Rate My Build: Raven Queen Devoted Avenger

[Tokuhara]

Having obtained a PDF of Raven Queen-Focused Divine PCs, I decided to build a heavily focused Avenger, so here's a rough layout of the build (note: I do not have DDI, so Pathguy's 4e character Generator did most of the heavy lifting:


http://www.rocketllama.com/blog-it/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/Revenant-164x300.jpg
Race: Revenant formerly Shadar-Kai
Background: Akanul
Theme: Samurai (willing to change)
Class: Pursuit Avenger/Soul Reaper/Raven Knight

Ability Scores (Final):

Str: 10
Dex: 20
Con: 17
Int: 24
Wis: 24
Cha: 13

Feats:

Onslaught of Enmity [PH2]
Mighty Enmity [PH2]
Improved Armor of Faith [PH2]
Unarmored Agility [PH3]
Shadowfell Guidance
Chilling Oath
Heavy Blade Expertise
Echo of Letherna
Wintertouched
Lasting Frost
Weapon Prof. (Fullblade)
Painful Oath
Melee Training
Icy Heart
Vengeful Declaration
Superior Will

Powers:

Overwhelming Strike
Rictus Grin
Avenging Echo
Aspect of Might
Fury's Advance
Rotting Wound
Blade Step
Temple of Shadow
Light of the Avenging Sun
Oath of Divine Lightning
Temple of Resolution
Chains of Letherna
Leprous Wound
Phase Duel
Aspect of Death
Scatter to the Astral Wind

Weapon: Jagged Frost Fullblade
Armor: Cloth

Trained Skills: Religion, Acrobatics, Intimidate, Perception

So folks, how can I optimize without sacrificing the Raven Queen uniques?

[Tokuhara]

And a roleplaying question here as well:

The basis is that he was a Shadar-Kai Blackguard who realized that what he was doing was wrong (a la Cecil Harvey in FF4) and to redeem himself, he takes his own life.

Now, the Raven Queen saw fit to bring him back as a Revenant and instructed him to act as her holy champion to repent for his sins.

How should I roleplay his progression from a frankly amateur Avenger to a Soul Reaper into a Raven Knight (one of her chosen champions)? And how should his Shadar-Kai background and his current undead state come across to the group?

[tcrudisi]

I can't get your ability scores to match up with the point buy. Regardless, I can't figure out why your Int is so high, either. I would do the following spread:

Str 10
Con 17
Dex 26
Int 12
Wis 26
Cha 12


Now, onto those feats. I'm going to give you a few pointers. Some things will need to be sacrificed, but honestly, I can see a lot of things which can be removed very easily.

First, I know you're going for the whole "Raven Queen" schtick. That's fine. The problem is that you are doing it in such a way that even your Raven Queen abilities are getting in each others way. For example, you can use only one channel divinity per encounter. You can have 15 channel divinity powers, but you can only use one of them in any given encounter. So, you want to find one or two good ones and end there. Any more than that and you'll find that they are just wasted feats. Who cares if you "can" do something if you never do it? A wizard can use the Bull Rush power to push an enemy one square with a successful strength attack, but they'll never hit with it. So why bother spending a feat that increases the push distance to 5 if you do hit with it? You wouldn't. And that's a problem you are doing here with all these channel divinity powers.

From henceforth, I'll abbreviate Channel Divinity as CD.

Divine Guidance: A CD power that lets an ally reroll against your Oath target. You spend a feat to improve this to let the ally's attack deal extra damage. Cool, flavorful, and not totally horrible. (Bad, but it stacks onto a very good CD power, so I think it's okay enough.)

Shadow Legacy: A CD power that lets an ally either teleport 3 or go insubstantial. It eats up your immediate action and requires an ally to bloody a target. This isn't that good. Ideally you want to let the ally go insubstantial, but you don't have any control over the timing and it ends at the start of your next turn. This is a poor CD power that will never get used, so why take it?

Raven Queen's Blessing: I'm on the fence about this one. It's a CD power that lets you play crappy healer once an encounter. Pro: It's a Free Action. Con: It's a Ranged power, so it will incur Opp Attacks if any enemies are adjacent to you (hint: one will be, you are a pursuit avenger). Will it see use? If you have a leader in the party, no. If you don't have a leader in the party, yes, but then we should re-do this whole character substantially to help out more on the "keeping allies alive" front. In other words: I'd ditch it. It won't see use.

