Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Crashy75" data-source="post: 4448753" data-attributes="member: 11017">Crazy dwarf.  I'm probably one of the ones that has confused you in this thread.  I have a very simple way of explaining some things.Alex is not saying that a +2 or so to damage equals a -2 to AC.  To understand the relationship, you have to understand what these two modifiers mean.  -2 to AC means, basically, that you will be hit an extra 2 times per 20 times you are attacked.  +1.5 to damage means, that basically, you will be doing an extra 15 points of damage per 20 attacks per [w].  So, the more you are attacked, the better to go Sword and Board.  However, unless you are a defender, just having a shield probably means you are being attacked less.  This does not necessary help your team (though thinking about it, it is beneficial for the team if the leader is not attacked as much because losing the medic is bad for everybody.)But, the more you use high [w] attacks the better to go Two-Handed Weapon Fighting.  The reason for this is that for every [w] your original damage bonus effectively doubles!  Think about that for a second.  For the 1st level brute strike, your damage bonus triples!  And it's reliable, so you're guaranteed to land it at some point when you decide to use it.  Now, as you might have guessed, it's very hard to give an accurate mathematical estimation as to whether or not this is balanced.  There are too many variables.  In a group that faces mostly minions, then sword and board is the best way to go.  (and yes, definitely sword and board.)  You will be attacked more and your higher damage means much less.  However, if you face a lot of solo monsters (hopefully with a lot of rest in between!), you will be presumably unloading your high [w] attacks, making 2-handed weapons a reasonable choice.  Also, this varies widely depending on the powers, feats, equipment and class you choose.EDIT:  And reaping strike is a very good power.  It's pretty much the quintessential two handed weapon power.  It basically allows you to do your str modifier x10 per 20 rounds.  This could be an extra 40 points at 1st level.  This is, of course, useless against minions, but it's great against soldiers, elites, and solo's (all hard to hit).</blockquote>

Verification