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Noneoyabizzness
2011-04-10, 07:55 AM
ok starting in a new 1st level game this week, so far dm hasn't restricted any sources rest of the party is

wizard
fighter
rogue
eldarin ranger
and cleric.


as most editions of d&d have taught me, in this instance bard seems like the perfect next man in the group. so am preping a half elf bard,

now my indescion somes between two feats, do I go strength of valor, for my feat or group insight to boost everyone elses init and insight checks

DontEatRawHagis
2011-04-10, 11:22 AM
Group insight.

Thats just my opinion though, not sage advice. If I remember correctly the bonus is based on one of your ability scores, make sure you have enough to make it worth while.

Noneoyabizzness
2011-04-10, 11:31 AM
Its just a flat +1 to allies

theNater
2011-04-10, 02:20 PM
I'd go with the Group Insight. Damage bonuses are relatively easy to come by, while initiative bonuses are much rarer.

The_Pyre
2011-04-11, 05:22 AM
Between the two, Group Insight seems like the better choice. Personally, however, I think you'd be better served with a MC feat. That's just me, though.

tcrudisi
2011-04-11, 06:47 AM
Strength of Valor is a bad feat. Assuming you heal twice an encounter (your maximum for 15 levels), you contribute an extra +4 damage. That's assuming that your allies even hit. They could miss and lose the benefit. You also have a Cleric in the party. He might end up doing all the healing so you don't even use your heals in combat. That also detracts from the feat.

Between the two, Group Insight is a much better feat.

Noneoyabizzness
2011-04-11, 07:26 AM
alright next posit then.

group insight wins it, but now for a buffer what 1st level feat would be ideal?

tcrudisi
2011-04-11, 10:24 AM
alright next posit then.

group insight wins it, but now for a buffer what 1st level feat would be ideal?

Well, what kind of bard are you? Cunning, Valorous, Prescient?

For general feats, I'd take a look at Improved Majestic Word or one of the Expertise feats. However, there are some incredibly good specific Bard feats. I'm looking at Advantage of Cunning and Extended Prescience.

theNater
2011-04-11, 11:20 AM
Strength of Valor is a bad feat. Assuming you heal twice an encounter (your maximum for 15 levels), you contribute an extra +4 damage. That's assuming that your allies even hit. They could miss and lose the benefit. You also have a Cleric in the party. He might end up doing all the healing so you don't even use your heals in combat. That also detracts from the feat.

Between the two, Group Insight is a much better feat.
Strength of Valor triggers off of the Virtue of Valor, not the Majestic Word. It can go off as often as once per round.

I still say Group Insight is better, but Strength of Valor is an okay feat.

Noneoyabizzness
2011-04-11, 11:26 AM
Going with valor.

Improved word seems ok, but already putting up temp hp with valor.

tcrudisi
2011-04-11, 11:30 AM
Strength of Valor triggers off of the Virtue of Valor, not the Majestic Word. It can go off as often as once per round.

I still say Group Insight is better, but Strength of Valor is an okay feat.

You are correct. I mis-read it when I looked it up. In that case, it is okay. I still definitely prefer Group Insight (when only comparing those two).



Going with valor.

Improved word seems ok, but already putting up temp hp with valor.

There's a huge difference. Virtue of Valor only lets you react with temp hp. Your ally bloodies or kills an enemy? You give him temp hp. It's very reactive. It's not something you have any control over. Improved Majestic Word is proactive: you are healing someone who already needs it. If they need those hp, chances are they are still in the fire (so to speak). Giving them temp hp is definitely a huge boon for them. Furthermore, there's no guarantee that they will be able to bloody or kill an enemy to get the temp hp from your virtue. One last point: even if they do manage to bloody or kill an enemy, there's a very good chance they have already lost the temp hp or that someone else activates your virtue anyway. Those temp hp (in the early levels, I'd say heroic tier) are amazingly good.

theNater
2011-04-11, 01:13 PM
alright next posit then.

group insight wins it, but now for a buffer what 1st level feat would be ideal?
One thing to remember is that in 4th edition, feats are generally pretty small. Getting an "ideal" feat is not going to be very much better than getting an okay feat, and getting an okay feat isn't that much more powerful than getting a terrible feat. If it sounds fun, go for it; you can always retrain it later if it's not working out.