So there's 2 CD powers which will never be used. Oh, you might use them both once every 5 or so levels, but that's not worth using a feat on. They are too highly situational. I know you are going for the whole Raven Queen schtick, but it's sort of like baseball. You can try to play every position, but then you won't do very well. If you focus on just pitching, though, then you can be the star player for your Raven Queen coach.

Now, during all of this, we can't forget what you are first and foremost: a striker. Let's look at things which will help you improve your damage, either by keeping you alive or by helping you do more damage.

Lasting Frost and Wintertouched. Good!

Reaping Vengeance: A feat to do +1d8 once an encounter? Very bad!

Memory of Death: A feat to give you CA against an undead target when you oath it. If you are playing in a campaign that will focus solely on undead, then good. I seriously doubt that, so in practice it's terrible. You have Oath of Enmity; you need CA less than others. It's a Raven Queen feat? It's such a trap feat. I get that you want to do this whole thing, but man, this is such a bad, bad feat, excepting campaigns that focus exclusively on undead. No, you know what? Even then it's bad.

Unarmored Agility: Very good!

Improved Armor of Faith: Good, but something is pinging me here. Is there a better option?

Onslaught of Enmity: It helps you get into a better position by moving as a free action. This feat is ... acceptable. I'd absolutely retrain this at epic when you get +2 to speed. Honestly, this is a feat that I'd never personally take (I'm an optimizer), but I can see the value in it.

Raven Queen's Scorn: Terrible. Yet another Raven Queen feat and yet again it focuses exclusively on undead. It's actually a pretty darn awesome feat IF you are in an undead-exclusive campaign. Since that's not likely (though it is campaign dependent), it's terrible. You can go entire tiers of play (10+ levels) without seeing a single undead.

Black Mantle: But, oh god, why are the Raven Queen feats so damn bad? Seriously. I want to cry with how bad these feats are. Here's the thing about resistances: You either get them all or avoid them all. It's not worth half-assing it. You did take Akanul, which expresses an interest in resistances. That's cool. But here's the thing: conditional (against Oath target only), yet low value (5/10 paragon/epic) resistances are just not worth it. There are better ways of getting those resistances and at much higher values. Avoid this feat.

Echo of Letherna: This feat is 100% worthless to you. Here's where I'm about to say something crazy. It used to be a pretty good feat. There are 2 problems with it. One will come when I suggest a feat to you later (Painful Oath) that makes this feat absolutely worthless now. The second is that you have LITERALLY ZERO radiant divine attack powers. "Wait, what? But every power I took is radiant!" Maybe, but you are using a Frost Weapon. That converts all damage to cold, removing the radiant keyword and adding the cold keyword instead. Boom - two reasons why this feat is worthless.

Chilling Oath: Not bad. It adds a bit of control and keeps the monster next to you. I approve.

Rapid Regeneration: Oh god, no. It's so bad. +3 to your regeneration values. There are soo many other feats to take.

Burning Blizzard: You were thinking along the right tracks, but this is the wrong power. Look at Icy Heart instead which will help you avoid that pesky Int requirement.

Vengeance Recalled: No, never. Not even then. You will rarely miss. Set yourself up for success, not for failure.

Mighty Enmity: Hell yes. Awesome feat.


Okay, so I just tore apart those feat selections. Unfortunately, many of those were "Raven Queen" feats. I hate to say it, but unless it's an undead-specific campaign, they are typically worthless.

So what would I add?

Expertise feat. Take the appropriate one. Either Axe Expertise, Heavy Blade Expertise, or Two-Handed Weapon Expertise. I prefer Heavy Blade Expertise myself and wielding a Fullblade.

Weapon Proficiency (Fullblade). You want to use the best weapon. It's between this, Gouge, and Executioner Axe. Depending on what you choose also determines other feats. For example, there's an epic level Axe feat that lets you make a free attack when you crit.

Icy Heart: It's more damage than Burning Blizzard without any of those pesky Int pre-reqs. Use Weapon Focus until level 11 and then retrain it to this.

Painful Oath: Welcome to the feat you will take at level 11. It's a requirement for every Avenger. Every Avenger. It adds a bunch to your damage output.

Superior Will: This feat is mandatory once you hit paragon.

Superior Reflexes and Superior Fortitude: If you have 2 feats to spare, otherwise Improved Defenses. Your job is a secondary defender; you need to be able to survive some attacks.

Vengeful Declaration: This really helps with the action economy.

Epic Fort / Ref / Will. These are always solid.

I'm sure there's a lot more, but that's all I can think of immediately. I'm also tired of looking at feats.

