Feat pickin' time!

[Dannyalcatraz]

Ah, the wonderful imprecision of the Internet!

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Any opinions on:

Bludgeon Expertise
+1 Feat Bonus to hammer/mace att rolls (+2 at 11th, +3 at 21st), as well as +1 Feat Bonus to push/slides with hammers/maces.

or:

Rod Expertise
+1 Feat Bonus to implement att rolls you make with Rods (+2 at 11th, +3 at 21st), as well as +1 Shield bonus to AC & Ref

The former synergizes with Eldrritch Strike well, and the latter boosts attacks and 2 of my defenses, including the AC I've been whining about.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Hey, all!

I'm playing Magnus Skyhammer, a Dwarf Starlock/Psion who just hit 6th level (on his way to being a Dreamwalker) and I'm having a bit of trouble deciding on his feat.

My choices are:

1) Focused Talent: Shaper (PSP p141): Minor Creation & Shaped Consciousness as Daily powers. Appeals to me very much from a RP perspective, but isn't the strongest from a mechanics view.

2) Melee Training PHB2 p187/HotFL p316: Choose ability other than Str- make MBAs w/proficient weapon using that stat's bonus for Att rolls & 1/2 bonus for damage. A very dwarfy feat, and could come in handy- we just did a stretch of 6 encounters without an extended rest, and Magnus spent some nontrivial time on the front line...and not for the first time. Anything that helps in this regard would be valuable.

3) Sacrifice to Caiphon (DMA p50): if you miss all targets of a Warlock Encounter power, take damage equal to the power's level to recover the power. Tasty & powerful, but as a multiclassed PC, he won't have as many Warlock encounter powers as would be typical for his class.

4) Durable PHB1 p194: +2 Healing Surges. See my notes on Melee training.

5) Toughness PHB p201: gain +5HP per tier. See my notes on Melee training.

So, what do you ENWorlders think?

Eldritch Strike entirely removes any need for Melee Expertise. Retrain for it ASAP I think.

For dwarfy feats rather than Durable or Toughness I'd recommend Superior Fortitude or Superior Will from essentials - each gets you a +2 bonus to your NAD in question (which rises by 1/tier) and has a rider. Superior Fortitude gives you resist 3 against all ongoing damage, whereas Superior Will gives you a save at the start of your turn against any dazing or stunning effect. (You need a stat of 15+ for the relevant save to take them).

But seriously, if you don't have an expertise feat get one now. Everything else is a luxury compared to that.

There's also Hidden Sniper which will give you combat advantage with ranged attacks when you have concealment. (Which of course never happens to Warlocks with Shadow Walk...)

And familiars are good.

 

[Ferghis]

Any opinions on:

Bludgeon Expertise
+1 Feat Bonus to hammer/mace att rolls (+2 at 11th, +3 at 21st), as well as +1 Feat Bonus to push/slides with hammers/maces.

The weapon type expertise feats, sadly, only apply "... to weapon attack rolls..." This means that while you can use it for eldritch strike, the bonus will not apply to any implement attacks, unless your DM considers your pact blade's property to turn all your implement attacks into weapon attacks as well.

 

[Ferghis]

There's also Hidden Sniper which will give you combat advantage with ranged attacks when you have concealment. (Which of course never happens to Warlocks with Shadow Walk...)

This is a pretty valuable feat for Warlocks.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Thanks- got HS already! Quite useful. It's like it was MADE for Starlocks/Feylocks.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Anyone thrilled by Versatile Expertise?

 

[Dr_Ruminahui]

If you plan to continue going rod and warhammer, versitile expertise is great in that it allows you to do both with one feat.

That said, at your level its only +1 to hit, meaning that expertise feats aren't essential (unlike when you hit paragon). The added bonuses (+1 push, +1 AC) from the individual feats are certainly very nice... when you have more feats, those bonuses may be worth getting both instead of the "all-in-one" but more bland versitile expertise.

Has versitile expertise been errataed to give the bonus at the same levels as the other feats? As of printing, you got it half a tier (so, +2 at 15 rather than 11) behind the more recent expertise feats.

I guess it boils down to "is +1 to hit to (practically) everything better than what some other feat can give me?"

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Well, my main problem with 4Ed feats is that Multiclassing sucks them all up. This means there are lots I'd love to take, but can't because I need them for swapping powers.

My wish list includes Focused Talent, DWT, StC, Bludgeon Expertise, Rod Expertise, Disciple of Stone, some kind of better armor proficiency...but I'm losing at least 5 feats just to make the Psionic portion of this PC functional. (The same would basically be true if he were a Psion multiclassed into Starlock.)

 

[Dr_Ruminahui]

Ah - fair enough. I have a warlord multi-classed to wizard in the same boat in my campaign - now that we're into paragon he's finally able to spend feats on other stuff, though typically he choses feats for flavour reasons rather than their game benefits... for example, he's had a feat that makes force powers good against insubstantial creatures for at least 5 levels and has only just now started to face such creatures again + he only has one force power. All because his character is paranoid of wraiths.

So yeah, I understand the squeeze your character is under... if you are swapping for eldritch strike and are going to be up close a lot, I would recommend better armour, as it sounds from your earlier posts that the durability feats aren't strictly necessary. That or versatile expertise - a bonus to hit is really nice. Personally, as this stage I would avoid feats that boost only 1 of your two items (those 2 being your rod and your hammer)... when you have so few feats, you really need to focus on ones that benefit you all the time.