How are melee characters expected to deal with flying creatures?

[Tony Vargas]

My groups still in heroic levels, but we have come up against fliers. Some things that mitigate the problem of melee'ing them:

- Low cielings. Lots of fights happen in dungeons. If it's a 10' cieling - or a 15' cieling for a large flier, it can't just hover out of range of the melee types. If the melee types have reach, add another 5'. If the DM lets you jump-and-strike, you can stretch it a few more feet.

- Melee fliers. Sure, a lotta monsters fly, but many of them still need to melee to use thier best attacks. Even if they're skirmishers and can move in, hit, and fly away again, you can ready to hit them as they move into range.

- heavy thrown weapons. For the STR types.

- other enemies. In order for the melee types to be completely trumped all the monsters have to be flying.

- controllers. A variety of conditions can ground a flier. They can also get creative. In one combat with a flier, our wizard thought to move her stinking cloud above the battlefield, effectively creating a 'low cieling' effect. Another time it was a web cast at a flier early on, that stuck arround to similar effect.

- ranged pressure. Having a high-damage ranged character, like an archer-ranger, in the party makes the standoff option a lot less attractive to the monster.

 

[DracoSuave]

Yes. Controllers. -YES-.

This is part of their job. An immobilize or a knock prone is the -bane- of a flyer. Not only does it inconvenience the flyer, it also will often damage the flyer. Don't forget the usual pulls and slides.

 

[talarei07]

pretty questionable ones... yeah pursuing avenger there dex is a secondary so they can throw rocks at it (simple ranged weapons ranged basic attack only hooo hah for powers)

The other builds of avenger arent even that lucky...

they have a ranged weapon at will power and implement powers that doesnt seem all that questionable to me

 

[Garthanos]

Hey that low cieling trick I like a lot... storm power anyone?

 

[Garthanos]

they have a ranged weapon at will power

Oh they do now!? The ph heros series 2?

Generally easy to overlook ranged attacks (less than 10 percent of their powers and many levels with no ranged possibilities at all). for the Avenger since they never getting the Oath of Enemnity benefit.... read that again no striker class feature for avenger ranged powers...

 

[Beckett]

Oh they do now!? The ph heros series 2?

Generally easy to overlook ranged attacks (less than 10 percent of their powers and many levels with no ranged possibilities at all). for the Avenger since they never getting the Oath of Enemnity benefit.... read that again no striker class feature for avenger ranged powers...

Focused Fury is a weapon melee/ranged from Ph series 2. But avengers have always had an at-will ranged with radiant vengeance. And no, they don't get their bonus for non-melee attacks, but they lose it when they have multiple foes around them too. And most striker bonus damages can be disabled by flying monsters.

 

[Tony Vargas]

And most striker bonus damages can be disabled by flying monsters.

Really? You can still curse or quary a flying creature (if it's the closest enemy you can see, and if there are ground-bound enemies closer, you can just go after them). You can still hide from a flying creature, or gain CA in other ways (leaders & controllers can help with that). Sorcerer bonus damage is just always there. So, aside from the Barbarian and Avenger, it doesn't seem striker damage should be that easy for fliers to avoid.

 

[Garthanos]

Focused Fury is a weapon melee/ranged from Ph series 2. But avengers have always had an at-will ranged with radiant vengeance. And no, they don't get their bonus for non-melee attacks, but they lose it when they have multiple foes around them too.

range 10 is rather ummm short range at least its not 5 and doing d8 compared to d12 with the full blade
and combined with not getting you OoEe ;-) the kicker of wis thp is indeed nice. but...

I can almost say I'd rather my avenger stay dependent on friends if the enemy is out of reach ...It doesnt compare very favorably to say Overwhelming strike or bond of retribution on your pursuit avenger... in part because they can help you get the isolation you need and it really doesnt.

Focused Fury now exists melee or ranged means all by itself it is flexible ... the blast enemies back is good for helping getting that isolation you mention... and if you are at melee range you can exploit it too.

 

[Starfox]

Its not so difficult to down a flier; simple knockdown will do.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

yeah jinx shot and wait.