Powers: I really don't feel like going through this list right now, but let me simplify it for you. You want attack powers that are used as immediate actions or minor actions. Fury's Advance at level 3 is an example of this. Multi-attacks are how strikers do damage.


Finally, one last thing. You can decide how much this goes against your character concept, but you probably really want the Power of Skill feat. There's a major problem, though. It requires you to worship a god of the knowledge domain. Here's the thing: There's no rule that says you can only worship one god. Now, the character builder pretty specifically only allows you to worship one, but it says it nowhere in the rules. But - that could fly in the face of your character concept. Or your DM may consider it cheesy. YMMV. If you don't take the Power of Skill feat, you want another way to make opp attacks. You want to be able to get into ranged monsters faces and dare them to make ranged attacks or walk away from you. If you can't make a basic attack, they don't care to take the opp attacks. The other alternative is to simply take Melee Training. Boring, but it works ... just not nearly as well as other options.

[Mando Knight]

What kind of sins would the Unaligned icy Queen of Death want the avenger to atone for? Helping to usher in the Wightpocalypse?

Raven Queen doesn't really do FFIV-style atone-to-Knight-In-Shining-Armor... as a pure Raven Queen devotee, it's your job to bring the doom-and-gloom to the campaign... mostly by instilling it into your enemies shortly before they go visit your mistress.

Wis/Int builds don't really make much sense for a Revenant going into Raven Knight (because of the ability score bonuses that not only affect neither one, but Dex instead of Int). Wis/Dex can work, however. Also, Heroes of the Elemental Chaos introduced better elemental damage feats than the PHB ones. They're Paragon level, but worth looking into. (And I'd personally go with Weapon Focus instead at low levels at least since the Avenger Implement powers are generally lackluster as far as optimizing damage goes anyway and you may not get your Frost weapon for a while)

[NecroRebel]

Shadar-Kai are usually the servants of the Raven Queen anyway. Perhaps he was given some task while alive, and he abandoned it to perform suicide? The Raven Queen is also the goddess of fate, so that would be a possible sin that he might need to atone for. If he was fated to do something and didn't, she could well be angered.

Otherwise, I agree with Mando: I don't see that particular deity being very bothered by anything he might've done in life that she would require repentance for. It could even have a fun dynamic - he realized that what he was doing was wrong and suicided to avoid doing it, but his Goddess disagrees (or agrees but feels it should've been done anyway) and so punished him with forced servitude.

[Tokuhara]

Now, do note that I don't actually OWN PHB2, so if a power is decidedly lackluster and there's one that it should be replaced with, please explain the power's stchick so I can get a handle. Mostly, if it was WIS-based and had a cool name, I picked it (minus the Raven Queen powers, which have control and debuff on lockdown, along with boosted damage. See ).

And I did miss an epic Avenger only and a Heroic Revenant only, but they're decidedly meh (Harvester of Sorrows, which gives me CA against a target 10 squares from me. Cool, but meh like nobody's business. And Restless Dead. Sure, +2 to hit, AC, Fortitude, Reflex, and Will is kinda disgusting, but I shouldn't be dropped to 0. Ever.). The rest are feats I'd need to MC into Invoker/Paladin/Cleric to get, and some of them are "banging," but burning 2 feats to get isn't 100% worth the cost (exception being MAYBE Grave Fortune & Fate's Warning on an Avenger MC Cleric, but 3 feats to augment Divine Fortune to give me +2 to all defenses and dealing bonus necrotic = Dex/Con is a tad lackluster).

The reason for INT was to make the Censure not a wasted class feature. Though Dex/Wis is a decent alternative (Granted, I never get to use the Censure powers, but I am slightly better in the AC department, which means the meatheads that decide to buttplug me aren't hitting as often)

And to he wasn't a servant to her, choosing to abandon his path as a worshiper of The Raven Queen in order to fulfill his selfish needs for earthly power. When he realized that the skull throne he crafted from the hundreds of dead children he slaughtered for "fun" was a bit of a tool move, and his lack of respect to his people's god, he decided that ending his wasted life was better than the disgrace of a life spent fruitlessly. So the Raven Queen felt that just obliterating him was a waste, so instead, he was raised and told he had to repent for his abandonment of her for selfish reasons.

[tcrudisi]

Censure of Pursuit is based on Dex, not Int.

[Tokuhara]

Censure of Pursuit is based on Dex, not Int.

Face.




Palm.


As I said, I don't own PHB2, so I wouldn't know.

