Who wouldnt take toughness and the +2 DEF feats?

[phil500]

I was wondering if there are any optimized builds which dont eventually end up taking toughness and at least one, if not all, of the +2 to reflex, fort, and will feats.

Has anyone else noticed this?

 

[Jack Colby]

It depends what you're optimizing the character for, now doesn't it?

 

[Zurai]

Toughness is actually worse than Durable in a lot of situations (and is WAY worse than Dwarven Durability), and the +2 defense feats aren't necessarily as important to ranged classes.

 

[FourthBear]

Right now I think the Defense feats are appealing mainly because there isn't much competition for good feats in the Paragon tier. A lot of the ones in the PH are race specific, class specific or have significant stat requirements. I know that when I was leveling up practice characters the first time, I didn't really plan my stats ahead and ended up with little to choose from. Except the wizard, since most of the energy type modifying feats in the Paragon tier don't have stat requirements.

Perhaps most of the optimized builds you've seen involve heavy specialization in one or two stats and don't have a broad enough set of scores to qualify for many other feats.

 

[toxicspirit]

Funny, because I am having quite the problem whittling down my feat wish list for my Archer-Ranger. And this applies to pretty much every character I have made so far.

 

[mdonais]

I took these feats as I approached very high level but once more books come out I am sure they will be less and less used just like in 3.5.

Also the reflex defense feat doesn't stack with the shield feat so shield users won't take it usually.

Mike.

 

[Zurai]

Also the reflex defense feat doesn't stack with the shield feat so shield users won't take it usually.

And none of them stack with Combat Anticipation, which does seem like a "who wouldn't take it" feat.

 

[erik_the_guy]

I think the real question to be asking is:
Who would take toughness in 3e? Not me!
5 hp per tier is good, makes the feat balanced. Also the bonus to your surge value is great. Still, I find that most characters don't take it, only some do. This is opposed to 3e when people almost never took toughness.
I'm not sure about the +2 DEF feats. I haven't used them much in play, but considering that most monsters will be attacking your AC, I think they are balanced, and I can see characters not taking them.

I think a feat is imbalanced if everyone who can take it does, or if no one who can take it does. If a portion of the characters (maybe one or two in a party of 5) take a feat it is probably balanced.

 

[Rashak Mani]

I'd only pick one of these to compensate a very bad defense.

 

[Stalker0]

Toughness is actually worse than Durable in a lot of situations (and is WAY worse than Dwarven Durability), and the +2 defense feats aren't necessarily as important to ranged classes.

Got to disagree here. I still have not seen ANY characters run out of healing surges. I've seen characters run out of abilities to use healing surges in combat plenty of times, but I still have not seen someone unable to heal because they have no surges.

Toughness gives me more hp and lets me heal more with each surge. I consider leagues above durable.

But I don't think toughness is a must have feat, just a very good one.