With that said, here are some things that may be worth looking at, depending on exactly how you want to play it:

Weapon Expertise and Implement Expertise give you accuracy bonuses; these make your encounter powers more likely to hit, and most encounter powers only provide buffs if they hit.

Multiclass feats are fairly potent, and bards can take multiclass feats for multiple classes. You could pick up a tiny bit of extra healing by multiclassing into warlord or cleric, or (once per encounter) an extra accuracy bonus by multiclassing fighter or avenger, or any of a number of other interesting options. Keep in mind that one of the nice things about multiclass feats is that they provide skill training; they do become less valuable if you are already trained in the skill or skills they provide or if skill use doesn't come up very often in your particular game.

And, of course, class-specific feats are generally designed to make your class better at what it does. With bards being a buffing class, you can't go too far wrong grabbing bard feats. Just keep in mind that damage is generally easy to get(and therefore probably shouldn't be top priority if there are other options that seem appealing), and you'll be fine.

Daftendirekt
2011-04-11, 01:43 PM
I'm at a loss why a feat that only gives +1 Insight and initiative is getting so much attention and praise. Initiative is only important the first round of combat, and a +1 bonus is going to do next to nothing anyway.

ELC
2011-04-11, 01:51 PM
+1 Initiative? Um . . . hell . . . maybe multiclass into Warlord twice for the Combat Leader feature and take the Combat Commander feat at paragon. Instant +CHA to initiative for everyone, and I believe Bard can pull it off because of Multiclass versatility (not sure at all though).

Anyhow, for a L1 feat, I suggest an appropriate Expertise feat (Implement, Versatile, Weapon, HotFL improvements): if your attacks aren't connecting, you're not getting their effects.

Noneoyabizzness
2011-04-11, 02:02 PM
Food for thought.

Larger reason I thought to go with group over an expertise feat is to give more bonus over the group. But the debuff for vicious mockery happening more frequently might be more useful...

theNater
2011-04-11, 02:05 PM
I'm at a loss why a feat that only gives +1 Insight and initiative is getting so much attention and praise. Initiative is only important the first round of combat, and a +1 bonus is going to do next to nothing anyway.
Well, it's being compared to +2 damage under certain conditions but no more than once per round. Neither of these are exactly game breakers.

When the initiative helps, it really helps(especially for the rogue or wizard). Plus it scales with party size, unlike Strength of Valor, and this party is towards the large size of things.

Sinon
2011-04-11, 05:07 PM
Out of curiosity, what's your dilettante power?

MeeposFire
2011-04-11, 05:15 PM
Eldritch strike is a good choice for a valor bard.

I also like the half elf Knack for success power since it is leader based and it is very versatile.

tcrudisi
2011-04-11, 05:18 PM
I'm at a loss why a feat that only gives +1 Insight and initiative is getting so much attention and praise. Initiative is only important the first round of combat, and a +1 bonus is going to do next to nothing anyway.


Well, it's being compared to +2 damage under certain conditions but no more than once per round. Neither of these are exactly game breakers.

When the initiative helps, it really helps(especially for the rogue or wizard). Plus it scales with party size, unlike Strength of Valor, and this party is towards the large size of things.

What theNater said. Also: initiative is extremely important. If your entire party goes before the bad guys, that's basically a free round to knock a couple of them out. It's amazingly good. Is +1 great? Well, no, but it's a start. It's certainly better than +2 damage for one person every round. That extra +1 init might make the difference between all your allies going first in round 1. The extra +2 damage will rarely come into play round 1, barring action points. "I bloody/kill it with my standard action." "Okay, by the end of your next round, you get +2 damage on your next attack roll."

