Turning normal marks into special marks

[GPuzzle]

Well, uhm, I have found something rather interesting.

You see, after some really specific combinations:

Half-Elf (not a sorcerer)
Dilletante: Blazing Starfall
Adept Dilletante (or not, if you already are Arcane)
Arcane Admixture (Thunder)
Defending Dabbler
Resounding Thunder

And you have a 5x5 ranged mark.

However, that's where I'm trying to find way to turn those marks into something better that ISN'T the Avernian Knight Paragon Path.

Any ideas?

[obryn]

You can lay down 5x5 conditions that are better than Mark pretty easily. :smallsmile: And you can get a 5x5 mark much easier by just picking up Beguiling Strands. Or something to enlarge Dragon Breath, etc.

[GPuzzle]

It does that at-will.

Seriously, what kind of Half-Elf DOESN'T pick up Versatile Master?

[Calen]

Would using Solid Sound or other push feats would that automatically trigger the fire damage from the zone?

Consuming Flame also looks like it could provide a nice follow up if there is a good way to make a target vulnerable to flame using an item or something.

Thats all I could think of.

[Kimera757]

What class is the half-elf? Is he a defender? Is he tough enough to act like one?

[Yakk]

Sigil Carver mayhap? Or is that not mark based.

There is a Cleric PP that marks and has an OA-based mark punishment.

[GPuzzle]

What class is the half-elf? Is he a defender? Is he tough enough to act like one?

Preferentiably a Paladin, but can be any of them.

[Zaq]

I think you're looking at this from the wrong direction. Instead of saying "I can spend a ton of resources to have a 5 by 5 ranged mark; what can I do with it?" you can say "If I were to get a 5 by 5 ranged mark, what kinds of effects and situations would I want to be able to use it to set up?"

Do you want to be able to convince groups of distant enemies that you need to be targeted? Do you want to make groups of distant enemies take attack penalties (presumably because they'll have difficulty reaching you)? Do you want to set up some kind of double-tap effect on groups of distant enemies, assuming in the process that you'll force the enemies to trigger some kind of punishment? Do you want to control/influence the actions of distant groups of enemies by hanging the threat of a punishment over their heads? (Paring away at that last one, do you want to just control/influence the actions of distant groups of enemies, method be damned?) There's ways to do any of those things with greater or lesser degrees of effectiveness. And I'm not convinced that you want to be spending all your standard actions on Blazing Starfall, no matter how many bells and whistles you put on it.

Right now, you're spending a huge chunk of build resources to . . . not actually do that much. I understand that you're saying that your combo is stuck in "that's very nice, but what does it DO?" hell, and you're trying to fit the last piece of the puzzle in place to give your combo a purpose. I understand that. But take a second and ask yourself what your best-case scenario is. If you make the combo as cool as it can possibly be (whether the specifics line up with what's possible or not), what cool things would you want that 5 by 5 ranged mark to do for you? Then you think about how you can achieve that same cool result with less fuss and more elegance.

Combos are cool. I've built plenty of characters that hinge on unnecessarily elaborate combos, so in no way am I saying that this is bad just because it's elaborate. But I AM saying that if you don't have a goal in mind, and even YOU'RE not sure where you want to go amid fiddling with all the little pieces, then maybe take a step back and think about what effect you want your character to have on the field. There's probably a better way to achieve what you're trying to do. Doesn't mean that you have to pick The One True Path for achieving any given goal, but if you're going to put that much effort into a trick, you should be able to definitively say why that trick matters.

It's totally possible to come up with characters who start out based on a weird combo and turn into powerhouses (or, if not powerhouses, still totally effective). I've actually sat down and played several characters who really hinge around something that started as me going "huh, that's funny, it looks like X works with Y . . . I wonder what else it works with?" And I've built a whole mess of other characters on similar principles, even if I never brought them to the table. But I've enjoyed some of those characters way the hell more than I've enjoyed others, and the ones I've enjoyed more have made sure that they answer the implied "so what?" challenge leveled at their tricks and tactics. Combos for the sake of combos (and nothing more) don't usually turn into fun or effective characters. In the bad case, they just don't work the way you want them to; in the good case, they often turn into one-trick ponies who can't change things up when the situation needs it.

You should have fun with your characters. Play to have fun. Optimized, unoptimized, whatever makes the game pop for you. But I've repeatedly found that any character who inspires the exchange "why are you focusing so much on that one trick?" "Because I can." "Just because you can?" "Yeah." is a hell of a lot more fun to build than it is to play.

My point is that I don't see this combo turning into a robust character. For the amount of resources you're sinking into this (and by your own admission, you're not done, because it doesn't actually do much yet), you should get a trick that isn't just "I get to spam this at-will over and over," no matter how big the area or how marktastic it is. Figure out why an area mark would be fun for you, then build to scratch THAT itch.

[Dimers]

Goddammit, Zaq, stop being so awesome and polite and truthtastic! My monkeybrain can't handle associating good things with a person whose face I can't see. Yer breakin' me, man.

[GPuzzle]

There's also some thing useful in there - it can be used to improve things like the Fighter's mark, the Warden's mark and the Battlemind's mark.