, while other classes support thrown weapons, but use different primary stats (Dex for most ranger powers and the seeker, Int for artificer, etc)

 

[DracoSuave]

Moreover, for the majority of non-essentials players, the ability to make a ranged basic attack worth a damn is such a minor deal that 'this counts as a ranged basic attack' was barely worth caring about on implement powers. Most characters who cared about ranged attacks took an at-will to do so.