Round 1 is the most important round of combat.

Noneoyabizzness
2011-04-11, 05:57 PM
Out of curiosity, what's your dilettante power?

Hadn't decided yet. Was thinking eyebite to keep chr
based but knack for success seems promising.

Kurald Galain
2011-04-11, 06:00 PM
I'm at a loss why a feat that only gives +1 Insight and initiative is getting so much attention and praise.
Indeed. It is a pretty bad feat - but of the two the OP suggested, it is less bad than the other one. I could easily recommend half a dozen better feats.


That extra +1 init might make the difference between all your allies going first in round 1.
Well, there's a lot of superlatives in that post, but "might" in this case means "95% of the time, it won't do anything". That means that you can play several sessions without even noticing this feat; and a feat that doesn't make a difference at least once every session is, in my opinion, a feat not worth taking.

The_Pyre
2011-04-11, 06:22 PM
Why not take a Warlord MC? Resourceful gives a damage bonus OR some temp HP on an AP. Might come in handy, especially with the extra skill.

Sinon
2011-04-11, 06:27 PM
Hadn't decided yet. Was thinking eyebite to keep chr
based but knack for success seems promising.
One of the reasons I asked is because there's the feat, Combat Virtuoso, makes Cha the to-hit stat for your dilettante and any multiclass feats you take later.

Multiclass feats also, often give you the ability to use a class's implements, which dilettante alone is sorely lacking.

Food for thought.

Noneoyabizzness
2011-04-11, 07:35 PM
Gah...

So many options...

I spent so much time getting books for the someday playing 4e and now that someday has come so much possible usefulness.

Sinon
2011-04-11, 08:02 PM
Just pick what looks fun now. You're first level; it'll be fine.

salt3d
2011-04-11, 09:58 PM
The single most useful feat you can take at level 1 regardless of class is [whatever] Expertise. +1 to hit sounds boring but with so many effects triggered by actually hitting in the first place, it will come into play almost every round of combat.

Kurald Galain
2011-04-12, 03:38 AM
The single most useful feat you can take at level 1 regardless of class is [whatever] Expertise. +1 to hit sounds boring but with so many effects triggered by actually hitting in the first place, it will come into play almost every round of combat.
Sorry, but no, it won't. +1 to hit makes a difference exactly 5% of the time, so that means it comes up once every 20 attacks. Since you don't make anywhere near 20 attacks every round, that means it won't come up every round.

That said, Expertise is a good feat to take, and certainly much better than Group Sight; but perhaps surprisingly, some feats are actually better than Expertise. The most common examples are Skill Power and Enlarge Spell.

Daftendirekt
2011-04-12, 04:44 AM
You know, while Enlarge Spell is nice, it fails on the aspect of wizardry that 4e wizards really excel at: PURE control. My party's wizard took this, mostly because he KNEW it is a great feat. Except as he went for pure, awesome control, about 10% of his powers rolled damage, so the feat was almost completely wasted.

I guess you could make a blaster, but sorcerer is more made for that, and would have to MC to get Enlarge Spell.

Kurald Galain
2011-04-12, 05:00 AM
You know, while Enlarge Spell is nice, it fails on the aspect of wizardry that 4e wizards really excel at: PURE control. My party's wizard took this, mostly because he KNEW it is a great feat. Except as he went for pure, awesome control, about 10% of his powers rolled damage, so the feat was almost completely wasted.
That's odd. There are many powers that control while also doing enough damage to be enlargeable; for example, Freezing Burst, Grasping Shadows, Color Spray, and Twist of Space.

Leolo
2011-04-12, 05:01 AM
@Annulus: Nevertheless the expertise feats are just feats most of the characters should take as one of their feats. Not neccessary as the first feat. Or the second.

