Originally posted by ShakaUVM:
Pictured: Thunder Lizards
Premise: Radiant Mafias have been well-known for a while now as being a very effective, well rounded team optimization option. When looking up options for a thunder sorcerer in another thread, I realized that it should be possible to put together a thunder mafia that did just as well. This post is also to show the possibilities available with the Alchemist theme and the Alchemist Savant PP.
Oh, and we'll have infinite gold and alchemical items starting at 11th level. That's cool, too.
Core Combo: There's an alchemist item called a 'resonance crystal' that grants thunder vulnerability until EONT. (Alternatively, there's a divine channeling option called Storm Sacrifice to do the same thing.) We combine this with a bajillion thunder attacks, all made with a Wand of Thunderous Anguish (which adds a second set of thunder damage to the target with every attack made). This will result in lots of sustained at-will damage.
Race Options: Half-elf (for some dilettante cheese), Genasi (Stormsoul, naturally) or Warforged (who have several nice options for Alchemical items) or Dwarf (for Alchemical Failsafe cheese). If your DM will allow the dilettante cheese, go half-elf. The party doesn't need to be uniracial (or is it monoracial?). In epic, being a Reincarnate Champion will allow all of the above at once.
Class Options: Any class that can make thunder attacks at will is okay. Optimal classes will have the ability to make multiple attacks a round, and use wands (for the Wand of Thundering Anguish). In the example below, we use a Dex/Wis invoker|wizard with thunder-admixtured Divine Bolts. (Tanking Intelligence, so using Effect-only attacks for the wizard half instead, such as Mass Charm.) For whole-party optimization, we could mix in some healers, but a party of six invokers|wizards will do amazingly well.
Theme: Alchemist, natch. It's perhaps not essential, but it's the best fit for the build. For a background, I use Born Under a Bad Sign, as normal.
Secondary Combos:
1) RBA Cheese. Power of Skill with Divine Bolts to turn them into basic attacks + Rapid Shot to make a RBA at each target in a burst 1. This can result in up to 18 shots with a single at-will standard action. We also multiclass Seeker to get a daily RBA (Inevitable Shot), but more importantly Primal Eye for +Dex to damage with all of our Divine Bolts. By being RBAs, this also lets the build combo easily with Warlords directing the strike.
2) White Lotus Riposte Cheese. Yes, WLMR is still overpowered. We ought to be able to cover most all of our enemies with arcane Divine Bolts (Power of Arcana), with all six of our invoker|wizards, which means that on every enemy attack, we'll get an attack back. We don't provoke any OAs via Shadowdance armor.
3) Mark of Storm Cheese. All our attacks will be lighting or thunder, so we'll be able to slide the monsters all over the battlefield, including into a nicely packed group, which will allow us to slaughter them with Rapid Shot and zones. We'll have other enemy-positioning tricks to bunch them up and punish them.
4) Alchemist Cheese. The Alchemist theme lets you create one Alchemical item per encounter, which essentially gives you infinite money when combined with Alchemist Savant's Resourceful Alchemist ability, with the net result of getting infinite money and infinite alchemical items. (Well, not infinite, but bounded by the number of short rests you can take in a day.) There's a belt called the Alchemical Failsafe that lets you throw an alchemical item as part of your Second Wind. So Dwarves (or Humans with Frantic Recovery) can do this once per combat, and Alchemist Savants can do it as well once per encounter (their 11th level encounter lets you throw an alchemical item as a minor action), so we can use our Resonance Crystals once or twice a combat for free without wasting standard actions. We'll also have a full bag full of alchemical items, such as full-level Whetstones, Precarious Crystals (think about what you can do with an unlimited number of these!), Kinetic Oil (free action interrupts!), and so forth. Savants can duplicate alchemical items as a daily power, in case we start running short of something.
Edit: Ok, other people noticed the infinite money exploit, fair enough. But for the purposes of this build, we'll just interpret it to mean we have whatever alchemical items we desire. They're not very good, by and large, so it's not as broken as it appears at first glance. Really, it just makes alchemy a viable option.
