Help with a Melee Striker

[Mad Hamish]

I never really had that issue with the rogue; they have a higher AC and Reflex than the typical TWF ranger. A halfling Cha rogue can provoke OAs all the damn time and enjoy the gentle breeze of whiffs, which in turn can lead to punishment from the defender. Our dwarf TWF ranger wound up in plate just because he kept get hitting so often, and his player is shocked as hell when a Will attack misses, but he pours out damage like it's water.

I hear monks are fairly fragile, but they sure look fun.

The barbarian in our group takes a ton of damage, and also eats up a ton of my healing. He has practically no AC, and I don't think he did that much more damage than my battle cleric.

Brad

The big issue for rogues is that mostly they want combat advantage so they go for flanking positions which often leave them isolated (they are helped a lot by other party members having forced movement so that they can control where the opposition ends up)

A two weapon ranger can have issues depending on the build. The two main options are Str/Dex or Str/Wis.
A Str/Wis probably needs to go for scale mail for AC but a str/dex is fine and if you go Stormwarden and maybe pick up scimitar dance you do a lot of damage and have the option of ranged attacks.

Similarly a Barbarian can have AC issues but a common solution is to go the Fort build but put dex as a bigger stat than con and keep pushing it.

 

[Brys]

Monks are fun if you like moving around in battle (as I do). Their at-wills do lots of damage plus something extra (push/prone), they get good defenses, and they can do close bursts.

I have a level 2 human stone fist monk with 18 dex/16 str, defenses at 20/16/17/15.

Implement is a +1 Ki accurate dagger (accurate dagger is a superior implement).
Feats are:
Superior implement training (accurate dagger)
Versatile expertise (light blade and unarmed)
Unarmored agility

Including Flurry of Blows and the +1 Ki accurate dagger, at-wills do from 1d6+13 to 1d10+13. To-hit is +8 and everything but your basic attacks target a NAD.

 

[Wednesday Boy]

A halfling Cha rogue can provoke OAs all the damn time and enjoy the gentle breeze of whiffs, which in turn can lead to punishment from the defender.

I had a blast doing this with my halfling artful dodger Rogue and our two Defenders. I loved how mobile the Rogue was and just about all of my powers were very fun to use. One thing I enjoyed about the Rogue was the conundrum of either getting into a riskier flanking position for more damage or staying in a safer ranged position for less damage.

 

[Herschel]

What are teh defender and leader? This is very important to the concept.

I also LOVE Thaneborn Barbarians. I went genasi, started w/ Str 18(16), Int 16(14) and the rest in Cha (w/ 1 point in to Con). I even took a Warlord Multi-class to act as party "face" and my Int gives me a nice bonus to AC and I don't have any "dump" defenses.

Another idea: Con Warlock (infernal pact) w/White Lotus Riposte and melee channeling. You'll dish out damage on hits, when you're hit and be getting temp HP back in spades. You'll want to jack Int for reflex/AC and go without Cha-attack powers (which you can easily enough). Working beside the defender you can make a baddy's life miserable.

 

[Prestidigitalis]

I strongly suggest Barbarian if you don't mind the flavor. There are plenty of ways to shore up durability so that they stay up in spite of being a damage magnet.

If you do go TWF Ranger, Weapon Focus is better than the one that makes your quarry damage d8, because you can get it on both parts of Twin Strike and the other similar powers.

 

[Initiate]

I`m a big fan of the Ardent Paladin for defense/striker roles. I had a Ardent paladin that smacked a boss for about 65 damage at level one.

Mind you that was criting on a daily, wielding a Maul and have one or two damage buffs going.

 

[cignus_pfaccari]

The big issue for rogues is that mostly they want combat advantage so they go for flanking positions which often leave them isolated (they are helped a lot by other party members having forced movement so that they can control where the opposition ends up)

The rogue does really depend on the partymates to set up flanking opportunities. OTOH, a good rogue knows he's not always going to have a flanker, and so should have some ways of generating CA when needed. I played a Strength rogue from 1-10, and never had any real issues.

Brad

 

[Dr_Ruminahui]

Not everyone has a problem getting flanking via teammates, but some do - I know the rogue in the game I play in likes to "lone ranger it" and his "strikeriness" seriously suffers as a result. I'm trying to convince him to change to a monk (which ought to give him the mobility he craves) or the new essentials rogue. I just got to see the essentials rogue in play, and it has some tricks that help eleviate the rogue's need for flanking from his team mates - and its DPR doesn't seem to suffer any as compaired to a PH/MP rogue.

As for the melee ranger, I agree with the previous comments about its fragility - from my experience, its even more fragile than the rogue as your attack stat doesn't boost AC. One can account for that by either boosting ones dex or con (for the heavier armours) The dex route will always leave you behind the rogue and requires you to keep boosting a stat that doesn't help with your melee powers, and the con one is feat intensive to maintain parity in AC, not to mention bumps a stat that boosts the same NAD as your primary (and while you don't need to keep boosting your con, you'll need to put a few points into dex for scale proficiency). So, yeah... while melee rangers do have the best DPR of the melee strikers, there is a reason the people at the Radio Free Hommlet podcast call it "the suicide ranger".

I would also like to add some comments about the barbarian... while his DPR is competitive, it may/may not feel that way in play as, more than any other striker, IMHO the barbarian is the swingiest in damage output. So, in some battles you'll feel like you aren't doing any more damage than the two-handed fighter, then in another you'll crit or drop an enemy and then proceed to clear the battlefield of enemies. So, if you have trouble weathering the droughts to get to the peaks, barbarian may not be for you.

 

[Mad Hamish]

As for the melee ranger, I agree with the previous comments about its fragility - from my experience, its even more fragile than the rogue as your attack stat doesn't boost AC. One can account for that by either boosting ones dex or con (for the heavier armours) The dex route will always leave you behind the rogue and requires you to keep boosting a stat that doesn't help with your melee powers, and the con one is feat intensive to maintain parity in AC, not to mention bumps a stat that boosts the same NAD as your primary (and while you don't need to keep boosting your con, you'll need to put a few points into dex for scale proficiency)

Stormwarden and Scimitar Dance give you a reasonable payoff for pumping dex.
You only need 13 con to get scale proficiency (admittedly it does take a couple of feats)
15 dex needed for scale specialisation but if you're willing to wait until epic for it then you only need a 13 in it initially as well even if you're bumping str and wisdom if you need it at paragon then 14.

So it's not that big an investment. Your AC might be behind the rogue as a 20 dex rogue build is quite doable but an 18/18 str/dex ranger is also doable (mainly as a 1/2 orc iirc) or spread a few points out more if you're using wis as the secondary stat so you might have 18 str, 16 wis and dex & con of 13 each. Many races will let you get that sort of spread

 

[Gortle]

Rogue

The melee rogue is more fun to play because you need to work to get the combat advantage you need. Much more tactical.

You do need a defender to help you flank, the more characters that want to get into melee the better.

If the rest of the party is keen on slow and immobilise powers then the Vicous Advantage feat is a nice way to get combat advantage.

If you have a warlord who likes to hand out basic attacks you can do a heap of extra damage. The latest essentials update now lets you do you extra backstab damage once per round, that is in your round and in each of their rounds. Agile Opportunist and Cunning Bard for the win.