There are enough feats that are strictly better than them for nearly every build. But they are also one few feats that are top10 feats for nearly every build, and thats why sooner or later every character will take one of them.

(Technically even if only 10% of your powers would be affected this still could be more important than hitting additional 1 of 20 attempts, though.)

And as Kurald has said: There are many powers that controlls and do damage.

Also if you are a pure controller there might be still better feats.

salt3d
2011-04-12, 06:04 AM
Sorry, but no, it won't. +1 to hit makes a difference exactly 5% of the time, so that means it comes up once every 20 attacks. Since you don't make anywhere near 20 attacks every round, that means it won't come up every round.

That said, Expertise is a good feat to take, and certainly much better than Group Sight; but perhaps surprisingly, some feats are actually better than Expertise. The most common examples are Skill Power and Enlarge Spell.

I didn't say it would make a difference every round. But since most turns in a combat encounter involve an attack roll, the expertise feat will be in play just about every round. As opposed to +1 to initiative which comes up once per encounter or +1 to insight which comes up almost never during combat. So your 1 in 20 for expertise will make a difference plenty more often than the 1 in whatever for the other feats.

Leolo
2011-04-12, 06:17 AM
Well most feats are in play every round. For example with enlarge spell you always have the option to enlarge a spell - even if you do not actually use it this round.

An improved intiative is also in play every round. Your initiative bonus against the opponents stays during the whole fight - in every round it could make the difference if you act first or if your opponent acts first.

salt3d
2011-04-12, 06:44 AM
Hmm. Good point. I hadn't thought of it that way.

Although I suppose it could be argued that a bonus to initiative pays off in the first round and after that you're just taking turns with the enemy.

And I'd still take a better chance to hit over a better chance to attack first.

Leolo
2011-04-12, 07:05 AM
Yes, and as said above: The expertise feats are within the Top 10 or Top 20 feat list of most builds. Nearly every character will have one of them during his adventuring life. So they are good, and usefull for every character.

What they are not is "the best feats for every build (or even most builds) at any level".

If you do not take an expertise feat until level 10 you could still be optimized. (And most players did not even want to be optimized). Because for the most builds there are at least a handfull of better feats. The reason why everyone has them is (next to "because so much people told me those feats are essential") that you have more than a handfull of feats. You can take those few that are better, and still take the expertise feats sooner or later.

theNater
2011-04-12, 08:34 AM
Well, there's a lot of superlatives in that post, but "might" in this case means "95% of the time, it won't do anything". That means that you can play several sessions without even noticing this feat; and a feat that doesn't make a difference at least once every session is, in my opinion, a feat not worth taking.
Group Insight is moderately likely to do something in any given combat. All it has to do is bump any one of the allies ahead of any one of the enemies and it's been helpful. In a normal combat, there'll be 5 allies and 6 enemies on the field. Even if the enemies only get 4 initiative rolls between them, that's 20 comparisons per combat right there.

Gah...

So many options...

I spent so much time getting books for the someday playing 4e and now that someday has come so much possible usefulness.
Sinon has the right idea. Pick the feat you think sounds most entertaining; don't worry about getting the best feat. Your feat is not going to make or break your character.

Kurald Galain
2011-04-12, 09:25 AM
Group Insight is moderately likely to do something in any given combat.
Well, that's precisely my point. A feat that is "moderately likely" to help is a bad feat, considering that there are numerous feats that will "almost certainly" help.

Also, your math is off. Initiative order is not an exponential series of comparisons, but a permutation of the characters involved.

TheEmerged
2011-04-12, 01:07 PM
Biggest question is one I haven't seen come up: what do you want to do in your party? Did I miss that being answered? It's going to be hard to tell you what to take without that answer.

Your party already has a healer (cleric), and Bard comes in behind the cleric there anyway in my experience. The party is also fine for strikers (with a ranger & rogue), so you don't need to go for the SVK build (multiple multi-class feats).