Warforged Alchemists Note: If you go the Warforged route, you can gain temps every time you hit with an alchemical item. Via clever use of Kinetic Oil (which gives you free action alchemical attacks you can make on other creatures turns), items that grant ongoing damage + beshaba's boon and especially with pre-errata reparation apparatus you can throw up significant temp hp shields essentially at-will on enemies turns. Alchemical Opportunist can help also, here, in making an essentially invulnerable character.
Sample Build:
This is something I threw together pretty quickly. The feats are the most important part. So don't pay too much attention to the choice of dailies, encounters, or the order I took feats. We'll be basically making at-wills all day long, and so the build is playable from level 1 all the way through Epic, gaining in power as it hits certain key levels.
====== Created Using Wizards of the Coast D&D Character Builder ======
Thunder Lizard, level 20
Half-Elf, Wizard|Invoker, Alchemist Savant
Covenant Manifestation: Manifestation of Malediction
Hybrid Invoker: Hybrid Invoker Will
Arcane Admixture Damage Type: Arcane Admixture Thunder
Half-Elf Power Selection: Dilettante
Background: Born Under a Bad Sign (Born Under a Bad Sign Benefit)
FINAL ABILITY SCORES
Str 9, Con 13, Dex 20, Int 11, Wis 24, Cha 14.
STARTING ABILITY SCORES
Str 8, Con 10, Dex 15, Int 10, Wis 17, Cha 13.
AC: 30 Fort: 21 Reflex: 25 Will: 29
HP: 110 Surges: 7 Surge Value: 27
TRAINED SKILLS
Religion +16, History +16, Arcana +17, Nature +23
UNTRAINED SKILLS
Acrobatics +15, Bluff +12, Diplomacy +14, Dungeoneering +17, Endurance +11, Heal +17, Insight +19, Intimidate +12, Perception +17, Stealth +15, Streetwise +12, Thievery +15, Athletics +9
FEATS
Level 1: Superior Implement Training (Dragontooth wand)
Level 2: Power of Skill
Level 4: Primal Sharpshooter
Level 6: Wand Expertise
Level 8: Dual Implement Spellcaster
Level 10: Power of Arcana
Level 11: Arcane Admixture
Level 12: Versatile Master
Level 14: White Lotus Riposte
Level 16: White Lotus Master Riposte
Level 18: Primal Eye
Level 20: Resounding Thunder
POWERS
Dilettante: Rapid Shot (Archery Mastery)
Hybrid at-will 1: Cloud of Daggers
Hybrid at-will 1: Divine Bolts
Primal Sharpshooter: Elemental Spirits
Hybrid encounter 1: Thunder of Judgment
Hybrid daily 1: Arcane Whirlwind
Hybrid utility 2: Heaven's Bountiful Reward
Hybrid encounter 3: Blissful Ignorance
Hybrid daily 5: Silent Malediction
Hybrid utility 6: Wizard's Escape
Hybrid encounter 7: Phantom Foes
Hybrid daily 9: Herald the Storm Unleashed
Hybrid utility 10: Repelling Shield
Hybrid encounter 13: Thunderous Rebuke (replaces Thunder of Judgment)
Hybrid utility 16: Walls of Hestavar
Hybrid encounter 17: Mass Charm (replaces Blissful Ignorance)
ITEMS
Dragontooth wand of Thunderous Anguish +4, Transposing Quickbeam staff +4, Tempest Whetstone (paragon tier), Caustic Whetstone (paragon tier), Whetstone of Venom (paragon tier), Frozen Whetstone (paragon tier), Resonance Crystal (level 19), Precarious Crystal (Level 20), Kinetic Oil (paragon tier), Thunderstone (level 20), Alchemical Failsafe (paragon tier), Bracers of the Perfect Shot (paragon tier), Dimensional Stride Boots (paragon tier), Gloves of the Wandering Star (paragon tier), Spark Slippers (paragon tier), Queen's Staff +4, Bracelet of the Radiant Storm (paragon tier), Crown of the Brilliant Sun (paragon tier), Ring of the Radiant Storm (paragon tier), Ring of the Dragonborn Emperor (paragon tier), Backlash Tattoo (heroic tier), Shadowdance Feyweave Armor +4, Seed of War (paragon tier)
====== Copy to Clipboard and Press the Import Button on the Summary Tab ======
DPR Analysis:
Both nova and sustained DPR numbers will be pretty high, but the actual numbers will depend on a number of assumptions:
1) How many monsters there are on the field
2) How many can be grouped up into a 3x3 area
3) How many rounds the combat can be expected to be
4) If we're burning Action Points
5) If we're burning dailies or item dailes.
