Eternal blade Archer Nova

[hushblade]

I'm sure I saw a build at one point with a warblade/eternal blade that could nova with his bow using Time Stands Still and Island in Time. Anybody familiar enough to provide a link?

[Darrin]

I'm sure I saw a build at one point with a warblade/eternal blade that could nova with his bow using Time Stands Still and Island in Time. Anybody familiar enough to provide a link?

Probably not what you're looking for, but try this post (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=11918745&postcount=20). More general advice for ranged warblades can be found here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=10296220&postcount=420).

[Eldariel]

Ranger 2/Fighter 1/Barbarian 1/Warblade 6/Eternal Blade 10 is pretty good. The simplified Ranger 4/Warblade 6/EB 10 works too. Either way, you generally want feats early to pick things up; Ranged Weapon Mastery, Woodland Archer and Knowledge Devotion all give you convenient damage boosts at various points in your career.

Fighter would optimally be the Targetteer Fighter from Dragon which would get you free Greatbow proficiency and access to Arrow Swarm ability instead of the bonus feat - the ability gives you 2 extra attacks at the cost of -5 for everything; Woodland Archer makes that quite the profittable trade. Barbarian can be used either for Fast Movement or Pounce depending on how much melee-ability you want, but the main purpose for its inclusion is Whirling Frenzy (and potentially Extra Rage at some point in the progression) to gain an extra attack when desired.


Principally, the idea is Time Stands Still > Island in Time > Eternal Training to prepare Time Stands Still > Time Stands Still with a swift action to spare for Raging Mongoose (off an item or feat; you qualify with your Warblade base), removing DR, White Raven Tactics or Belt of Battle or something. Obviously, it experiences a real boost in efficiency higher up.

For the vast majority of the levels, you make do with Ranged Weapon Mastery, Knowledge Devotion, Dancing & Raging Mongoose and mobility/defensive/utility maneuvers as possible. Good news is that it's still quite efficient and rather versatile thanks to being ToB. Worth noting that Blood in the Water (and Giant's Stance, I guess; tho being capped at Large makes it largely uninteresting) works with Bows but it isn't very good for that purpose.

Oh, and by RAW you can't recover abilities after a ranged attack but if you e.g. have a natural weapon or use Unarmed Strikes as TWF, you can full attack and use the swift action to recover afterwards. As you don't actually need targets for attacks, this means by RAW it's not terribly painful to recover your maneuvers without giving up your attacks. Fanged Mask (MIC) for instance is about 5k for a non-hand requiring natural attack to do this without penalties. TWF obviously has an annoying bunch of penalties associated with it.