Tempests destroying two-hander style?

[Elder-Basilisk]

Chainmail is some pretty inferior armor, one or two AC lost relative to Scale or Plate, spec not as good as scale. If you can start with a DEX of 16+ and boost DEX you can match/beat it with Hide, and not lose any movement, so I'd expect some of that.

You could, but you end up as a more defensive tempest build by going with Dex rather than Wis.

And, I wouldn't compare a character with two feats invested in boosting AC to one with no such investment as 'typical.' Mind you, I don't think there's a lot of feat options in that line for the THF...

Keep in mind that it's really only one feat invested in defense and that feat contributes quite heavily towards offense as well.

Two weapon defense is a bonus feat that all tempests get.

Most fighters of every sort will invest in a superior weapon as there just aren't that many feats that contribute to damage or attack. So, I would guess that pretty much every tempest is going to invest in either:
Double sword
Double axe
or Urgrosh
proficiency.
Double flail is also a possibility, but since it requires 19 dex for weapon mastery, and looks even sillier than the other double weapons--and the flail feats are rather weak--my guess is that it won't see much play.

Double sword and Urgrosh also open up Rain of Blows to the tempest so I would expect them to be the top choices.

I'm really not getting a very good feel for the tempest from what I've seen. Have to see how it works out some time - when someone else plays one, I'm still having too much fun with warlords to try out the 4e fighter just yet. I have noticed the greatweapon fighter being a good thing to have on your taclord's team, though.

I'd take any fighter for my taclord. Just finished a mod with an inspiring warlord and a pair of swordmages for partners. My basic attack was comparable to all of theirs--even if I spotted them the +4 damage from Commander's Strike. Even a nice 18 strength bastard sword and shield fighter would have been welcome. (The Inspiring Warlord would have been a decent pick if he'd been higher level and had a better magic weapon--my character having a +2 greatspear and Eladrin Soldier and no-one else having any damage-enhancing feats or a +2 weapon made a big difference).

 

[eamon]

The high-level at-will comparisons are meaningless. It'll be the first few rounds of combat that really matter (say the first 6?) and generally you'll have enough encounter powers to cover most of that. In dangerous fights, you'll normally know to use dailies, and you'll be able to use dailies and encounters almost non-stop the entire battle.

They're also heavily stacked against two-handed weapon wielders, and in favor of tempests. It's sorta neutral for the rangers. As attacks deal more [W], the percent contribution of the [W] die rises. The tempest happens to have huge static modifiers by virtue of Pit Fighter, Marked Scourge, and his class ability, which makes him shine in this comparison. These advantages don't scale as well, however.

In other words, even when stacked in favor of the tempest, the ranger has a solid lead. In a fairer comparison, the ranger will pull ahead even further. Realistically, many rangers will multiclass to fighter for the stances, and many tempest fighters to ranger for the two-handed powers. With such real life builds being more and more similar, you'd expect the outcome to be more similar - which is just fine.

As is, I don't think the tempest - even abusing marked scourge and the double bladed sword as in your examples - are going to break the game. Sure, a two-handed weapon wielder seems less attractive at the moment - but he hasn't had the advantage of two easily multiclassed builds out, and he was less attractive even before martial power (a PHB greatsword wielder was never a very good build). Once the barbarian is out, we'll see.

 

[Lord Sessadore]

I think it's important to note that the only reason the tempest pulls ahead because of static damage in the at-will comparison is because of Dual Attack. A tempest and a great weapon fighter doing the same number of attacks is going to be pretty similar in damage. There might be a difference of about 3 points of expected damage, not counting magic item powers. When you're doing over 20 damage in static damage alone, those 3 points aren't going to matter, really.

Basically, any power which does multiple attacks gets a greater benefit from static damage, while any power which does a single attack with a high [W] multiple is going to benefit more from weapon damage die size. When you count up the total static damage for a tempest and a great weapon fighter with similar builds, the tempest might have a couple points more static damage, while the great weapon fighter might have a slightly bigger [W] size.

 

[Mengu]

Chainmail is some pretty inferior armor, one or two AC lost relative to Scale or Plate, spec not as good as scale.

Don't forget about Eladrin Chain which you have access to at low heroic levels. This gets rid of speed and skill check penalties much earlier than scale specialization, and is a loss of only 1 point of AC compared to scale.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Wow, I must have read the entry for Eladrin Armor six times and never noticed that - I had to read it twice, just now, before it registered. Wierd.

And here I'd been, missing 'elven chain.' 8)

 

[eamon]

Incidentally, what do people make of the fact that dual strike is only 1[W] even in epic - is this an error, or a balancing act?

 

[jedrious]

Incidentally, what do people make of the fact that dual strike is only 1[W] even in epic - is this an error, or a balancing act?

hate to break it to you but it's 2[w] at epic

 

[logopolis]

Incidentally, what do people make of the fact that dual strike is only 1[W] even in epic - is this an error, or a balancing act?

Dual Strike's damage increases to 2[W] at 21st level.

You're thinking of Footwork Lure instead. It's probably an error in Martial Power.

 

[scarik]

Who needs Eladrin Chain when you can take Chainmail Agility (MP p141)?

Then you can use Veteran's Armor like a normal person.

 

[Mengu]

Who needs Eladrin Chain when you can take Chainmail Agility (MP p141)?

Heroic level characters?