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Saph
2008-06-03, 08:02 AM
So I'm going to be playing 4e with my group for the first time this weekend (plus the London Dungeon event on Friday - anyone else coming to that, BTW?) and I'm trying to put together a character. I decide to go for an elven ranger. The problem is, I'm trying to pick feats, and I'm noticing something - 4e feats seem to be terrible.

As an archer ranger, the automatic feat you get is Defensive Mobility. The feat they recommend for you (and the only archer-ranger-specific one) is Precise Hunter.

Defensive Mobility: You gain a +2 bonus to AC against opportunity attacks.

Precise Hunter: When you score a critical hit against the target of your Hunter's Quarry with a ranged attack, your allies gain a +1 bonus to attack rolls against that target until the start of your next turn.

First off, Defensive Mobility. It gives +2 AC against AoO's - the problem being that in my experience with 3e tactical combat, smart players don't generally provoke AoO's in the first place. This goes double for 4e rangers, who have ways of getting out of threatened spaces. And even if you do provoke, it's only a 10% less change of being hit. So it's a weak, situational feat.

Precise Hunter is even worse. It only triggers on a critical - that's a 5% chance. When it does trigger, even in ideal conditions (the enemy isn't dead after the crit, and all three other party members are in position to attack next turn) they also only have an extra 5% chance to hit. So even given perfect conditions, you have less than a 1% chance of the feat actually doing anything useful.

In fact, none of the heroic tier feats I can find for an archer seem remotely good. Elven Precision triggers only in combination with an encounter power, and only adds a +2 bonus - so that's a feat that'll make a difference 1 out of 10 encounters at best. Far Shot only gives a small, additive range increase. Lethal Hunter gives +1 average damage per hit - with conditions, and only once per turn.

So far, the only interesting feats I can find are the multiclass ones, as they give you two decent benefits. But you can only take one of them. There are one or two other feats (like Ritual Casting) which are sort of okay, but very few.

Am I missing something here? Or are 4e feats just that weak?

- Saph

SamTheCleric
2008-06-03, 08:05 AM
All of the feats are on a much lower scale and provide minor benefits... which makes it a lot harder to pick the ones you want, since they are all situationally beneficial.

Saph
2008-06-03, 08:08 AM
All of the feats are on a much lower scale and provide minor benefits... which makes it a lot harder to pick the ones you want, since they are all situationally beneficial.

So far I'm not seeing 'situational' so much as 'all but useless'. I could play a campaign for a year and never get any value out of Precise Hunter. What I'm really asking is if there's some use for them I've missed.

- Saph

SamTheCleric
2008-06-03, 08:10 AM
Hmm. The +2 AC to opportunity takes is actually quite useful for gaining the mobility advantage vs a large number of foes... my rogue used it to get in and out of trouble and to find the perfect spot to throw a dagger.

As for the "on crit" effect... always a 5% chance *shrug*. I'm not a fan of abilities that activate on a crit.

Thrawn183
2008-06-03, 08:20 AM
Also, since its so hard to increase either AC (or other defenses) or your attack bonuses a small benefit is actually far more useful than you would think.

In 3.5 (the only other edition I've played, I'll be honest), if somebody put their AC through the roof you just didn't power attack as much and could still hit them, or you DM was pretty much intentionally making your character useless. That isn't really the case from what I've seen in 4e. If an enemy has high AC and defenses, you better just hope that you have some kind of debuffer that you can work together with.

I initially looked at the rogue feat to increase sneak attack damage die from 2d6 to 2d8 and thought it was pathetic. Then I realized that as a percentage of actual damage per hit that wasn't all that bad.

I also like that they have racial feats in the PhB instead of waiting for things like Races of Stone.

Duke of URL
2008-06-03, 08:24 AM
Still eagerly awaiting the SRD on Friday here, but from the previewed materials, yes, the feats really do look that weak.

Part of it is that combat seems to be generally lower-powered to begin with, so small bonuses may actually be more useful. Another part is that they basically designed feats to be passive -- which means basically a bunch of static, likely situational, bonuses. Personally, I'd stock up on feats providing non-situational bonuses and more importantly, anything offering additional options.

Seems to me that "blowing" feats on the multiclass feats really won't cost all that much, seeing how little many feats in general do, and can open up those useful additional options.

Ealstan
2008-06-03, 08:30 AM
Yeah, the heroic tier feats are a little weak sauce. The first ones I'm taking are toughness and Durable (extra HPs and Healing Surges). Those and the staples (power attack, weapon focus, etc.) are definitely worth it. The other feats you get in heroic tier I would suggest retraining once you get access to Paragon tier feats (you can retrain one of your feats every time you level). Paragon's where the real meat is.

