Pit Fighter Balance

[Tuft]

At that level with the right utilities, she should be attacking every round with CA. Hide in Plain Sight, a +5 vs. OAs, etc.

Yep, that is pretty much what she does. I did work up to about mid-paragon to try to provide CA to her, but she got so good at getting those herself that it's pretty much superfluous now. (And being good at that is a source of great pride for that rogue... )

I even had a house-rule at-will that provided CA to one ally within 10 squares if I hit the target, and finally respecced out of it now at 20 simply because I hadn't used it for the last 2-4 levels...

The main monster of the encounter usually ends up providing CA two or three times over anyway. Flanked, dazed, prone, squeezed...

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

One thing that might be kinda "missed" here is: How much single-target damage does the Rogue deal compared to the Fighter? I think you see the difference in the Solo fight, where the Rogue suddenly deals more damage than the Fighter.

The differences can be subtle, sometimes it might not be relevant, but one thing to consider: It can be better to deal the same amount of total damage to one target than to spread the same damage around to multiple targets. Dealing damage to a single target means it is taken out sooner, and at this point, the action economy works in the party's favor - the enemies has less actions and thus less opportunities to deal their damage.

Let's say you deal 50 damage per round against 5 enemies with 50 hit points. If you could spread the damage around to 10 damage per round, it would mean that you would need 5 rounds to dispatch the enemies. If your enemies deal 10 damage each round they are active (e.g. don't start dead), that means 5 x 5 x 10 = 250 points of damage from them.
If you could deal this damage against one enemy each, you would still need 5 rounds, but each round, there would be less damage inflicted from the enemies, for example: 50+40+30+20+10 = 150 points.
Now imagine you'd deal only 25 points of damage per round, but only to one target. You need 10 rounds to deal with the enemy, giving them the opportunty to dea 50+50+40+40+30+30+20+20+10+10 = 300 damage. Despite only dealing 50 % of the damage as in our first case, you take only 20 % more damage since you target only one enemy instead of multiple ones.

Of course, I idealized the situation here - damage never goes wasted in this scenario, and we only discuss the extremes - all targets are hit, or only one target is hit. (and let's not speak of conditions!)

 

[Witchfinder General]

One thing that might be kinda "missed" here is: How much single-target damage does the Rogue deal compared to the Fighter? I think you see the difference in the Solo fight, where the Rogue suddenly deals more damage than the Fighter.

The fighter (my character) was stunned for two rounds that fight. The solo (dragon) was flying and my fighter has poor ranged attacks. Even if I had not been stunned, I would have had trouble hitting it before the bard knocked it down.

My fighter has some powers that gives him multiple attacks against one opponents (IIRC Harrying Assault, All Bets Are Off, Dragon's Fangs) so single target damage is not bad. The damage bonus for my fighter's basic melee attacks is about the same as Sly Flourish for the rogue.

 

[Psikus]

How do people see the balance of the Pit Fighter paragon path for fighters?

Well, the way I see it, there is a very small minority of Paragon Paths (maybe a dozen or so) with insane damage-boosting features, which are more or less balanced among themselves but are head and shoulders above the rest. Pit Fighter belongs to this group, as do Daggermaster, Stormwarden and Kensei.

There are just enough of these paths that you can't pick a single one of them (say, Pit Fighter) and claim that it's broken and should be nerfed, because then optimizers would just turn to another of the equivalent options. It is also not a particularly urgent issue, because most damage-oriented characters (which are the majority of PCs) either have direct access to one of these damage-boosting PPs, or can multiclass into one.

On the other hand, it is a problematic, game-distorting issue because these PPs are virtually mandatory for a striker to remain competitive with the rest of the party. There are literally hundreds of other cool paths to take, but if the rest of damage dealers in your party have a paragon bonus to damage or crit range and you don't, you're pretty screwed. So the effective number of PPs that a character can take is greatly diminished because of this.

What I'd like to do is to errata all these PP damage bonuses, so that the paths become useful but not overwhelmingly good. But that's quite a bit of work.

 

[Jhaelen]

On the other hand, it is a problematic, game-distorting issue because these PPs are virtually mandatory for a striker to remain competitive with the rest of the party.

???
Is this an example of this 'social obligation' nonsense Kzach brought up in his thread?

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

???
Is this an example of this 'social obligation' nonsense Kzach brought up in his thread?

Well, nonsense is subjective in this case, but I suppose it might be a problem for some.

But maybe the thing that needs to be questioned: If I don't deal as much damage as a non-Striker, does this automatically I mean my character fails? Or does it just means my character fails at being a Striker but is still something else important for the party. Maybe he has a particularly good control/leader/defense abilities instead?

Multiclassing allows you to gain strengths outside your role. Paragon Paths might sometimes achieve the same. That doesn't mean you are doing it wrong. It just means that your specific character is not merely the role proscribed by his class.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Those insanely good paragom paths also let paragon multiclassing look much worse... but i still don´t see too much brokenness.

Other paragon path add other nice things.

 

[Psikus]

On the other hand, it is a problematic, game-distorting issue because these PPs are virtually mandatory for a striker to remain competitive with the rest of the party.

???
Is this an example of this 'social obligation' nonsense Kzach brought up in his thread?

I wasn't really looking at it from a social perspective. The thing is, if you use damage output as a criteria to choose your PP, Pit Fighter and a few other paths are so far above the competition that there isn't much point in taking anything else. They are so good that many people choose to multiclass just to take one of these PPs. That is what I meant by 'mandatory', but maybe my choice of words was misleading.

It is true that a player may prefer defender/controller/leader abilities for his path. On the other hand, there are lots of purely offensive PPs granting very reasonable bonuses to attacks that look terrible when compared to Pit Fighter & Co.

 

[Starfox]

The pit fighter is an extremely good paragon path, it is true. I'm guessing he's getting +4 or so to damage, and +9 when he APs, which he uses for come and get it and some other close burst power afterwards. Is he using a two-handed weapon or one-handed?

+6 damage IIR (level 20). he is a guardian fighter wielding a longsword.

A daggermaster rogue should be able to output better damage on the non-AP fights at a minimum, and we're just not seeing that above. Is the rogue just not getting combat advantage that often? Or never rolling above a 17?

Sneak attack almost every round (80% minimum I'd say). About one critical hit per fight, which makes sense with fights being about 8 rounds and not many extra attacks.

 

[keterys]

Hmm. +6 now, +7 next level probably, +8 higher in epic. That bonus sure does climb fast.

At any rate, I'll admit that I'd prefer if we knocked the upper 10% of paragon paths back down to the other say 70% in the middle... or alternatively upped the 90% up to closer to that 10%. All depends what you're going for, I guess.