Which feats are "taxes"?

[AllisterH]

I disagree with the Defense boosting feats.

If you're going to use the char-op board "opinion" of what is a feat tax (and I'm saying you not necessarily should), the defense boosting feats are nowhere near a feat tax status.

Most builds (at least 80-90% of them IME) never bother with those feats so I'm not sure why they would be considered equivalent to Expertise.

 

[Wik]

...right.

Ignoring the caps locks, and the posts of a few people "on my side" in this argument... I'm going to address the OP and ignore the last page of arguments. It's getting too much into the "talking over each other" view, with neither side looking at the other side.

So, my last words on that subject... if you want to play without the belief expertise is better, feel free. No one is debating that you can *play* the game without it. But, from personal experience, those that take so-called "tax feats" perform better than teammates (even those of the same class) that do not pay the "tax". I have two rogues in my group right now, and the one with weapon focus and weapon expertise consistantly outperforms the one that does not, except in the field of battlefield movement (and even then, it's a pretty close race).

***

Onto the OP:

At heroic tier, since that's the only tier I've played thoroughly, I'd say the obvious "tax" feats would be Weapon/Implement Expertise. If you use a weapon, add on Weapon Focus. Rogues need Backstabber, and Warlords pretty much HAVE to get Saving Inspiration. In personal experience, those that take a superior weapon proficiency outperform those that do not. Low-AC characters probably need an armour feat - for many classes, it's a no-brainer.

 

[ProfessorCirno]

wow can you get more dismissive of others thoughts and ideas?

Allow me to answer your question!

You're allowed to answer questions, but not rudely. C'mon, Cirno; You know the rules.

 

[Wik]

I disagree with the Defense boosting feats.

If you're going to use the char-op board "opinion" of what is a feat tax (and I'm saying you not necessarily should), the defense boosting feats are nowhere near a feat tax status.

Most builds (at least 80-90% of them IME) never bother with those feats so I'm not sure why they would be considered equivalent to Expertise.

Yeah. I'm in the same boat. I'm not sure if they're the same thing. But then, I haven't played Paragon yet, so I've held judgement.

 

[Wik]

Also, Cirno... you make me laugh. You're an interesting character.

 

[ProfessorCirno]

Let me give an example via World of Warcraft. No, this is not going to be dismissive.

One thing WoW has are the talents for each class. These talents fall into three categories: good, bad,, and mandatory. Mandatory talents fall under two categories.

1) Something that makes up an intrinsic part of your class, and is incredibly good
2) Something that might not be incredibly, but the other choices given at the time are very lackluster

You can play without the good ones, though probably not on bleeding edge content and whatnot. However, even simply partying can be difficult without some of the mandatory ones.

The problem with the mandatory feats is that they, too, fall under two categories, but these are much simpler. They are: Cool, and not cool. I played a warlock long ago, so let's look at her. Dark Pact? Cool! It's a pretty damn important part of an affliction warlock, so it's damn mandatory. But it adds something new for me to do and really mixes things up.

But then there's threat.

Do you want to party? You're taking your anti-threat talent. Maybe they've slacked it a bit since I quit, but when I played, it wasn't even a question: You are taking your anti-threat talent. It's boring as hell. It doesn't offer anything cool or noteworthy to you. It doesn't change your playing style. All it does it allow you to play longer.

This is where expertise lies. It's not "I hate only hitting at a ten, I want to hit at a four!" Expertise is "I'd like to contribute in combat. Like, at any point." Expertise is the boring, tiresome, hateful anti-threat talent that you don't want to take because it's just some stupid numbers that don't make the game more fun, but you have to, because it lets you play the game in the first place.

 

[AllisterH]

The thing about Expertise is that it doesn't really kick in until mid-paragon (level 14 to be precise). Paragon is when you first really need to retrain your earlier heroic feat

Keep in mind that at heroic, we're talking a +1 to hit. Really, this doesn't actually affect battles since instead of needing a 11 to hit, you need a 10 now.

For most encounters, you're not even going to notice, but you WILL notice needing a 13 to hit pre-Expertise and only needing a 10 post Expertise when it comes at EPIC level.

 

[Cadfan]

The thing about Expertise is that it doesn't really kick in until mid-paragon (level 14 to be precise). Paragon is when you first really need to retrain your earlier heroic feat

Keep in mind that at heroic, we're talking a +1 to hit. Really, this doesn't actually affect battles since instead of needing a 11 to hit, you need a 10 now.

For most encounters, you're not even going to notice, but you WILL notice needing a 13 to hit pre-Expertise and only needing a 10 post Expertise when it comes at EPIC level.

This is true. I can envision letting Expertise slide at heroic tier, though I probably wouldn't. But I certainly wouldn't let it slide at Paragon.

The system does have a certain amount of give in it. So if you want to play a character with a 16 in your main stat, well, go for it. If you want to ignore Expertise until higher levels, go for it. If you want to use a glaive instead of a greatspear, go for it. Just don't do too many of these things at once. They start to add up, particularly as your level increases.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

yeah, but even though it is a math fix, it is one for newer DMs for whom the math must work.

IMHO the "fix" for the experienced DM makes combat more gritty and boring for two reasons:

1. players lose out valuable interesting feats
2. If all players have these feats, monsters need to be higher level to pose a threat. But this means more hp and slightly more damage. (But they hit better)
And the fights become more deadly instead of easier, but grant slightly more xp.

So the experienced DM uses lower level monsters than what mat suggests and all are happy.

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

I disagree with the Defense boosting feats.

If you're going to use the char-op board "opinion" of what is a feat tax (and I'm saying you not necessarily should), the defense boosting feats are nowhere near a feat tax status.

Most builds (at least 80-90% of them IME) never bother with those feats so I'm not sure why they would be considered equivalent to Expertise.

Does CharOp use the term 'feat tax'? I don't know, but I'd be reluctant to use their definition if they do: from what I know, they tend to have a straight rating system where more power = better. Whether an option should be a part of the game doesn't sound like it comes up very often.

By all means, defense taxes aren't as important as the Expertise taxes because there are more of them to pay and they don't come as close to actually fixing the math glitch as Expertise does. [Expertise comes within 1 of fixing the math while Paragon & Robust defenses comes within 2; if you take the Fort/Ref/Will boosters in addition though, you can overcompensate which is just as stupid.]

And defenses are only, well, defensive while Expertise is offensive. Remember, CharOp is the entity responsible for bringing us the ubercharger barbarian and the always-knows-what-spells-to-prep-always-goes-first celeritied time stopped wizard in 3e: if you can theoretically kill it before its turn comes up, you don't need a positive defense value! CharOp doesn't really care that PCs should have a roughly even chance of avoiding hits according to design philosophy: if defense is harder to raise up to par than offense, CharOp will forget defense like yesterday's garbage.

Anyway, I'm actually agreeing with you, just had to expand on that.