Dark Tira
2008-06-03, 08:31 AM
I think the feats Saph pointed out are particularly weak. Unless I planned on taking one of the 2 archer paragon paths I would always grab the TWF ranger ability over the getting Defensive Mobility even if I didn't intend on being a melee character. I would also never pick Precise Hunter and I have no idea why it would be recommended over something like Lethal Hunter or Weapon Focus.
For the Heroic Tier you have to look at the cumulative effect of small bonuses and once you hit paragon you can start upgrading them to more recognizable power levels.

alexi
2008-06-03, 08:34 AM
Precise Hunter: When you score a critical hit against the target of your Hunter's Quarry with a ranged attack, your allies gain a +1 bonus to attack rolls against that target until the start of your next turn.

what is the logic behind this? you hit something with an arrow and it makes your allies more likely to hit it?

Ealstan
2008-06-03, 08:34 AM
Seems to me that "blowing" feats on the multiclass feats really won't cost all that much, seeing how little many feats in general do, and can open up those useful additional options.

Yeah, it's not a big expenditure feat-wise, but power-wise I don't think it adds up. You're trading out class powers when you take them, which would cut down on the character's effectiveness in his/her "role" (striker, leader, etc.). Unless you're multiclassing into another class of the same role, I wouldn't think it'd be worth it.

Dark Tira
2008-06-03, 08:38 AM
Yeah, it's not a big expenditure feat-wise, but power-wise I don't think it adds up. You're trading out class powers when you take them, which would cut down on the character's effectiveness in his/her "role" (striker, leader, etc.). Unless you're multiclassing into another class of the same role, I wouldn't think it'd be worth it.

I don't know, seems like it's well worth the initial feat for the class feature and skill and quite often for the utility power swap. I'm kinda biased though since as much as I love the ranger I really dislike it's utility power selection.

Charity
2008-06-03, 08:41 AM
Multiclassing in the heroic tier seems strong as you can swap up the powers in the paragon tier get some of that versitility that I hear is popular these days. :smallwink:

Also toughness is no longer a poor choice, or even the one that gives you a couple of extra surges *edit* durable thats the one ta @V (especially if you dump Con in favour of Str).

With my Dragonborn paladin I have had real dificulty in chosing..
I'm down to either expanding his breath weapon to blast 5 or getting the raven queen divine feat (per encounter give someone a healing surge if you drop a critter)... or maybe dragon senses for the LLV and bonus perception.. or quickdraw thats strong, though it doesn't stack with improved initiative... still I prefer the QD option...

Reel On, Love
2008-06-03, 08:42 AM
You're underestimating'em.

For example, that +2 AC vs. AoOs is useful. You can shift 1 square as a move action; if you want to move away further than that, it's AoO o'clock. And moving around a lot is beneficial, especially for a striker like the ranger. You don't usually want to stick around.

Action Surge is great, giving you a significant bonus you'll be able to use every other encounter. Astral Fire is good for LAZOR CLERICS, and scales. The Channel Divinity feats are overall useful. Backstabber is extra damage.
Distracting Shield is *seriously* good stuff.
Durable is solid. Dwarven/Eladrin weapon training is +2 damage, making them very good choices. Enlarged Dragon Breath is very handy to have. Expanded Spellbook is classic, giving the wizard a lot of choice in his powers. Human Preseverance is another reason Humans rock. All the Improved Warlock pact ones are good, especially the teleport enhancer.
Improved Init is a very significant bonus. Inspired Recovery will be helpful for every ally once every 2 encounters, or an average of 2x/encounter. Lethal Hunter is a consistant damage increase.

You get the gist.

+1 Damage is not bad. Get a few of those going and you wind up with, say, +3 damage... when your at-will damage is 1d6+3 or 4. That's significant.

Roderick_BR
2008-06-03, 09:01 AM
Defensive Mobility: Maybe it's more useful now, since things won't drop dead in the 1st round of combat. Something MAY get too close to confort, so you'll want to move, and the bonus will come in handy. You won't start in a confortable distance from the enemies every encounter. Feats just seems to scale slower in 4E.

Precise Hunter: Yeah... that one is bad. Only when scoring a critical? Having it as an encounter ability so you can choose when to use it (like when your allies finally finished moving around the target) would be way more useful. I can only imagine this is a sort of at-will ability.

Saph
2008-06-03, 09:06 AM
You're underestimating'em.

For example, that +2 AC vs. AoOs is useful. You can shift 1 square as a move action; if you want to move away further than that, it's AoO o'clock. And moving around a lot is beneficial, especially for a striker like the ranger. You don't usually want to stick around.

Nimble Strike (Ranger 1)
At-Will • Martial, Weapon
Standard Action • Ranged Weapon
Target: One creature
Attack: Dexterity vs. AC
Special: Shift 1 square before or after you attack
Hit: 1(W) + Dex mod damage.

