Shield Feint

[Amaroq]

Amaroq -

That's good although I meant more in the class features as anyone can use that shield or ring. Ultimare Parry's a good one. Is that from Kensai?

A minor quibble, healing is different than reducing damage as you needed to take an action + a surge to heal up.

Also the cost of the reduction is pretty high. You're level 14 and your level 14 item and level 16 item are used for this to be the case. Not that it isn't important, but you also need the neck, armor, and weapon slots filled and have a significant amount of your expected wealth invested in pretty situational items. (ok the primordial ring is less situational, but still)

Fair enough, renau1g.

Yes, Ultimate Parry is from Kensai: reduce damage by your level.

Healing is different than reducing damage, but as a Fighter I've found most of my powers are Standard actions, so finding some ways to sneak in "I heal myself as a Minor" has been very handy, as I rarely have anything else for a Minor. (Activating stances, mostly - usually a "do once, at the start of the encounter" for me).

I've also been using the Cloak of the Walking Wounded so that, if I do decide to go with sacrificing a Standard Action to heal myself, I heal by 2 surges. (Aside: Is there an easy way to push "Second Wind" to a Minor instead of a Standard? ...I mean, besides being a dwarf.)

I do agree that most of the resistance in that encounter came from two magic items, but that was an acceptable choice for the party considering the treasure(s) available. You could have done some similar things for yourself with some of the other Fighter powers I hadn't taken. It is a fairly cool character build, to be able to stand toe to toe with a dragon several levels higher than me without actually sucking in a ton of the rest of the party's actions to keep healing me.

Here's the Fighter powers I spot on a quick read that are useful for this sort of build:

Resolute Shield - At Will 1 - resist Con vs 1 target until EONT.
Brazen Assault - Daily 5 - resist 5 for Encounter, but grant C/A for Encounter.
Unstoppable - Utility 2 - +2d6+Con Temp-HP
Bolstering Strike - Utility 16 - +2d8+Con Temp-HP

Clever pursuit of the Invigorating keyword could give you THP at pretty much every power from L1 to L29.

You could also go with the surge-less healing of Regeneration from
Boundless Endurance - Utility 2 - stance: regen 2+Con while bloodied
Unyielding Avalanche - Daily 15 - stance: regen Con, +1AC, +1Sav, plus auto-damage for adjacent enemies
Exhilirating Assault - Daily 29 - 3W attack, spend surge, make a save, and gain regen 15 while bloodied for Encounter

 

[renau1g]

I'm pretty impressed that you stood so long also. Did you guys piss off your DM to earn that beat down ?

 

[Amaroq]

No, its story-driven: we'd reached a point around the end of heroic where we were starting to get a bit cocky, feeling bad-ass and all ... so for paragon, he's really upped the ante.

There are about ten different areas where the forces of evil are advancing their plots, and we can only seem to focus on one at a time, so it feels like we're "losing" pretty badly. Among other things, he's got the armies of the two protagonist races engaged in slaughtering each other; we're trying to put an end to the war.

I'm not sure we were "supposed" to face the dragon just yet, but the DM had been alluding to it for several months. One of the villains went and woke up the dragon, apparently bribing it to have it come terrorize one army which I'd hoped to ally us with. The rest of the party felt there were other more important things to do, so the dragon dispersed the army, inflicting terrible losses; now we're trying to rally the survivors, and one way to do that was to protect a group of them when the dragon tried to terrorize them.

Honestly, there might have been easier ways, but when the DM hauled out a mini two and a half feet tall, we had to try to fend it off!!

 

[Dr_Ruminahui]

Fair enough, renau1g.
I've also been using the Cloak of the Walking Wounded so that, if I do decide to go with sacrificing a Standard Action to heal myself, I heal by 2 surges. (Aside: Is there an easy way to push "Second Wind" to a Minor instead of a Standard? ...I mean, besides being a dwarf.)

Well - not outside of daily item powers, that I am aware of.

Dwarven armour allows you, for a daily item use, with a free action gain hit points as if you had spent an action surge.

Armour of Dwarven Vigour lets you, as a daily item use, use second wind as a minor.

And your posts amonst all the theory hammer was awesome - unfortunately I gave you XP too recently to reward you in that regard.