6) What level we're playing at
These are not independent factors (the more grouped-up we can make the monsters, the less time we'll need to kill them all, and if we pop off dailies it'll be even faster), so I'll just throw down the following scenario, and you can adjust it in your own analysis as you see fit:
#1: 9 monsters (non-elite, non-solo, non-minion)
#2: We'll be able to group them into a 3x3 area. (We are controllers and can slide them all, knock them prone, slow them all, and throw a wall around them. It's not hard, though it will cosume a couple party dailies every combat to lock them down.)
#3: Three rounds
#4: We'll look at both sustained and demi-encounter nova DPR.
#5: We have a total of 20 or so dailies to control the battlefield, so unless you're fighting more than 10 combats in one day, we'll have enough dailies floating around to control the battlefield with walls, zones, mass stunning (4x4 area), resounding thundered Arcane Whirlwinds (7x7 area that slides enemies), etc.
#6 The sample build is at level 20. It works across all levels though.
Sustained DPR Analysis
Prior to the current round: The monsters have been all been hit by a minor-action Resonance Crystal (or Storm Sacrifice) and a divine bolt. Our alchemical items have +4 to hit from our theme and PP, so they'll probably all hit, and Storm Sacrifice always hits. We'll have a whetstone up, always, since they're free.
Minor Action: Whatever
Move Action: Whatever
Standard Action: Rapid Shot the 9 monsters in a 3x3 area. Each gets hit by 2 lightning/thunder Divine Bolts.
Range: 10 (normal) + 2 (Gloves of the Wandering Star) = 12
Attack Bonus: 10 (half level) + 7 (Wisdom) + 4 (enhancement) + 2 (feat, expertise) + 1 (superior implement) + 1 (Power of Arcana) + 1 (Oncoming Storm) + 2 Queen's Staff (we alternate using the wand and staff) = +28 vs Reflex. So with an average reflex of 32, we hit on a 4+, or 6+ with Rapid Shot. Not bad. Also if we miss, once per day we can turn one of the misses on a Divine Bolt into two more Divine Bolts with Inevitable Shot.
Damage Per Hit: 1d6 lightning (or radiant) and thunder + 7 (Wisdom) + 5 (Dex) + 4 (Enhancement) + 10 (Vulnerable) + 70 (Wand of Thunderous Anguish: (4 + 10 vuln) x 5) + 4 (DIS) + 4 (item, bracers) + 4 cold (whetstone) + 2 (superior implement, dragontooth wand) + 2 (feat, Raging Storm) + 6 (Gifts of the Queen (+4 and a free reroll on our 1d6 damage)) = 1d6+118 per hit or .65(121.5) + 0.05(121.5+4d6) = 86 DPR + Slide 1 per hit.
Number of Attacks Per Round: Between 2 and 19. (18 from Rapid Shot, +1 from White Lotus Master Riposte - all monsters will be hit by WLMR, so will be forced to trigger it.)
Average Total Damage Per Round: Between 172 and 1634 DPR per round.
Total Party Damage Per Round: Between 1032 and 9804 DPR per round.
(Note if the Dilettante Cheese is banned, then we'll do only about 300DPR per PC, or 1800DPR for the entire party. Stormsoul can boost this for two rounds by activating their racial.)
Demi-Encounter Nova
Action Point for a second Rapid Shot. This will take us up to a maximum of 37 attacks in one round, or about 3200 DPR per PC, or over 19,000 DPR for the entire party in one round.
