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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Goumindong" data-source="post: 4399077" data-attributes="member: 70874">Not in the slightest. In fact, great weapon fighters are usually stickier for the greater part of their career than sword and board fighters.Why? Because fighters have two methods of keeping enemies close.1. Abilities2. DeterrenceFor the most part, abilities are about equal. Everyone can take abilities that defend more or less equally with a few exceptions.Exceptions: 15 dex + sword/board heavy blade fighters with deep feat investments.Stalwart Guard: Utility Power better with Shield.Interposing Shield: Utility Power better with Shield.Why?Tide of Iron: At-Will Push is very very strong, used correctly you can prevent attacks against friendlies. At-Will Push during an OA is just amazing.Shield Push: Combat Challenge Push... even better.Distracting Shield: -2 penalty becomes -4 penalty to their attack if you hit. Pretty useful.But the second part great weapon fighters clean up. Especially high wisdom great weapon fighters. The last thing you want your DM thinking is "ill just provoke this OA, its not a big deal, eat the damage from the basic attack and go on with what the monster wanted to do"When you do that against a sword and board it takes a lot of investments to make up for the fact that the maul fighter is going to be walloping 2.5 average damage ahead of you before his significant feat advantage. If you have a warlord, the great weapon fighter really starts to show his superiority as the warlord grants basic attacks. Now the great weapon fighter averages 2.5 damage/hit more and gets to make more attacks a round, building up each time.Add in Power Attack, which is a positively awesome feat for a great weapon fighter since his attack bonus with an OA should be very high due to decent wisdom, combat reflexes and maybe Blade Opportunity. Now its 3 average damage a hit in the heroic tier(assuming greatsword now since a maul doesn't qualify for blade op), 2 in the paragon, 4 in the epic.You don't have a shield and that lets you concentrate further on deterrence, picking up bracer's of mighty striking for another 2/4/6 average damage. Add in Potent Challenge and it can get even nastier(assuming the sword/board cannot afford PA with all the feats they need). Now all of a sudden an combat challenge in the paragon tier doesn't look like 1d10(bastard sword)+6+3+2= 16.5(at 50% hit rate,8.25 normalized) average it looks like 2d6+6+5+3+1+6+4+2= 34(at 40% hit rate average damage, 13.6 normalized, 14 normalized with no power attack, this will favor PA the more your attack increases, does not factor in hammer rhythm which which puts the average up to 15.6 and 16.5). Which is nearly twice as potent a deterrent as it was for the sword and board fighter. An OA would look like, 16.5 on the sword and board side and 29 on the great weapon side. With averages of 8.25 and 11.6.Either way, the great weapon fighter is coming way ahead in deterrence. And that is just what you want. Getting beat on is no big deal, you're a fighter, have lots of hit points, have plenty of feats to increase your hit points, increase your healing surge values, and increase your defenses.There are even synergies with weapons. E.G. a berserker weapon makes you easy to hit in exchange for more damage and attack. A great weapon fighter is likely to have a high con. Which stacks nicely with even low level utility powers like Boundless Endurance or Unstoppable. Sword and board fighters cannot quickdraw a throwing weapon to participate in warlord ranged attacks without dropping their main weapon. They cannot use a throwing weapon to mark ranged enemies that they cannot make it too without dropping their main weapon either.And then there is the hidden bonus. Your AC is lower. Your job is to get hit so that everyone else doesn't get hit. You have lots of hit points, a high healing surge value and are pretty durable. A high AC fighter makes enemies want to hit something with a lower AC. A low AC fighter that makes hitting the high AC players even harder with a mark and punishes them harder for disobeying is even more likely to draw attacks rather than let enemies simply take the penalty.Pick the feat: Ritual Caster and then just keep enchanting the weapon to your specifications as you go along. Or have the party Wizard do it.There is nothing wrong with greatsword fighters. They get all the benefits of great weapon fighters in deterrence and all the awesomeness of blade opportunity/heavy blade op. For a meager investment of 13 dex they are at +3 for OAs(blade op, and combat reflexes) and can concentrate on either Wisdom to make those OAs even more potent(hit more, go to pit fighter for even better OA specialization), for an investment of 14 dex they can make OAs with at wills as well, though this is less valuable since they won't be needing sure strike, and can't use tide of iron.Greatsword fighters also get more use out of Cleric Multi-classing. Take something like an Elf(Elves make amazing fighters with their shifting through difficult terrain and high movement, and elvish re-roll, and this elf great weapon build works really well with pit fighters as well). Start with 12 base dex and as much wisdom as you can after getting your strength right(You can run 16 str, 18 wis, 15 dex after racial bonuses pretty easily, harder to change your str up to 18 though, but 18,15,15 is possible, or 18,16,13 if you don't want Heavy Blade Op until Epic and no Heavy Blade Spec). Pick up combat reflexes, blade opportunity, heavy blade opportunity and pump strength and wisdom.Multi-class into paragon warpriest. Make up slightly for that shield with the AC bonus. Get Warpriests Challenge which is a SECOND combat challenge/round as an OA that doesn't need to be replenished every round!(which might even be more than one extra since you can OA once/turn, and if the enemy attempts to move via a friendlies ability you can hit him again). Did i mention that we are pumping wisdom because fighters get their wisdom mod added to OA attacks and it stops movement?You also get some friendly healing, an amazing self heal, and battle pyres, a close burst 5(marks an 11x11 square!) enemy only that does ongoing damage, great single target damage(so long as you hit something), and can be sustained for great single target damage so long as any enemy hasn't yet made its save(oh, and another mark).Did i mention that you need either to be able to quickdraw your implement to make this valuable and sword/board cannot do that, or a holy avenger in order to get decent use out of the two attacks?Short Answer:There is nothing wrong with great weapon fightersThere is nothing wrong with greatsword fighters, not ever in the slightest, not only are their multi-classing/paragon options very very sticky(and probably much better at defending than most fighter paragons), but heavy blades easily have the best feats for fighters(and sticky fighters) and only greatsword fighters of the great weapon fighters get to take advantage of those.</blockquote>

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