And as it sits, I have 3 floating feats. Now, a couple of my powers do some debuffs (Rictus Grin's -2 to attack rolls, Rotting Wound's -2 to Saving Throws, Leprous Wound's bonus 10 necrotic and slowed, etc.) and I have feats that help with this (slowing, moar dakka), so any way to build on this unseen secondary skillset?

[NecroRebel]

And to he wasn't a servant to her, choosing to abandon his path as a worshiper of The Raven Queen in order to fulfill his selfish needs for earthly power. When he realized that the skull throne he crafted from the hundreds of dead children he slaughtered for "fun" was a bit of a tool move, and his lack of respect to his people's god, he decided that ending his wasted life was better than the disgrace of a life spent fruitlessly. So the Raven Queen felt that just obliterating him was a waste, so instead, he was raised and told he had to repent for his abandonment of her for selfish reasons.

The problem is that I don't think the Raven Queen would care that one of her many worshipers had ceased to worship her, nor that some random guy had sought earthly power, nor that some dude slaughtered hundreds of children for fun (unless one or more of those children wasn't destined to die then), nor that somebody wasted their life, nor somebody committing suicide. Unless she had some specific plan for your character which he avoided or abandoned, Fate does not care.

So. Why does the Raven Queen care about him? What sins in the Death Goddess's eyes does he actually need to atone for? What you have listed might work, but only if you can adequately describe why She cares about them when She doesn't care about the same things being done by other people.

[Tokuhara]

The problem is that I don't think the Raven Queen would care that one of her many worshipers had ceased to worship her, nor that some random guy had sought earthly power, nor that some dude slaughtered hundreds of children for fun (unless one or more of those children wasn't destined to die then), nor that somebody wasted their life, nor somebody committing suicide. Unless she had some specific plan for your character which he avoided or abandoned, Fate does not care.

So. Why does the Raven Queen care about him? What sins in the Death Goddess's eyes does he actually need to atone for? What you have listed might work, but only if you can adequately describe why She cares about them when She doesn't care about the same things being done by other people.

She saw potential in his future and had plans for him to become a Raven Knight, but his choice to act like a tool monkey-wrenched her plans

[Yakk]

Vengeance Recalled: No, never. Not even then. You will rarely miss. Set yourself up for success, not for failure.
-- Actually, if you can say that well more than half the time you'll miss in an encounter when fighting level+3 opponents or above in a situation where such a power is useful (ie, you haven't used up your free attack yet), having a bonus attack is decent.

(Not talking about this power in particular).

Lowering your variance rocks.

Weapon Proficiency (Fullblade). You want to use the best weapon. It's between this, Gouge, and Executioner Axe. Depending on what you choose also determines other feats. For example, there's an epic level Axe feat that lets you make a free attack when you crit.
I've built the occasional one-handed avenger who uses TWF and the "free attack on a crit" paragon feat to deal good damage. But a free attack from a two handed gouge is better.


Powers: I really don't feel like going through this list right now, but let me simplify it for you. You want attack powers that are used as immediate actions or minor actions. Fury's Advance at level 3 is an example of this. Multi-attacks are how strikers do damage.
Encounter-long damage output boosting riders can sometimes be acceptable too.

[Tokuhara]

So here's a question: would multiclassing to get Cleric's Divine Fortune CD ability be worth it as an "alternative" option to Divine Guidance, dependant on my situation (hard to argue equivalent (roughly) damage and a 1 turn buff vs a do-over and bonus damage. Considering I have minor action attacks, meaning a possible +Dex(2) necrotic damage should both Minor and Standatd swings clobber

[tcrudisi]

So here's a question: would multiclassing to get Cleric's Divine Fortune CD ability be worth it as an "alternative" option to Divine Guidance, dependant on my situation (hard to argue equivalent (roughly) damage and a 1 turn buff vs a do-over and bonus damage. Considering I have minor action attacks, meaning a possible +Dex(2) necrotic damage should both Minor and Standatd swings clobber

What feats were you talking about stacking on top of Divine Fortune?

I really like Divine Guidance if you have the immediate actions to spare. Granting a re-roll is huge. An ally misses with a daily? They get another chance. More frequently, someone will miss with an encounter power. It's huge. Yeah, it doesn't help boost up your damage, but this is a team game, and it helps to make sure that your allies get to be awesome. When your allies are doing well, you are doing well. It's the type of power that I just love.