It'll go much higher if we drop one or more Herald the Storm Unleashed, which is a non-errataed zone that deals 5+vuln lightning damage when monsters start in the zone, and 5+vuln thunder damage when they leave it. (And the zone is moveable.) So multiply all the sliding you'll get from Mark of Storm by the number of times you can hit one target (plus forced movement from any other sources, such as a Arcane Whirlwind) and multiply it by the number of zones you can overlap, and you can throw another, oh 1000 or 2000 DPR, depending on your final numbers. Power and Item dailes (such as a Staff of the Magi) to create mass sliding zones would amplify this greatly.
A bunch of Seeds of War could add another 1000 DPR, give or take how tightly they could be packed in.
Exact numbers aren't really important, and we won't factor this damage in elsewhere... I'm just throwing that there's plenty more damage to be found out there.
Analysis: These numbers will never be reached because monsters will quite simply die too soon, before all the different bonuses from the different sources can be activated. And we'll run out of sources of vulnerability (we could have up to four per PC every encounter) eventually. But assuming blobs of tofu with no defenses and infinite hit points, the party will hit ~22,000 DPR with just at-wills, or somewhere around 40,000 DPR (give or take 10,000 DPR) for a single round if we're allowed to pop off encounter-long dailies.
If we have time to prep before a battle, we can set traps all over the battlefield with our stock of Precarious Crystals and Alchemists fires or Thunderstones or Resonating Crystals. This would make for a very fun combat, really.
Alternative Feats: Mark of Storms (dicussed above, but not in the sample build since the sample build is a pure Divine Bolt DPR optimization build), Stormhawk Vengeance (thunder damage when we drop below zero), Staff Expertise or other Staff Feats (including one that allows us to deliver Divine Bolts as a MBA), Improved Defenses / Superior Defenses / Solid Sound, Hybrid Talent (for Divine Channeling) + Storm Sacrifice, the various feats that boost lightning and thunder attacks (Oncoming Storm, Raging Storm, Echoes of Thunder, Shocking Soul, Storm Step, Khyber Familiar, Lightning Arc - some of these were used in the DPR calculations above but not in the sample build). Frostcheese with whetstones. There's a LOT of feats available for this build, so you'll have to decide which work the best for you.
Conclusion: A Thunder Mafia is possible.
Pictured: Thunder Lizards
Premise: Radiant Mafias have been well-known for a while now as being a very effective, well rounded team optimization option. When looking up options for a thunder sorcerer in another thread, I realized that it should be possible to put together a thunder mafia that did just as well. This post is also to show the possibilities available with the Alchemist theme and the Alchemist Savant PP.
Oh, and we'll have infinite gold and alchemical items starting at 11th level. That's cool, too.
Core Combo: There's an alchemist item called a 'resonance crystal' that grants thunder vulnerability until EONT. (Alternatively, there's a divine channeling option called Storm Sacrifice to do the same thing.) We combine this with a bajillion thunder attacks, all made with a Wand of Thunderous Anguish (which adds a second set of thunder damage to the target with every attack made). This will result in lots of sustained at-will damage.
Race Options: Half-elf (for some dilettante cheese), Genasi (Stormsoul, naturally) or Warforged (who have several nice options for Alchemical items) or Dwarf (for Alchemical Failsafe cheese). If your DM will allow the dilettante cheese, go half-elf. The party doesn't need to be uniracial (or is it monoracial?). In epic, being a Reincarnate Champion will allow all of the above at once.
Class Options: Any class that can make thunder attacks at will is okay. Optimal classes will have the ability to make multiple attacks a round, and use wands (for the Wand of Thundering Anguish). In the example below, we use a Dex/Wis invoker|wizard with thunder-admixtured Divine Bolts. (Tanking Intelligence, so using Effect-only attacks for the wizard half instead, such as Mass Charm.) For whole-party optimization, we could mix in some healers, but a party of six invokers|wizards will do amazingly well.
Theme: Alchemist, natch. It's perhaps not essential, but it's the best fit for the build. For a background, I use Born Under a Bad Sign, as normal.
Secondary Combos:
1) RBA Cheese. Power of Skill with Divine Bolts to turn them into basic attacks + Rapid Shot to make a RBA at each target in a burst 1. This can result in up to 18 shots with a single at-will standard action. We also multiclass Seeker to get a daily RBA (Inevitable Shot), but more importantly Primal Eye for +Dex to damage with all of our Divine Bolts. By being RBAs, this also lets the build combo easily with Warlords directing the strike.
