Thief seems overpowered to this new/old DM

[KarinsDad]

You have a hate-on for thieves. I get that. You're also obsessed with first level DPR. I get that, too. While there's no point in debating this with you, I will point out that you're missing the point of the particular build in question (dwarf gouge ranger).

Twin Strike: that's what a Hungry Spear enchantment is for. It's the spear version of Farbond Spellblade. A first level dwarf with Dwarven Weapon Training, a DEX of 18, and a Hungry Spear Gouge is twin striking with a +7 or 8 (prime shot) (better with CA) at 10/20 range for 2d6 b1 + 3 | 2d6 b1 + 3 | 1d6.

The Hungry Spear enhancement was not just created for Twin Strike. It actually gives any melee spear user (e.g. Greatspear) a range capability. That's actually what is was created for.


In order to try to catch up to the Thief in damage, you are giving a specific magic weapon to the Dwarven Ranger. Course, you aren't giving a magic weapon to the Thief.

Ignoring that.

The Hungry Spear enhancement gives the heavy thrown attribute to the weapon, not the light thrown attribute.

That means that this weapon uses Strength for ranged attacks, not Dexterity.

If a melee weapon has a range entry, it can be thrown and belongs to either the light thrown or the heavy thrown category.

The gouge is a melee weapon. Just because Hungry Spear gives it range does not change it into a Dex based ranged light thrown weapon.

Heavy Thrown: You hurl a thrown weapon from your hand, rather than using it to loose a projectile. A ranged basic attack with a heavy thrown weapon uses your Strength instead of your Dexterity for the attack and damage rolls.

A melee weapon with the heavy thrown or the light thrown property counts as a ranged weapon when thrown and can be used with ranged attack powers that have the weapon keyword.

So, Twin Strike can be used with a Hungry Gouge. But, only as a heavy thrown weapon which requires Str, not Dex.

So, your 18 Dex Dwarven Ranger with a 14 Str will only have a +5 to hit. If you bump up his Str, then his AC and Reflex suffers.

And if he is forced into melee, he cannot use the Gouge with Twin Strike unless he is going to throw it which results in an OA against him.

If we give him an 18 Str and a 16 Dex so that he can use this weapon in a worthwhile manner and still have a semi-decent 16 AC and 14 Reflex, he's still not going to head out and do Prime Shot a lot and he still will rarely get Combat Advantage.

In this scenario, he does (assuming 3.5 add on a critical):

Twin Strike: 18.12125
TS + Prime: 19.335
TS + CA: 20.53125
TS + Prime + CA: 21.71

Granted, he should hardly ever get the last two at low level and even Prime Shot is risky with a starting AC of 16. I don't know about your DM, but my DM would eat an AC 16 first level PC who heads into melee to get CA for a ranged attack for lunch.

His DPR for using the Gouge in melee is:

Without CA: 10.125
With CA: 11.625

So it he is in a situation where the OA might take him out, he drops his DPR by almost half because he cannot use Twin Strike. The rest of the time he risks an OA to get CA from flank. Chances are, he will not be getting CA too often.

Congratulations. With one specific race and one specific magic weapon, you were able to surpass the Thief who did not have a magic weapon or a specific race.

Now, let's give a single specific magic weapon to the Thief.

How about a +1 Master's Blade Shortsword?

DPR 20.125

The Thief wins again. Let's make it a Dagger to make sure he can use it at range.

DPR 19.175

He still wins. He still has 1 better AC. He can hide on alternating rounds. He hits most same level foes 95% of the time with Backstab (which can drive some DMs nuts). The Ranger has an Encounter power with which to catch up DPR against Backstab.


And the Dwarf has already used a feat that gives a feat bonus to damage. The Thief still has that option available for a future feat. And damage resistance will be twice as devastating for the Ranger.

And the Dwarf loses DPR if he ever wants to use a weapon which is not a Hungry Spear. He is handcuffed into the magic item of the build. The Thief can be any Dex based race and do great. He can use a wide variety of magic weapons.

So sure. One can play these types of one trick pony builds to minmax a certain specific At Will power with a certain specific race. That doesn't mean that the Thief's damage isn't overly high to begin with, just that yet again WotC introduced another weapon that is unbalanced. This isn't surprising.

 

[Mapache]

The Hungry Spear enhancement gives the heavy thrown attribute to the weapon, not the light thrown attribute.