Divine Fortune is usable before the fact. When is that +1 going to come in handy? Meh. It's easily forgettable (unless you are talking about stacking nice things on top of it) and just not really worth it.

[Tokuhara]

What feats were you talking about stacking on top of Divine Fortune?

I really like Divine Guidance if you have the immediate actions to spare. Granting a re-roll is huge. An ally misses with a daily? They get another chance. More frequently, someone will miss with an encounter power. It's huge. Yeah, it doesn't help boost up your damage, but this is a team game, and it helps to make sure that your allies get to be awesome. When your allies are doing well, you are doing well. It's the type of power that I just love.

Divine Fortune is usable before the fact. When is that +1 going to come in handy? Meh. It's easily forgettable (unless you are talking about stacking nice things on top of it) and just not really worth it.

Grave Fortune (+Dex necrotic until end of next turn) and Fate's Warning (+2 to all defenses until end of next turn)

[tcrudisi]

Grave Fortune (+Dex necrotic until end of next turn) and Fate's Warning (+2 to all defenses until end of next turn)

Grave Fortune only works on the attack you use it on. So, it'll be about +7 or so (at level 30) to damage for one attack. Spread across an entire encounter, that adds up to less than +1 damage per attack. That's not worth it. Painful Oath (+wis to one attack per turn) is much better. Heck, so is weapon focus, which is +1/tier to each attack.

Fate's Warning is mediocre. It's definitely not something to take until you've already taken the other defensive feats. +2 to all defenses isn't nearly as good as Improved Defenses (+3 to all NAD's) or, well, pretty much any other defensive feat. It just doesn't make Divine Fortune even competitive with Divine Guidance.

[Tokuhara]

So what would be better-spent feat slots?

[tcrudisi]

What weapon are you going to use? Grab the superior version of it. In the order that I can think of them (and no other particular order):

Weapon Proficiency (Superior version of whatever weapon. Probably Fullblade, Executioner Axe or Gouge)

Which one did you choose? Grab the proper expertise feat: Heavy Blade Expertise or Axe Expertise.

Weapon Focus (heavy blade or axe) during heroic; retrain into Icy Heart at paragon

Painful Oath at paragon. This IS your feat at level 11. Accept no substitutes.

Superior Will

Either Improved Defenses OR (Superior Fortitude + Superior Reflexes)

Unarmored Agility

Lasting Frost + Wintertouched

Power of Skill (if worshiping a god with the skill domain) or Melee Training or something else that lets you make decent melee basic attacks

Vengeful Declaration

Mighty Enmity

Divine Mastery

Epic Resurgence

Improved Initiative or Superior Initiative (at epic)

Epic Fortitude + Epic Reflexes + Epic Will

The 19-20 crit range for whatever weapon you picked ... IF you have the stats for it

Random feats for your weapon of choice. Example: Cleaving Axe if you chose Gouge or Executioner Axe

Improved Armor of Faith (a feat for +1 to AC is the very definition of mediocre, but its not bad)

[Yakk]

I thought there was a "oath target" 19-20 crit range feat, or am I thinking homebrew?

[tcrudisi]

I thought there was a "oath target" 19-20 crit range feat, or am I thinking homebrew?

There might be. My highest level Avenger was in the paragon tier.

[Tokuhara]

What weapon are you going to use? Grab the superior version of it. In the order that I can think of them (and no other particular order):

Weapon Proficiency (Superior version of whatever weapon. Probably Fullblade, Executioner Axe or Gouge)

Which one did you choose? Grab the proper expertise feat: Heavy Blade Expertise or Axe Expertise.

Weapon Focus (heavy blade or axe) during heroic; retrain into Icy Heart at paragon

Painful Oath at paragon. This IS your feat at level 11. Accept no substitutes.

Superior Will

Either Improved Defenses OR (Superior Fortitude + Superior Reflexes)

Unarmored Agility

Lasting Frost + Wintertouched

Power of Skill (if worshiping a god with the skill domain) or Melee Training or something else that lets you make decent melee basic attacks

Vengeful Declaration

Mighty Enmity

Divine Mastery

Epic Resurgence

Improved Initiative or Superior Initiative (at epic)

Epic Fortitude + Epic Reflexes + Epic Will

The 19-20 crit range for whatever weapon you picked ... IF you have the stats for it

Random feats for your weapon of choice. Example: Cleaving Axe if you chose Gouge or Executioner Axe

Improved Armor of Faith (a feat for +1 to AC is the very definition of mediocre, but its not bad)

A majority of those, I was planning on taking a vast majority of those