What are the most worthless feats (Heroic)?

[Istar]

Far Shot and Far Throw - I've never found the ranges on weapons to be a major factor in my games.

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Far Throw works pretty well for a Daggermaster Rogue doesnt it, one of the guides has it as an Ice Cold essential for DM Rogue ??

 

[DEFCON 1]

I think all the elemental feats are meant to only exist for the oddly-statted characters. They weren't designed with the expectation that all prayer or spellcasting characters would/should take them... they were designed so that those players who didn't min-max but rather selected stats for more universal ability would have the chance to get closer to the damage levels of their min-maxer counterparts.

For example, if you're a cleric of the thugs and thieves portfolio and you want a higher Dex for roleplaying concerns... you probably wouldn't be able to start with your Wis at 18 (or 20 with certain races). Which means at a 16 for example, you're always a point or two behind the min-maxer when it comes to attack and damage. So the Astral Fire feat helps get you slightly closer in power as a small reward for choosing stats based on roleplaying, without allowing the min-maxer to also take it.

And I think many other feats are like that... they are very much situational abilities (either due to specific character build, or specific campaign). So something like Sure Climber or Long Jumper might not get much use from most characters... but the occasional rogue or characters in a pirate campaign would find them to be very good and useful.

Now granted, the question could rightly be asked whether those situational feats even be in a universal book... but I guess they figured there would be those who wouldn't necessarily always min-max their primary and secondary stats, so throwing those folks a bone would be a nice gesture.

 

[Plane Sailing]

I think all the elemental feats are meant to only exist for the oddly-statted characters. They weren't designed with the expectation that all prayer or spellcasting characters would/should take them... they were designed so that those players who didn't min-max but rather selected stats for more universal ability would have the chance to get closer to the damage levels of their min-maxer counterparts.

The problem is that all weapon users can just take one 'weapon focus' feat which gives them a damage bonus with all the attacks they use with their weapon powers. It has no prereqs. And their weapons tend to have bigger damage dice and special effects like high crit too!

Taking that into consideration, the elemental damage feats would be OK if the had no prereqs (allowing for stylistic choices), or if there was a basic Implement Focus feat which arcane/divine casters could take to use with their chosen implement.

As it is... a whole series of them is largely out of reach. Many wizards will take burning blizzard, because they already pump Int and are very likely to want Wis to make thunderwave (or orbing) better. Storm mages who need Con and Dex? Good luck there. Some other options are even worse.

Cheers

 

[UngeheuerLich]

I would rather say weapon fokus is badly designed then... i hope expertise is tied to a secondary ability...

 

[FireLance]

The problem is that all weapon users can just take one 'weapon focus' feat which gives them a damage bonus with all the attacks they use with their weapon powers. It has no prereqs. And their weapons tend to have bigger damage dice and special effects like high crit too!

Could the fact that weapon powers tend to have fewer targets than implement powers be a balancing factor? I think it's quite telling that sword burst, the swordmage's only at-will burst attack, is an implement power instead of a weapon power.

 

[deleteme123456]

Could the fact that weapon powers tend to have fewer targets than implement powers be a balancing factor? I think it's quite telling that sword burst, the swordmage's only at-will burst attack, is an implement power instead of a weapon power.

And sadly, the FAQ says you can pretty much apply whatever you want to it because it's an implement attack using a weapon, so weapon focus works. (Weapon Mastery [epic] feats wouldn't, because those specifically require a melee attack, although if you had a melee implement power that was delivered through an implement which is also a weapon [DRUIDS, I'm looking at you, although I don't know how they're getting 19 STR], I suppose that would work).

 

[shadowoflameth]

I wouldn't (always) agree that feats that have limited use in many campaigns are worthless by design. Aside from character flavor, their value is determined by the situations that come up in your game world. If you are the rogue and you are all about hiding and backstabbing or setting traps everywhere you go, or robbing everyone you meet whether it's smart to try or not, the skill focus thievery, or stealth can be valid choices.

Have puzzles that require multiple languages? Linguist could have value there.

Mounted combat? Well, even if mounts don't come to every fight, when the party have to ride escort to the duke when he goes out front to parley with the hobgoblins, that character has an advantage.

Party already has a ritual caster? what if he's no good in the skill that you need to do a crucial ritual well, but the ranger is?

Wizard has enough spells? Specializes in thunder effects, fine, but what if the heroes get asked to scale ice mountain to slay old frost the white worm before she flies down to steal another of the towns daughters the next dusk? It might be good to have an option in daily or utility even if it's one that rarely sees preparation. It's like fire insurance. You'll probably never need it, but when it does come up, having good coverage turns into a very savvy choice.

 

[Mad Hamish]

Other bad feats I didn't see mentioned above:

Ritual Caster is another one--most parties start with someone who gets this for free: Cleric, Wizard, Bard (others from PH2, I can't recall)...

From a purely mechanical basis it depends a bit on party composition.
If you have a Cleric and Wizard you probably wouldn't take it.
If you only have 1 party member with it then you probably would take it so that you have a better chance of somebody being able to cast raise dead after an encounter goes badly wrong...

 

[AngryPurpleCyclops]

The problem is that all weapon users can just take one 'weapon focus' feat which gives them a damage bonus with all the attacks they use with their weapon powers. It has no prereqs. And their weapons tend to have bigger damage dice and special effects like high crit too!

Taking that into consideration, the elemental damage feats would be OK if the had no prereqs (allowing for stylistic choices), or if there was a basic Implement Focus feat which arcane/divine casters could take to use with their chosen implement.

As it is... a whole series of them is largely out of reach. Many wizards will take burning blizzard, because they already pump Int and are very likely to want Wis to make thunderwave (or orbing) better. Storm mages who need Con and Dex? Good luck there. Some other options are even worse.

Cheers

Depends on how you distribute your stats. I made an eladrin staff wizard with 16-14-13-13-12-8, this yielded:
18 Int*
14 Con
13 Wis
13 Cha
14 Dex*
08 Str
* after racial adjustment
I don't think I hosed my character that much by spreading my stats a little thin and I pumped Wis and Int at level 4 and plan on hitting Con and Int at level 8. I don't have thunderwave chosen (I might have wanted higher wisdom if I had) and I'm not using the orb powers so only having +1 wisdom mod until level 4 wasn't a significant problem. The 14 dex is a waste partly created by my racial ability but it will allow me (given the +1 to all stat raise at level 11) to take arcane reach as a feat at level 11. The 13 in cha gave me the option to make my wizard a fire wizard and take astral fire else I likely would have sacrificed Cha and taken a 14 in wisdom to start. This was a thematic choice and not optimal but the loss of +1 wis wasn't significant to my pc other than possibly getting hit by a will attack here or there I could have avoided. Astral fire on the other hand probably makes a lot bigger difference over the life of my pc given the number of fire based powers I use: scorching, burning hands, sphere, fireshroud. I don't think the elemental feats are "out of reach" but some of them are certainly more painful to aquire than others. Burning blizzard is obviously the easiest for a mage and astral fire probably being the most difficult for any race other than eladrin likely to play a mage (maybe a tiefling has the same chance by reversing cha and dex).

 

[Plane Sailing]

Could the fact that weapon powers tend to have fewer targets than implement powers be a balancing factor? I think it's quite telling that sword burst, the swordmage's only at-will burst attack, is an implement power instead of a weapon power.

I don't think so personally (the fighter, ranger and rogue probably get as many burst or blast attacks as the warlord who has to struggle along with an implement, for instance)