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<blockquote data-quote="JohnSnow" data-source="post: 4306315" data-attributes="member: 32164">I see where you're coming from. The open question to my mind is whether offensive optimality defines what is &quot;optimal?&quot;Personally, I think the answer is &quot;no.&quot; The best character, offensively, is not necessarily the most optimal character. I realize this may fly in the face of the belief of the CharOp crowd, but that may be the crux of the disagreement here.I assume you meant to imply people who didn't have a totally optimized character. The thing is those &quot;other potential weaknesses&quot; are an inherent part of your so-called &quot;optimal&quot; character. The 20 INT wizard may be a spellcasting genius who almost always hits with his spells, but if he's got low Fort and reflex defenses, or especially low hit points, he's got some very serious, and exploitable vulnerability. Compare and contrast that with the guy who gave up those couple points in order to be more durable, and I think which one is &quot;optimal&quot; is up for debate.In other words, it's my feeling that &quot;optimal&quot; is pretty situational. I might be able to accept that the CharOp crowd uses it to mean strictly &quot;offensive capability,&quot; but that doesn't mean I have to agree they're right.I think for optimal defense, you should have at least a +1 stat boost&nbsp; (and +2 would be better) to each of your defense scores. And given the stat splits, that usually means we're talking about investing in a third stat, not a fourth. For almost every class, there's usually a side benefit to putting some resources into that third stat.The exceptions are Paladins and clerics, whose powers rely on both Will stats, but benefit little (aside from the ref bonus) from either intelligence or dexterity; and fighters, who have a fairly strong incentive to take both Fort stats, but get little benefit from either charisma or wisdom.So, fighters will (no doubt) often have a weak will defense whereas clerics and paladins will probably have a weak reflex defense.Similarly, I think the best chance when targeting a wizard will be to attack his fortitude defense. But that's just a guess.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="JohnSnow, post: 4306315, member: 32164"] I see where you're coming from. The open question to my mind is whether offensive optimality defines what is "optimal?" Personally, I think the answer is "no." The [I]best[/I] character, offensively, is not necessarily the most [I]optimal[/I] character. I realize this may fly in the face of the belief of the CharOp crowd, but that may be the crux of the disagreement here. I assume you meant to imply people who didn't have a totally optimized character. The thing is those "other potential weaknesses" are an inherent part of your so-called "optimal" character. The 20 INT wizard may be a spellcasting genius who almost always hits with his spells, but if he's got low Fort and reflex defenses, or especially low hit points, he's got some very serious, and [I]exploitable[/I] vulnerability. Compare and contrast that with the guy who gave up those couple points in order to be more durable, and I think which one is "optimal" is up for debate. In other words, it's my feeling that "optimal" is pretty situational. I might be able to accept that the CharOp crowd uses it to mean strictly "offensive capability," but that doesn't mean I have to agree they're right. I think for optimal defense, you should have [I]at least[/I] a +1 stat boost (and +2 would be better) to each of your defense scores. And given the stat splits, that usually means we're talking about investing in a third stat, not a fourth. For almost every class, there's usually a side benefit to putting some resources into that third stat. The exceptions are Paladins and clerics, whose powers rely on [I]both[/I] Will stats, but benefit little (aside from the ref bonus) from either intelligence or dexterity; and fighters, who have a fairly strong incentive to take [I]both[/I] Fort stats, but get little benefit from either charisma or wisdom. So, fighters will (no doubt) often have a weak will defense whereas clerics and paladins will probably have a weak reflex defense. Similarly, I think the best chance when targeting a wizard will be to attack his fortitude defense. But that's just a guess. [/QUOTE]

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