That means that this weapon uses Strength for ranged attacks, not Dexterity.

The gouge is a melee weapon. Just because Hungry Spear gives it range does not change it into a Dex based ranged light thrown weapon.

So, Twin Strike can be used with a Hungry Gouge. But, only as a heavy thrown weapon which requires Str, not Dex.

That's incorrect. Heavy vs Light Thrown only matters for basic attacks. If you're using a power like Twin Strike, then you do what the power says, and Twin Strike says to use Dexterity if you're making a ranged weapon attack. It's the same as if an Artificer used it with Magic Weapon—he'd use neither Strength nor Dexterity, but Intelligence instead, because that's what the power says.

 

[Droogie128]

That's incorrect. Heavy vs Light Thrown only matters for basic attacks. If you're using a power like Twin Strike, then you do what the power says, and Twin Strike says to use Dexterity if you're making a ranged weapon attack. It's the same as if an Artificer used it with Magic Weapon—he'd use neither Strength nor Dexterity, but Intelligence instead, because that's what the power says.

Just wanted to back you up on this. The power specifically says str for melee and Dex for ranged. It's an example of specific beating general.

 

[Jhaelen]

My group may be unusual, but we average 10 to 15 rounds per encounter.

I think that's really quite long. What character levels would that be?

In my 4e games so far (all of them low level) most combats were 'effectively' over after five to six rounds. If the players insisted on mopping up the rest it might go on for another two to three rounds.
An exceptionally difficult encounter (level + 4) took about twice as long, but that was, well, exceptional

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Another thing to remember:

Powers that generate movement are undewvalued if you just look at DPR. A single slow effect that no save can end can reduce DPR by a lot.

 

[twilsemail]

The Hungry Spear enhancement gives the heavy thrown attribute to the weapon, not the light thrown attribute.

That means that this weapon uses Strength for ranged attacks, not Dexterity.
[...]
So, Twin Strike can be used with a Hungry Gouge. But, only as a heavy thrown weapon which requires Str, not Dex.

Were this true, it would be far easier to ignore the rangers MAD problem.

I know you've generally got a really firm grasp on mechanics, so I think it's safe to assume you just suffered a brain fart.

No worries. I foobar all of the time. I'll probably have a foobar in this post.

You almost called it.

 

[sigfile]

In order to try to catch up to the Thief in damage, you are giving a specific magic weapon to the Dwarven Ranger. Course, you aren't giving a magic weapon to the Thief.

I'm not the one doing DPR analysis. I just explained the specific ranger build you misunderstood.

So, Twin Strike can be used with a Hungry Gouge. But, only as a heavy thrown weapon which requires Str, not Dex.

Incorrect.

And the Dwarf has already used a feat that gives a feat bonus to damage. The Thief still has that option available for a future feat.

And your Thief has taken Backstabber, while Lethal Hunter is still available to the Ranger. Backstabber trumps Lethal Hunter for damage, while a Dwarven Ranger gets up to four times the mileage out of DWT that a Thief gets out of Weapon Focus at heroic. What's your point?

And the Dwarf loses DPR if he ever wants to use a weapon which is not a Hungry Spear. He is handcuffed into the magic item of the build. The Thief can be any Dex based race and do great. He can use a wide variety of magic weapons.

In this, at least, we agree. The thief can do quite a lot with very little.

What was your point of giving a first level thief a Master's Blade? Or were you just fishing for a random +1 item?

 

[KarinsDad]

I know you've generally got a really firm grasp on mechanics, so I think it's safe to assume you just suffered a brain fart.

You're absolutely correct. I did have a brain fart, but not the one you think.

The Hungry Spear weapon does not turn a Gouge into a Ranged Weapon.

It gives it the Heavy Thrown property. No more. No less.

It also gives it a range for that Heavy Thrown property since all Throw weapons have to have a range.

But, this does not turn a Melee Two Handed weapon into a Ranged weapon. It turns a Melee Two Handed weapon into a Melee Two Handed weapon with the Heavy Thrown property.

The Gouge becomes the equivalent of a Javelin with more damage. Every thrown weapon has a range, but throw weapon are not Ranged weapons.

This means that Twin Strike cannot be used at all with a Gouge. The Gouge is not a double weapon, so it cannot be used for melee. Twin Strike cannot be used as a Ranged Basic Attack, so it cannot be used with the Heavy Thrown property.

