[PF] How to optimize Vital Strike

[Frosty]

I know Vital Strike isn't the most optimized of feats for damage, but if you really wanted to make the most of it in melee, what build would you go for? How would you make it work for you?

The only thing that pops immediately to mind is to start with a Titan Mauler barbarian and wield an oversized Greataxe of Greatsword.

[Edge of Dreams]

Wielding an oversized weapon is probably the only major optimization you can get out of it, unless you can convince your DM to houserule something. Your other option for wielding Large weapons at an early level is to be a Half-Giant - their Powerful Build ability lets them use weapons one size larger at no penalty.

Now, if you can convince your DM to let you stack Powerful Build with Titan Mauler's abilities, you could be either using a Large weapon one-handed, or a Huge weapon in two hands.

The one other thing that springs to mind is that if you're already in melee range with a foe, Vital Strike only takes up your standard action. Maybe you could find a way to make use of your move action to do something useful? Improved Feint comes to mind, for example.

[StreamOfTheSky]

It is impossible to make Vital Strike worthwhile using weapons, as far as I know.

What you need to do is get a natural attack with as much base damage as possible. Ideally 12d6.

A druid or summoner/synthesis is the best/only path for this. You want the biggest size possible (eidolon; Large evo twice + enlarge person) or largest base damage wildshape form (Behemoth Hippo, iirc). You want Improved Natural Attack and (if eidolon) the improved damage evolution. Also essential to the build is the Strongjaw druid/ranger spell, for +2 effective size increase on a natural weapon.

You also obviously want huge strength for more attack and damage, but that kind of goes w/ the above optimization.

You need to multiclass w/ full BAB classes enough to have BAB +16 for Greater Vital Strike by 20th level. Generally 4 levels, with the last one being Fighter so you actually have a feat slot. At least one of the 4 should also be Barbarian, so you can take the Furious Finish feat. It lets you do max damage on the Vital Strike dice if you end your rage when you hit with it.

I've seen some builds doing the above advice, it can easily hit 200-300+ damage range. Which is comparable to a full attack or a lance charge.

EDIT:

Just as an example. Say a 20th level multiclass Druid build with 12d6 base damage, Greater VS, BAB +16, Power Attack (-5 to hit, +15 damage), +5 enhancement bonus, and a (raging) Strength of 30, which is probably lowballing it.
12d6 (base) + 216 (maxed 36d6 Greater VS) +15 (str x1.5) +15 (PA) +5 (enhance)

= 263 - 323 damage, average of 293

[Frosty]

I don't even know what the damage dice progression is after 8d6. This chart (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/equipment/weapons.htm#weaponSize) only goes up to far.

I guess at this point, Power Attack really isn't that big of a deal compared to the weapon dice...

If you are immune to fatigue like from 3 levels of Horizon Walker what happens if you use Furious Finish?

[StreamOfTheSky]

You would use this progression:


Improved Natural Attack

Attacks made by one of this creature's natural attacks leave vicious wounds.

Prerequisite: Natural weapon, base attack bonus +4.

Benefit: Choose one of the creature's natural attack forms (not an unarmed strike). The damage for this natural attack increases by one step on the following list, as if the creature's size had increased by one category. Damage dice increase as follows: 1d2, 1d3, 1d4, 1d6, 1d8, 2d6, 3d6, 4d6, 6d6, 8d6, 12d6.

A weapon or attack that deals 1d10 points of damage increases as follows: 1d10, 2d8, 3d8, 4d8, 6d8, 8d8, 12d8.

Special: This feat can be taken multiple times. Each time it is taken, it applies to a different natural attack.



If you are immune to fatigue like from 3 levels of Horizon Walker what happens if you use Furious Finish?

IMO, you are hit with fatigue, but are still immune to it, so nothing happens. Others disagree. There was a thread on paizo's forums not long ago on this very topic (for fatigue immunity in general, not HW's specifically), I don't think they reached an official or agreed upon answer.

[RFLS]

IMO, you are hit with fatigue, but are still immune to it, so nothing happens. Others disagree. There was a thread on paizo's forums not long ago on this very topic (for fatigue immunity in general, not HW's specifically), I don't think they reached an official or agreed upon answer.

SKR'll come along and tell everyone they're wrong, ban the dirty optimizers, and do his best to remove fatigue immunity from the game because it's "broken." At a guess.

But yeah. If you're hit with fatigue, but possess fatigue immunity, nothing happens.

[Frosty]

IMO, you are hit with fatigue, but are still immune to it, so nothing happens. Others disagree. There was a thread on paizo's forums not long ago on this very topic (for fatigue immunity in general, not HW's specifically), I don't think they reached an official or agreed upon answer.Thanks for the INA progression.

SKR'll come along and tell everyone they're wrong, ban the dirty optimizers, and do his best to remove fatigue immunity from the game because it's "broken." At a guess.Rofls. Probably. Hey, where's your app for my SR game? :smallamused:

[StreamOfTheSky]

And yeah, Behemoth Hippo (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/animals/hippopotamus/hippopotamus-behemoth) seems to be the best a druid is going to get for base damage (not modified by INA already) on a Huge creature.