2) White Lotus Riposte Cheese. Yes, WLMR is still overpowered. We ought to be able to cover most all of our enemies with arcane Divine Bolts (Power of Arcana), with all six of our invoker|wizards, which means that on every enemy attack, we'll get an attack back. We don't provoke any OAs via Shadowdance armor.
3) Mark of Storm Cheese. All our attacks will be lighting or thunder, so we'll be able to slide the monsters all over the battlefield, including into a nicely packed group, which will allow us to slaughter them with Rapid Shot and zones. We'll have other enemy-positioning tricks to bunch them up and punish them.
4) Alchemist Cheese. The Alchemist theme lets you create one Alchemical item per encounter, which essentially gives you infinite money when combined with Alchemist Savant's Resourceful Alchemist ability, with the net result of getting infinite money and infinite alchemical items. (Well, not infinite, but bounded by the number of short rests you can take in a day.) There's a belt called the Alchemical Failsafe that lets you throw an alchemical item as part of your Second Wind. So Dwarves (or Humans with Frantic Recovery) can do this once per combat, and Alchemist Savants can do it as well once per encounter (their 11th level encounter lets you throw an alchemical item as a minor action), so we can use our Resonance Crystals once or twice a combat for free without wasting standard actions. We'll also have a full bag full of alchemical items, such as full-level Whetstones, Precarious Crystals (think about what you can do with an unlimited number of these!), Kinetic Oil (free action interrupts!), and so forth. Savants can duplicate alchemical items as a daily power, in case we start running short of something.
Edit: Ok, other people noticed the infinite money exploit, fair enough. But for the purposes of this build, we'll just interpret it to mean we have whatever alchemical items we desire. They're not very good, by and large, so it's not as broken as it appears at first glance. Really, it just makes alchemy a viable option.
Warforged Alchemists Note: If you go the Warforged route, you can gain temps every time you hit with an alchemical item. Via clever use of Kinetic Oil (which gives you free action alchemical attacks you can make on other creatures turns), items that grant ongoing damage + beshaba's boon and especially with pre-errata reparation apparatus you can throw up significant temp hp shields essentially at-will on enemies turns. Alchemical Opportunist can help also, here, in making an essentially invulnerable character.
Sample Build:
This is something I threw together pretty quickly. The feats are the most important part. So don't pay too much attention to the choice of dailies, encounters, or the order I took feats. We'll be basically making at-wills all day long, and so the build is playable from level 1 all the way through Epic, gaining in power as it hits certain key levels.
====== Created Using Wizards of the Coast D&D Character Builder ======
Thunder Lizard, level 20
Half-Elf, Wizard|Invoker, Alchemist Savant
Covenant Manifestation: Manifestation of Malediction
Hybrid Invoker: Hybrid Invoker Will
Arcane Admixture Damage Type: Arcane Admixture Thunder
Half-Elf Power Selection: Dilettante
Background: Born Under a Bad Sign (Born Under a Bad Sign Benefit)
FINAL ABILITY SCORES
Str 9, Con 13, Dex 20, Int 11, Wis 24, Cha 14.
STARTING ABILITY SCORES
Str 8, Con 10, Dex 15, Int 10, Wis 17, Cha 13.