Now, there might be a feat that allows for this in some way. But, I do not know of one.

So, people are correct. The Hungry Gouge cannot be used with Twin Strike with Str. But, they are also incorrect. The Hungry Gouge cannot be used with Twin Strike with Dex either.

It's not a Ranged weapon.

It's a Melee weapon with the Heavy Thrown property that has a range associated with that property.

The build, at least at first level, is illegal.

 

[twilsemail]

But, this does not turn a Melee Two Handed weapon into a Ranged weapon. It turns a Melee Two Handed weapon into a Melee Two Handed weapon with the Heavy Thrown property.

A melee weapon with the heavy thrown or the light thrown property counts as a ranged weapon when thrown and can be used with ranged attack powers that have the weapon keyword.

This may have been updated. I'm referencing a pdf and don't have the updates with me.

 

[MrMyth]

I've found that Daily powers that give some benefit for the rest of the encounter are a lot more worthwhile than ones that just hit for a lot of damage, possibly miss for half damage, and have some minor rider to them.

The ones that don't benefit for an entire round (most of the low level Ranger ones) tend to just be extra damage for the most part.

Pretty much in agreement here. Now, big simple damage dailies can be nice in the right situations - in a fight where you really just need to unload as much damage as quickly as possible - but I do tend to favor ones with an ongoing effect, or that give some capability not normally available (like attacking multiple targets) or inflict some very potent condition.

The thief is certainly effective without them, but you can't deny that some of the top-tier dailies can be game-changers when used at the right time.

Instead of considering CA as something he gets half of the time, let's just do the calculations with and without CA. That way, the numbers are accurate.

Ok, fair enough.

First off, you gave the Dwarf two +1 waraxes at 4th level. If following the DMG, a DM should typically hand out 4 items for 5 PCs at levels 1 through 3, so it is unlikely that the Dwarf would have 2 of them when he 2.4 magic items, even at the end of level 4 when he has 3.1. Let's give him one +1 magic weapon since that's what we will be giving the Thief as well. As the Ranger levels up, we can assume that when he gets a +2 weapon, that one goes in his main hand and the +1 weapon goes into his off hand, etc. Otherwise, you are skewing the results in his favor due to an extra magic weapon.

Going to have to disagree with you here. Yeah, he is probably likely to have only found a single +1 weapon by level 4. But by that level, every PC has also probably earned ~600 gp in money - and a second +1 weapon is easily within that price range, and a common magic item, and going to be a high priority for a dual-wielder. Feel free to also assume that the rogue has spent cash on any extra level 1 common item of his choice, though.

I suppose your concerns about race are founded - my point, though, was that there are definitely builds out there which can match the thief, which I think stands (especially by how much ahead of the thief this build comes out - even with an optimized race, I don't think the thief is going to catch up.)

But let's go ahead and look at the numbers without DWT in the picture.

Level 4 Ranger vs Level 4 Rogue (hidden due to length and math)
[sblock]
Level 4 Ranger. Str 20, 2 x +1 Waraxe, Waraxe Proficiency, Axe Expertise, Weapon Focus, Two-Fanged Strike, Avenging Charge.
We'll look at a five round combat - let's assume, as a melee character, he will have Combat Advantage for 2 of the 5 rounds (and will use Two-Fanged Strike on one of those rounds, as seems tactical, but that he won't have it for Avenging Charge, which he'll have to use whenever a good opportunity arises.)

Twin Strike without Combat Advantage: +11 vs AC 19: d12(b1)+2.
1/400 chance of both attacks critting: 35 damage. (12+12+6+2+2+3.5+3.5)
24/400 chance of one attack critting and one hitting: 32.5 damage. (12+6+2+3.5+7+2)
14/400 chance of one attack critting and one missing: 23.5 damage. (12+6+2+3.5)
144/400 chance of both attacks hitting: 21.5 damage. (7+7+2+2+3.5)
168/400 chance of one attack hitting and one missing: 12.5 damage. (7+2+3.5)
49/400 chance of both attacks miss: 0 damage.
Total DPR: 15.85

Twin Strike with Combat Advantage: +13 vs AC 19: d12(b1)+2.
1/400 chance of both attacks critting: 35 damage. (12+12+6+2+2+3.5+3.5)
28/400 chance of one attack critting and one hitting: 32.5 damage. (12+6+2+3.5+7+2)
10/400 chance of one attack critting and one missing: 23.5 damage. (12+6+2+3.5)
196/400 chance of both attacks hitting: 21.5 damage. (7+7+2+2+3.5)
140/400 chance of one attack hitting and one missing: 12.5 damage. (7+2+3.5)
25/400 chance of both attacks miss: 0 damage.
Total DPR: 17.86

