Forked Thread: Art of the Peel ... Enfeebling vs Bosltering Strike

[Celtavian]

re

I decided to switch to a strength-based paladin. It synergizes better with the warlord and as I am the only defender in the group I would like to be able to have a decent chance to hit with Aoos and ranged thrown attacks with heavy thrown weapons.

I also noticed during the course of combat that Enfeebling Strike feels wasted if the Mob gets a lucky roll and hits anyway or the mob dies before he gets to attack. I prefer the more reliable and focused holy strike which does the damage on my attack roll when I hit rather than enfeebling strike which may or may not be effective in a given round depending on enemy attack rolls or who the enemy goes after or what defense he is going against.

 

[FadedC]

And, you're still not accounting for the fact that the monster can miss you when you use bolstering strike. So when your example says that enfeebling strike prevents 1 damage each round by preventing 10% of all attacks that would have dealt 10 damage, you implicitly compare that to 1 temporary hit point - but 1 temporary hit point does not imply 1 prevented damage. You can end an encounter with temporary hitpoints unused, and temporary hitpoints overlap; so if you hit three times in a row, and then the monster hits three times in a row, you'll have (usually) prevented a different amount of damage than if you and the monster hit alternatingly. That means that an attack that grants N temporary hitpoints at best prevents N damage, but on average will prevent less - and it's difficult to quantify how much less, especially since that's heavily influenced by tactics. Also, if a monster has a low hit-rate, you're more likely to "waste" temporary hitpoints by overlapping or still having them at the end of the encounter, which means that the better your AC is relative the the attack bonus of the monster, the less attractive bolstering strike becomes.

When it comes to enfeebling strike, it's not just area effects, it's also multiple attacks which "bolster" enfeebling strike's value. OA's, special powers etc: most of these things are all affected by enfeebling strike, and can push up the "average damage per round if everthing hits excluding criticals"

So I agree with your numbers, but not with the conclusion. My conclusion is that enfeebling strike is a solid effect in all situations (barring minions), and bolstering strike is situational. If the monsters don't have area effect damage, aren't doing multiple attacks per round, your wisdom is relatively high (how high you can determine using your numbers), if there aren't many nasty status effects, if your mark isn't liable to attack anyone else, then bolstering strike is better.

A mix is still best of course, as many have said before.

Well it doesn't really matter if your target misses you, because then they would have missed with enfeebling strike too. In fact bolstering is much better in that case because the temporary hit points are sitll there to prevent an attack from a different target. Obviously though if you start the round with temporary hit points from bolstering, it's a waste to use bolstering again. But again in that case your better off then if you had used enfeeble.

Multiple attacks don't matter as long as they are all directed against you. You just add up the total damage all the attacks would do if they hit and apply the same formula to it. Monsters with multiple attacks are more likely to break the bolsterx10 value though, although not that much more likely as they tend to lower the damage of it's individual attack.

But yeah I don't think enfeebling strike is bad at all, and which of bolstering or enfeebling will be better will depend a lot on your build. I've seen paladin builds with 12 wisdom, and enfeeble will pull ahead quickly there. I've also seen 16 wisdom paladin builds, and if wisdom is constantly pumped them bolstering will be better in most cases.