AC: 30 Fort: 21 Reflex: 25 Will: 29
HP: 110 Surges: 7 Surge Value: 27
TRAINED SKILLS
Religion +16, History +16, Arcana +17, Nature +23
UNTRAINED SKILLS
Acrobatics +15, Bluff +12, Diplomacy +14, Dungeoneering +17, Endurance +11, Heal +17, Insight +19, Intimidate +12, Perception +17, Stealth +15, Streetwise +12, Thievery +15, Athletics +9
FEATS
Level 1: Superior Implement Training (Dragontooth wand)
Level 2: Power of Skill
Level 4: Primal Sharpshooter
Level 6: Wand Expertise
Level 8: Dual Implement Spellcaster
Level 10: Power of Arcana
Level 11: Arcane Admixture
Level 12: Versatile Master
Level 14: White Lotus Riposte
Level 16: White Lotus Master Riposte
Level 18: Primal Eye
Level 20: Resounding Thunder
POWERS
Dilettante: Rapid Shot (Archery Mastery)
Hybrid at-will 1: Cloud of Daggers
Hybrid at-will 1: Divine Bolts
Primal Sharpshooter: Elemental Spirits
Hybrid encounter 1: Thunder of Judgment
Hybrid daily 1: Arcane Whirlwind
Hybrid utility 2: Heaven's Bountiful Reward
Hybrid encounter 3: Blissful Ignorance
Hybrid daily 5: Silent Malediction
Hybrid utility 6: Wizard's Escape
Hybrid encounter 7: Phantom Foes
Hybrid daily 9: Herald the Storm Unleashed
Hybrid utility 10: Repelling Shield
Hybrid encounter 13: Thunderous Rebuke (replaces Thunder of Judgment)
Hybrid utility 16: Walls of Hestavar
Hybrid encounter 17: Mass Charm (replaces Blissful Ignorance)
ITEMS
Dragontooth wand of Thunderous Anguish +4, Transposing Quickbeam staff +4, Tempest Whetstone (paragon tier), Caustic Whetstone (paragon tier), Whetstone of Venom (paragon tier), Frozen Whetstone (paragon tier), Resonance Crystal (level 19), Precarious Crystal (Level 20), Kinetic Oil (paragon tier), Thunderstone (level 20), Alchemical Failsafe (paragon tier), Bracers of the Perfect Shot (paragon tier), Dimensional Stride Boots (paragon tier), Gloves of the Wandering Star (paragon tier), Spark Slippers (paragon tier), Queen's Staff +4, Bracelet of the Radiant Storm (paragon tier), Crown of the Brilliant Sun (paragon tier), Ring of the Radiant Storm (paragon tier), Ring of the Dragonborn Emperor (paragon tier), Backlash Tattoo (heroic tier), Shadowdance Feyweave Armor +4, Seed of War (paragon tier)
====== Copy to Clipboard and Press the Import Button on the Summary Tab ======
DPR Analysis:
Both nova and sustained DPR numbers will be pretty high, but the actual numbers will depend on a number of assumptions:
1) How many monsters there are on the field
2) How many can be grouped up into a 3x3 area
3) How many rounds the combat can be expected to be
4) If we're burning Action Points
5) If we're burning dailies or item dailes.
6) What level we're playing at
These are not independent factors (the more grouped-up we can make the monsters, the less time we'll need to kill them all, and if we pop off dailies it'll be even faster), so I'll just throw down the following scenario, and you can adjust it in your own analysis as you see fit:
#1: 9 monsters (non-elite, non-solo, non-minion)
#2: We'll be able to group them into a 3x3 area. (We are controllers and can slide them all, knock them prone, slow them all, and throw a wall around them. It's not hard, though it will cosume a couple party dailies every combat to lock them down.)
#3: Three rounds
#4: We'll look at both sustained and demi-encounter nova DPR.
#5: We have a total of 20 or so dailies to control the battlefield, so unless you're fighting more than 10 combats in one day, we'll have enough dailies floating around to control the battlefield with walls, zones, mass stunning (4x4 area), resounding thundered Arcane Whirlwinds (7x7 area that slides enemies), etc.
#6 The sample build is at level 20. It works across all levels though.
Sustained DPR Analysis
Prior to the current round: The monsters have been all been hit by a minor-action Resonance Crystal (or Storm Sacrifice) and a divine bolt. Our alchemical items have +4 to hit from our theme and PP, so they'll probably all hit, and Storm Sacrifice always hits. We'll have a whetstone up, always, since they're free.
Minor Action: Whatever
Move Action: Whatever
Standard Action: Rapid Shot the 9 monsters in a 3x3 area. Each gets hit by 2 lightning/thunder Divine Bolts.
