Is the Executioner underpowered, not a striker or both? (or am I missing something?)

[erleni]

I pretty much hate the Executioner as a Striker. It fails at it's roll, unless you charge optimize, but even then is outdone by all it's Essentials charging brethren.

It's "striker mechanic" is that it adds 1d8 damage to its weapon attacks and it can base MBAs on Dex.

A Thief can use Dex for MBAs and starts off with a +2 damage to weapon attacks (which eventually increases). It then adds 2d6 extra damage (increased to d8s via feat). And can be charge optimized just as well.

Also, the Thief is more accurate as it has a weapon talent that adds +1 to hit. The backstab Encounter power, while not adding 3d10 initially, improves the chances of hitting. I mention all of this, because hitting is almost always more important. Also, the Thief gains more uses as opposed to higher damage (they gain some extra d6s). But really that's more +3s to hit. In general these are just more effective than a hard to gauge Death Attack (which should have had a cap 5 HP or so higher or at least trigger while adjacent so your allies could gain a benefit).

The poisons are rather weak as well, but I've ranted enough about how much this class disappoints me mechanically (ok... a little bit more).

Honestly, they should just have gotten the "add second ability score to damage" benefit to at least balance it with other classes. Its poisons don't exert the control of other striker/controllers or add enough DPR to stay competitive.

And the classes flavor is easily accomplished by having a Thief multi-classing into the Assassin to pick up the Ki Focus. I'd rather play the even WORSE damaging Original Assassin because that at least has fun flavor.

To be honest the Ossassin can be tweaked to outdamage the Executioner. The main difference will be that it will have to spread the damage over several targets. Personally I don't really like the executioner's poisons. If they had dealt ongoing poison damage then it would have been different as the Venomed Hand PP would have given them more nova potential.

 

[keterys]

Eh, all the charging nonsense is a level of optimization that doesn't seem to occur much in real play. I wouldn't worry too much about whether an executioner can do vanguard, horned helm, kulkor attacks.

And CharOp doesn't really rate Death Attack as worth anything at all, when it's actually very powerful if you have the right party.

It's certainly not a strong striker, and it should be improved, but at heroic it's not noticeably worse. It even can be better in the right group. For the rest... if you assume a thief who is just, say, throwing a dagger with CA for its attack, then it'll compare a whole lot more favorably.

Not enough to sweat or rant over.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Also applying damage when it is needed and spike damage is way underrated...

I really admit, that the thief´s backstab is a great feature, and is actually quite a good damage spike, but the assassin has following goodies:

he could use a bigger weapon.
he does not rely on CA (it allows a little more freedom in which target you can chose to attack)
he can switch weapons even when dazed
your encounter power is incredibly powerful, it can prevent a lot of damage to your party by just eliminating an important target. Especially lurkers are good targets, as you need to bring them down in a single round and they have low hp...

 

[Mengu]

I really admit, that the thief´s backstab is a great feature, and is actually quite a good damage spike, but the assassin has following goodies:

he could use a bigger weapon.
he does not rely on CA (it allows a little more freedom in which target you can chose to attack)
he can switch weapons even when dazed
your encounter power is incredibly powerful, it can prevent a lot of damage to your party by just eliminating an important target. Especially lurkers are good targets, as you need to bring them down in a single round and they have low hp...

I like Executioners, but I'm not sure if the above is all that true.

Thief can use a rapier just fine, and light blades have the best support out there. Bigger weapons aren't really an advantage.

For a thief CA is trivial with the right pick of movement tricks. Rogues also have a lot of tools. After level 5 or so, I've never really seen our rogue fail to get combat advantage.

Switching weapons for free is cool, but fast hands, quickdraw, certain items, or a combination can accomplish the same easy enough if you need it. For the Executioner it's more of a necessity than anything else, hence it's given for free.

The executioner encounter power is not incredibly powerful, it's on par with the average encounter power, with only slightly better damage at the sacrifice of multiple encounter powers. If you're looking for incredibly powerful, you look at minor action and immediate action attacks.

I think the mop up feature and poisons are the best tools Executioners have.

 

[Droogie128]

The executioner is slightly underpowered for a striker, but not nearly as bad as its predecessor was. Assassin's Strike needs better scaling, and making something like Quick Lunge a minor action would bring it up to par pretty easily.