Also, don't assume Dilennte is your best choice. "Knack For Success" from the Essentials isn't earth-shattering but can come up a lot.

With the Expertise Feats, Kurald is right here. You're going to be taking one and that's pretty much the end of the discussion. But I've found there are usually feats you'll want/need first. I usually see it taken at level 6 or 8 myself, with exceptions (Orb Expertise is worth taking at first level for certain builds).

Personally? I'd be taking either a multi-class feat (depending on your attributes, there are several that work out well) or one of the bard class's impressive skill bonus feats (like Bard of All Trades, +3 feat bonus to all untrained skill checks means you'll be at +4).

MeeposFire
2011-04-12, 02:03 PM
That's odd. There are many powers that control while also doing enough damage to be enlargeable; for example, Freezing Burst, Grasping Shadows, Color Spray, and Twist of Space.

And at wills like thunder wave and winged flurry. At will burst 3 (with other feats with thunder stuff) that is enemy only? Sign me up for control and damage!

Daftendirekt
2011-04-12, 03:10 PM
That's odd. There are many powers that control while also doing enough damage to be enlargeable; for example, Freezing Burst, Grasping Shadows, Color Spray, and Twist of Space.

I will list only the ones he regularly uses. He is extremely stingy about using his dailies -- he's used... 2 I think. And he's been around for at least 8 sessions. Granted, that daily was Fireball that he got from his tome, and he most definitely Enlarged that.

His Powers
Thunderwave, Beguiling Strands, Charm of Misplaced Wrath, Maze of Mirrors, Charm of the Defender, Phantom Foes...

Obviously has plenty more powers than that, we're level 13, but he has either used them once or not at all.

Anyway, not arguing with you, really. Enlarge Spell is a good feat, I just feel it would be better in the hands of sorcerers.

tcrudisi
2011-04-12, 03:22 PM
I will list only the ones he regularly uses. He is extremely stingy about using his dailies -- he's used... 2 I think. And he's been around for at least 8 sessions. Granted, that daily was Fireball that he got from his tome, and he most definitely Enlarged that.

Then he mis-used Enlarge Spell. The Enlarge Spell feat only works for at-wills and encounter powers. It does not work for dailies.


His Powers
Thunderwave, Beguiling Strands, Charm of Misplaced Wrath, Maze of Mirrors, Charm of the Defender, Phantom Foes...

Obviously has plenty more powers than that, we're level 13, but he has either used them once or not at all.

Anyway, not arguing with you, really. Enlarge Spell is a good feat, I just feel it would be better in the hands of sorcerers.

Whoa - Thunderwave and Beguiling Strands? He took two powers that do the same thing? He should retrain one of those.

Enlarge Spell would be great in the hands of Sorcerers if they could use it. However, it's just as good for 90+% of all Wizards. Enlarge Spell is actually the reason why blaster Wizards are considered better at dealing damage than a Sorcerer is.

Kurald Galain
2011-04-12, 03:26 PM
Thunderwave, Beguiling Strands, Charm of Misplaced Wrath, Maze of Mirrors, Charm of the Defender, Phantom Foes...
Well, there you go. He's picked several redundant powers (the two charms, and twave/strands) and some pretty bad ones (maze of mirrors and fireball), so I'm not really surprised he gets little mileage out of Enlarge Spell. The wizard isn't the easiest class to play (or build).

Anyway, yeah, sorcerers could definitely use something like that. In fact, my sorcerer character multiclassed just for this feat, before that was disallowed by errata.

Aside from that, I endorse the advise of picking the "most entertaining" feat. I like flashy feats much more than "+X bonus to Y" feats. If you can get an extra minor-action power to use every encounter, that'll make your character feel more special.

theNater
2011-04-12, 04:16 PM
Well, that's precisely my point. A feat that is "moderately likely" to help is a bad feat, considering that there are numerous feats that will "almost certainly" help.
"Moderately likely" per fight means anywhere from "impossible" to "almost certainly" per session, depending on the number of fights per session. We can estimate the probability and number of fights per session to get a guess, if you'd like.