4d8 base. With just INA and Strongjaw, you're at 12d8 and GVS is adding an additional 36d8.

[Frosty]

Nice. Do you recommend adding Barbarian and Furious Finish?

[StreamOfTheSky]

Nice. Do you recommend adding Barbarian and Furious Finish?

Well, you need some full BAB class levels to reach BAB +16 anyway, so yeah. Not until later, though. In case the game never reaches high levels, and also because maximizing only 1x or 2x base weapon damage (and before it even reaches 12d8) is much less worth the loss of caster levels.

I think w/ Ult. Equipment, there are now items to ignore fatigue without needing a HW or oracle dip, also.

[Kudaku]

One option is to use Monk with the Monk of the Four Winds archetype:


At 12th level, a monk of the four winds can use his ki to slow time or quicken his movements, depending on the observer. As a swift action, the monk can expend 6 ki points to gain three standard actions during his turn instead of just one. The monk can use these actions to do the following: take a melee attack action, use a skill, use an extraordinary ability, or take a move action. The monk cannot use these actions to cast spells or use spell-like abilities, and cannot combine them to take full-attack actions. Any move actions the monk makes this turn do not provoke attacks of opportunity.

From what I can tell by the language, you can do three Vital Strike attacks in one round, all of which will be at full attack bonus. Also note that the ability isn't limited to unarmed strikes, so you could combine it with other options to optimize the damage dice of Vital Strike. You could also do two move actions and two vital strikes. Since any movement doesn't provoke Attacks of Opportunity, so you could make a fairly decent skirmisher.

It's a very narrow build and you probably won't be able to do it many times per day, but it has some potential :smallsmile:

[Frosty]

For some reason I picture Neo in the matrix as I'm reading this.

[Kudaku]

For some reason I picture Neo in the matrix as I'm reading this.

Excellent. Now imagine a behemoth hippopotamus doing the Neo dodge.

[Frosty]

:smallconfused: ...my brain just exploded. But how'd the build go? You'd need be Lawful Neutral...and you can *only* do this at exactly 20, since you get to Wildshape into Huge animals at Druid 8. You'd miss out on Greater Vital Strike as well, but you do get to take 3 standard actions...

[Kudaku]

Greater Polymorph lets you take the hippo form via beast shape IV, so from what I can tell with the right support you don't need that many levels of druid - I'm not terribly familiar with wildshape and polymorph though.

Either way we're probably edging out of practical optimizing and into "how high can we get dat durr number"-territory.

[Frosty]

I don't want to require outside support do make the build work, however.

Say, if we're only taking Monk levels, how high can we make the unarmed strike numbers go?

[Kudaku]

Let's see - you need 8 levels of druid in order to qualify for beast shape 4, that leaves 12 levels of monk of the four winds. You'd only have +14 bab, so unfortunately you wouldn't qualify for Greater Vital Strike.

The build wouldn't come fully online till lvl 20, so obviously that hurts.

Interestingly monk and druid actually synergizes quite nicely on stats - you need wisdom for spell slots and ki pool, and the physical stats are the same. Int and Cha are dump stats of course.

hm... You'd be doing 36d8 per bite attack + all your modifiers at lvl 20, and you'd be able to do 3 attacks if you spend the ki points for Slow Time. An average of 486 damage from the dice pool before modifiers. Borrowing Stream's damage modifiers, +35 per attack, that's a total of 591 damage per round. Oh, and you still have a move action to get into range, or get back out of range. And that movement wouldn't provoke AoOs.

Edit: Ah, INA turns the d6 into d8s, missed that. Updated my math accordingly.
It should be noted that Improved Natural Attack is a monster feat, so some DMs might be iffy on PCs taking it.

[Frosty]

Yeah. I'd prefer a build that comes online b4 level 20. So that menas either focusing exclusively on Monk and getting the unarmed strike as high as possible, or keep focusing in Druid.

If going the Hippo route, do I have an incentive to stay Druid after 8 besides more Wildshape? I mean, assuming I'm not really trying to be a primary caster here.

[Kudaku]

Before we go into this I want to say that my 4 winds build was primarily theorycraft to see how high we could get the numbers - the ki pool limits it heavily and it comes online very late.

That having been said, I think straight monk has some issues just because monk doesn't really get all that many options to maximize their damage output except flurry, which doesn't work with slow time. IUS doesn't get the 1.5 bonus from power attack, and at level 12 your Unarmed strike is doing 2d6 damage, the same as a non-tweaked greatsword.

I'd probably make something like mot4w 12 / barbarian 8 for the extra bab, rage, furious finish, greater vital strike etc. It would be incredibly funny to see it in play in something like a pvp arena but it's a glass cannon with roughly three cannon balls - it'll run into resource management issues in a typical campaign.

Druid is the alternate option and it's a solid class from level 1 to 20, though it would benefit from a few levels of a full bab class in order to qualify for GVS etc. Overall I'd say the build outline Stream laid out is the better option for Vital Strike since it delivers damage consistently without relying on a very limited resource (ki pool).