Really, all it needs is minor tweaking.

 

[Wednesday Boy]

I see the Executioner as a character who unloads a devestating nova strike at the start of combat, and then spends the rest of the fight hunting bloodied enemies or looking for specific opportunities to put his at-wills to good use.

That would gel nicely with a Death Warpriest using Eye of the Vulture (lets you know which targets have hit points less than your healing surge value).

Save the encounter power for either a critical or a finishing maneuver.

Would using Assassin's Strike on a crit maximize the Assassin's Strike damage or would it be rolled?

 

[keterys]

It'd max it out, and is a pretty good use of that.

 

[mneme]

Hmm. Executioner vs Theif:

Thief:
Higher accuracy (backstab, weapon talent)
Bigger striker damage (2d6 is 7 vs 4.5 for 1d8, 5d6 is 17.5 vs 13.5 for 3d8)
Easier to boost damage with feats -- boost sneak attack, weapon, plus light blade feats.

Executioner:
Bigger weapon damage (rapier vs short sword, or with a feat, bastard sword or waraxe [hmm. the executioner is really good at knocking enemies prone...] vs rapier) -- so really down 1.5 damage per strike at 1st level, not 2.5, and 2 damage when maxed out, not 4).
Bigger spike damage (assassin strike + poison can get serious, and buff poison can boost an assassin's at will damage past that of the thief for an encounter)
Death attack (moar spike damagen, and random up to +20 (or +30) boosts to damage will add up)
Flexibility -- assassin poisons (ie, dailies) have significant out of combat uses, and assassins can play single target controller very well as well as being able to do serious striker damage.
Adaptaiblity -- striker damage always and almost unaffected by dazed and immobolized conditions.
More (and more interesting) options (theives basically get mobility, damage, combat advantage; assassins get poison powers (and an auto-hit poison at will that lets them apply crazy control), prone at will, and a mobility option (and probably the exellent garotte strangle; don't see a good case for league of whispers given that red scales can do everything they can plus garotte, with the proviso that they have less range).
Better outfits.

Overall, if you just want to do damage, you're obviously better off with a thief. But I think the assassin is simply more interesting, and 1*striker + 1/2 controller beats 1.25 striker most of the time.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

I like Executioners, but I'm not sure if the above is all that true.

Thief can use a rapier just fine, and light blades have the best support out there. Bigger weapons aren't really an advantage.

For a thief CA is trivial with the right pick of movement tricks. Rogues also have a lot of tools. After level 5 or so, I've never really seen our rogue fail to get combat advantage.

Switching weapons for free is cool, but fast hands, quickdraw, certain items, or a combination can accomplish the same easy enough if you need it. For the Executioner it's more of a necessity than anything else, hence it's given for free.

The executioner encounter power is not incredibly powerful, it's on par with the average encounter power, with only slightly better damage at the sacrifice of multiple encounter powers. If you're looking for incredibly powerful, you look at minor action and immediate action attacks.

I think the mop up feature and poisons are the best tools Executioners have.

I know what you are saying is true, but assassins strike is added on a hit, possibly a crit. And it is in addition to 2d8 damage on a longsword or rapier attack.

So you have: an encounter power, that you use together with an already heavy hitting at will for aboout 2d8+2d10+6 damage at level 3. Which means an average of 26 damage. Count in the 4 damage poison and we speak of 30 average damage...
add in death attack and you can one hit a 40hp monster... Maybe it is no bad idea to multiclass into rogue, so you have another 7 average damage, and chances that you kill a foe before it even acted is high. And your striker job is already done. If you don´t kill, just pop an action point and kill.

And after this combo, you automatically use your other damage increasing trait, whenever you can use it best... 1-10 more damage when needed the most should be very powerful, usually better than 1d6 damage from backstab... it is almost an enconterpower that is automatically and retroactively used, when it s most efficient.

I guess the only way to tell it was a monte carlo simulation, as the probability function is a bit too complex...
spike damage IS underrated...

As to the rapier thief: I thought the damage bonus would not work on this weapon... but actually, it is unfair compaing anyone with the thief, who deals the most damage if not dazed, slowed or prone...

edit: you always need to look at the whole package, and this package in the executioners case is very sound, and I believe, highly effective n actual play.

 

[BobTheNob]

There's no reason to blast it early.

Thats what she said!