Range: 10 (normal) + 2 (Gloves of the Wandering Star) = 12
Attack Bonus: 10 (half level) + 7 (Wisdom) + 4 (enhancement) + 2 (feat, expertise) + 1 (superior implement) + 1 (Power of Arcana) + 1 (Oncoming Storm) + 2 Queen's Staff (we alternate using the wand and staff) = +28 vs Reflex. So with an average reflex of 32, we hit on a 4+, or 6+ with Rapid Shot. Not bad. Also if we miss, once per day we can turn one of the misses on a Divine Bolt into two more Divine Bolts with Inevitable Shot.
Damage Per Hit: 1d6 lightning (or radiant) and thunder + 7 (Wisdom) + 5 (Dex) + 4 (Enhancement) + 10 (Vulnerable) + 70 (Wand of Thunderous Anguish: (4 + 10 vuln) x 5) + 4 (DIS) + 4 (item, bracers) + 4 cold (whetstone) + 2 (superior implement, dragontooth wand) + 2 (feat, Raging Storm) + 6 (Gifts of the Queen (+4 and a free reroll on our 1d6 damage)) = 1d6+118 per hit or .65(121.5) + 0.05(121.5+4d6) = 86 DPR + Slide 1 per hit.
Number of Attacks Per Round: Between 2 and 19. (18 from Rapid Shot, +1 from White Lotus Master Riposte - all monsters will be hit by WLMR, so will be forced to trigger it.)
Average Total Damage Per Round: Between 172 and 1634 DPR per round.
Total Party Damage Per Round: Between 1032 and 9804 DPR per round.
(Note if the Dilettante Cheese is banned, then we'll do only about 300DPR per PC, or 1800DPR for the entire party. Stormsoul can boost this for two rounds by activating their racial.)
Demi-Encounter Nova
Action Point for a second Rapid Shot. This will take us up to a maximum of 37 attacks in one round, or about 3200 DPR per PC, or over 19,000 DPR for the entire party in one round.
It'll go much higher if we drop one or more Herald the Storm Unleashed, which is a non-errataed zone that deals 5+vuln lightning damage when monsters start in the zone, and 5+vuln thunder damage when they leave it. (And the zone is moveable.) So multiply all the sliding you'll get from Mark of Storm by the number of times you can hit one target (plus forced movement from any other sources, such as a Arcane Whirlwind) and multiply it by the number of zones you can overlap, and you can throw another, oh 1000 or 2000 DPR, depending on your final numbers. Power and Item dailes (such as a Staff of the Magi) to create mass sliding zones would amplify this greatly.
A bunch of Seeds of War could add another 1000 DPR, give or take how tightly they could be packed in.
Exact numbers aren't really important, and we won't factor this damage in elsewhere... I'm just throwing that there's plenty more damage to be found out there.
Analysis: These numbers will never be reached because monsters will quite simply die too soon, before all the different bonuses from the different sources can be activated. And we'll run out of sources of vulnerability (we could have up to four per PC every encounter) eventually. But assuming blobs of tofu with no defenses and infinite hit points, the party will hit ~22,000 DPR with just at-wills, or somewhere around 40,000 DPR (give or take 10,000 DPR) for a single round if we're allowed to pop off encounter-long dailies.
If we have time to prep before a battle, we can set traps all over the battlefield with our stock of Precarious Crystals and Alchemists fires or Thunderstones or Resonating Crystals. This would make for a very fun combat, really.
Alternative Feats: Mark of Storms (dicussed above, but not in the sample build since the sample build is a pure Divine Bolt DPR optimization build), Stormhawk Vengeance (thunder damage when we drop below zero), Staff Expertise or other Staff Feats (including one that allows us to deliver Divine Bolts as a MBA), Improved Defenses / Superior Defenses / Solid Sound, Hybrid Talent (for Divine Channeling) + Storm Sacrifice, the various feats that boost lightning and thunder attacks (Oncoming Storm, Raging Storm, Echoes of Thunder, Shocking Soul, Storm Step, Khyber Familiar, Lightning Arc - some of these were used in the DPR calculations above but not in the sample build). Frostcheese with whetstones. There's a LOT of feats available for this build, so you'll have to decide which work the best for you.
Conclusion: A Thunder Mafia is possible.