Also, your math is off. Initiative order is not an exponential series of comparisons, but a permutation of the characters involved.
Group Insight doesn't to deal with all permutations evenly(it can't change the relative positions of the fighter and the cleric) and it won't be helping every time it does adjust the permutation(it might change the relative positions of the fighter and the bard, but that's not really helping). The way it might help is to change the answer to questions like "does the fighter go before monster A?" and "does the rogue go before monster B?", with (roughly) a 1 in 20 chance of changing the answer of each such question.

Kurald Galain
2011-04-12, 04:39 PM
"Moderately likely" per fight means anywhere from "impossible" to "almost certainly" per session, depending on the number of fights per session. We can estimate the probability and number of fights per session to get a guess, if you'd like.

Are you seriously claiming that Group Insight is on par with (or better than) Weapon Expertise?

tcrudisi
2011-04-12, 04:48 PM
Are you seriously claiming that Group Insight is on par with (or better than) Weapon Expertise?

Group Insight is not on par with Weapon Expertise. However, that's not really a fair comparison. The Expertise feats are among the best feats in the game.

The initial comparison was with some other random feat. Initiative bonuses are very good. A +1 to init isn't much, but it certainly helps. Any time your party gets to act first, you set the tone for the combat. It's easier to control the action and the battlefield. Furthermore, you can alpha strike and take down one or two bad guys before they even get a chance to go. Initiative is incredibly important.

theNater
2011-04-12, 05:28 PM
Are you seriously claiming that Group Insight is on par with (or better than) Weapon Expertise?
Nope. I'm claiming that a group of six people, if they have 3 or more encounters per session, can reliably count on Group Insight making a difference at least once every session. Y'know, your minimal requirement as outlined here:

That means that you can play several sessions without even noticing this feat; and a feat that doesn't make a difference at least once every session is, in my opinion, a feat not worth taking.

WickerNipple
2011-04-12, 09:35 PM
Gah...

So many options...

I spent so much time getting books for the someday playing 4e and now that someday has come so much possible usefulness.

Well you did pick the class and race with the most options in the entire game... so you only have yourself to blame! :smallbiggrin:

Group Insight -- eh, it's not the worst feat in the game. It's also very leadery so you're certainly not a bad party member to take it, and it might make a wee bit of difference every now and again since you do have a rogue and wizard. On the other hand, if you really want to hand out initiative bonuses there are other leader options that both do it way better and more importantly they capitalize on it better.

Since you've chosen Valor you know you'll be in the thick of it. I would personally spend the first few feats getting your melee house in order. Chain+LShield isn't enough for a melee healer and a non-superior weapon isn't enough for a melee character in many people's opinions. The weapon matters a lot less for a Leader, imo, but I'd seriously consider Scale and/or Heavy Shield. (And you want to get the stats to get those things now, when you're making your character.)

After dealing with that stuff you'll want Expertise and Improved Defenses filling up two of your remaining Heroic feats. Expertise at or before 4, Defenses 8 or 10, imo.

Valor Bard is pretty fortunate that it doesn't absolutely need a whole lot of other feats in the heroic tier. I would definitely grab Bard of All Trades at one point and I would also pick up Battle Cadence. (And make sure all your melee party members take Agile Opportunist in Paragon.)

Beyond that you have some play room: multi-class, get a familiar, toughness ain't bad for melee, Combat Virtuoso if you have something special in mind for Dilletante or multi-classing... any of that I'd consider more useful and more interesting than Group Insight.

MeeposFire
2011-04-12, 09:45 PM
Scale armor is very nice. Heavy shield is not worth it. A light spiked shield with the rhythm blade enchantment is even better since light shields lets you hold things in that hand and it saves you a feat.