Two-Fanged Strike with Combat Advantage: +13 vs AC 19: d12(b1)+7.
225/400 chance of both attacks hitting or critting: Does 11 damage more than Twin Strike.
150/400 chance of one attack hitting or critting: Does 5 damage more than Twin Strike.
25/400 chance of both attacks missing: Does 0 damage more than Twin Strike.
DPR: 25.9225

Avenging Charge without Combat Advantage: +12 vs AC 19: 2d12(b1)+7. Assuming quarry is not available.
1/20 chance of a crit: 33.5 damage. (12+12+7+2.5)
13/20 chance of a hit: 20.5 damage. (7+6.5+7)
6/20 chance of a miss: 0 damage.
Total DPR: 15

So, in a 5 round combat, we're looking at 1 Twin Strike with Combat Advantage (17.86), 3 Twin Strikes without Combat Advantage (15.85 x 3), 1 Two-Fanged Strike with Combat Advantage (25.9225), and one Avenging Charge (15), for a total of 106.3325 damage.

So, assuming the ranger has combat advantage less than half the time that the thief has it, the damage comes out virtually the same - within 2 to 3 points of damage in a combat, using your numbers for the thief (109.175 damage).

The thief does have some advantages, as you note - higher AC/Ref, better charges and OAs, compared to higher Fort plus Daily powers.

But the damage is pretty much on par - and, again, this is without a fully optimized ranger. The thing is, I'm pretty sure, the more optimization available, the further the ranger comes out ahead, since it is making more attacks and thus taking better advantage of any additional bonuses.

And, again, note the Scout - coming in with 110.4375 damage. Again, right in the same range. And, again, with multiple attacks, will almost certainly comes out ahead of the thief the more optimization is in play - and can take advantage of all the same basic attack boosters that the thief does. [/sblock]
Your initial claim was that no one else even came close to the Thief in terms of regular damage. It simply isn't true. The thief, the rogue, the ranger, the scout - all of these are in the same field as far as damage goes. The sorcerer is easily up there if it can regularly target at least two enemies. And I suspect others can at least get close.

We've been going back and forth here with the math, and I think you are missing the point - that even when the numbers are slightly off, all these builds are in the same range. Some optimized builds will pull ahead of the thief, others will fall behind. There are various tricks you can build around, and maybe at later levels you can truly create a thief OA machine. But there are plenty of other combos that other classes can take advantage of as well.

I'm not denying that he does good damage. I'm denying that the damage he deals is completely out of the league of other strikers. You claimed he was putting down an entire additional monster each combat, and that is very, very far from universally true.

Granted, the Ranger will get a +2 for +1 boost on Twin Strike damage anytime he can boost weapon damage. There are a few items for that, but not too many feats (at least at heroic). But, the Thief gets +5 more damage that the Ranger does not get by level 30 because his ability score bonus adds to his At Will damage. For example, +1 more at level 8.

And there are a ton of feats and items that help Charges which the Thief can do for more damage than the Ranger. For example, Surprising Charge is +5 damage for the Spiked Chain Thief. And once the Ranger is getting CA most of the time, the Thief will be getting it even when it is not his turn.

All in all, the Thief has a lot of staying power here. The Ranger is really limited if he wants to match DPE.

I agree with most of your statements, but not the last one. Yes, there are ways to optimize the thief, and taking advantage of boosting basic attacks is up there. But there are also plenty of feats, items and powers that will enhance the ranger, especially as it gets more and more encounter and daily powers.

Claiming that the Thief, at level 1, is at the top of damage - that is an argument you can make. I don't think he is as far ahead as you have claimed, but I won't deny that he is in the lead.

Claiming that the Ranger (and any other class) is limited as they level in keeping up with the Thief's damage? No way.

Your Paragon and Epic level thieves will definitely be awesome, and do excellent damage and rarely miss. But the sheer number of attacks that rangers are able to unleash, with significant bonuses to damage on each one? The versatility of encounter and daily powers that other classes tap into?

Those are a force to be reckoned with, and definitely not something you can simply dismiss.