Shift, fire, then take a full move. No AoO's required. Every archer ranger is going to have that power, making the archer ranger class feature largely pointless. And if you somehow find yourself taking lots of AoOs anyway, +2 AC will only make a difference 1 attack in 10.

I'm seriously thinking at the moment that the best way to make an archer ranger is to do as Tira said and take the TWF choice instead. Toughness looks like a much better feat to have, as 5 more max HP will be useful far more often than Defensive Mobility will.

- Saph

FinalJustice
2008-06-03, 09:08 AM
Since most feats seem so sub-par compared to the extra versatility a multiclass feat nets, should we expect a trend like "everyone multiclasses" among optimizers?

Saph
2008-06-03, 09:12 AM
Since most feats seem so sub-par compared to the extra versatility a multiclass feat nets, should we expect a trend like "everyone multiclasses" among optimizers?

That does seem what they're trying to encourage. By making each multiclass feat as good as two normal feats, there's no reason not to take one. (That's also probably why you're not allowed a second.)

- Saph

Kabump
2008-06-03, 09:19 AM
Still trying to fully digest the new feel of 4e, it seems to me that your power selection will have a bigger effect on how your character plays than feats. Feats just dont seem as critical in this edition to me. Maybe its just me, I am a new player so Im not that experienced :smallsmile: Just this humble new swordsage's opinion!

KIDS
2008-06-03, 09:23 AM
Perhaps Defensive Mobility's bonus against opportunity attacks helps if you provoke an opportunity attack by shooting a bow within melee range? Does that still provoke?

SamTheCleric
2008-06-03, 09:23 AM
Perhaps Defensive Mobility's bonus against opportunity attacks helps if you provoke an opportunity attack by shooting a bow within melee range? Does that still provoke?

It does indeed... and shifting one square doesnt necessarily always get you out of hot water... reach... tons of minions... can't shift into difficult terrain.

Kurald Galain
2008-06-03, 09:33 AM
Also, since its so hard to increase either AC (or other defenses) or your attack bonuses a small benefit is actually far more useful than you would think.
I'm afraid statistics don't work that way. Regardless of how many AC-increasing feats there are, a situational +10% bonus is really not all that much.

Powers are the new feats.

Some feats are quite useful, even in the heroic tier. Improved Initiative is still reasonably good (even without SOL effects), and several of the multiclassing feats are nice (particularly the ranger and rogue ones, for extra damage as a free action).

Certain feats, like power attack and backstabber, are nice but only if you're a paragon, or preferably epic, character.


The first ones I'm taking are toughness and Durable (extra HPs and Healing Surges). Those and the staples (power attack, weapon focus, etc.) are definitely worth it.
Durable is nice; but I don't think toughness is worth it except at first level.

InaVegt
2008-06-03, 09:33 AM
It does indeed... and shifting one square doesnt necessarily always get you out of hot water... reach... tons of minions... can't shift into difficult terrain.

Not to mention there are quite a bit of enemies which get to shift after you if you shift. Which makes the archery power just a tad less useful.

Indon
2008-06-03, 09:42 AM
Powers are the new feats.

Which, of course, makes the feats that offer powers really, uh, powerful.

Tsotha-lanti
2008-06-03, 09:42 AM
Shift, fire, then take a full move.

That's fine, assuming you're not, say, surrounded by minions (and a few brutes for extra fun). You're the striker - you're the one they're all going to be gunning for.

They are situational, but if you don't get frequent use out of your Defensive Mobility, your DM has to be doing something wrong (that, or your fighter/paladin is doing something seriously right). Shifting helps if you've only got minions on one side of you - but if you're fighting a bunch of kobolds, for instance, they're going to be all around you pretty quickly. It also helps you move past enemies to get a better shot at a boss, for instance, synergising with Prime Shot.

AKA_Bait
2008-06-03, 09:53 AM
I don't know, seems like it's well worth the initial feat for the class feature and skill and quite often for the utility power swap. I'm kinda biased though since as much as I love the ranger I really dislike it's utility power selection.

Yeah, the iniate feat is well, well worth it. Particularly into Cleric or Wizard. +5 to a skill and a class feature for a feat? Totally worth it. I've created a few characters now and I couldn't come up with a good reason for any of them not to multiclass, including the wizard (who added cleric so he could heal).

Crazy_Uncle_Doug
2008-06-03, 09:57 AM
Regarding Feats, a question for those with the book in hand:

Have Feats been improved so that there aren't those that become obsolete with the gain of several levels? One of my big complaint with Feats in 3rd Edition was that there would be some feats that were great for someone level1-4 or so, but when he gets up to level 12+, he starts wishing he never had that Feat as it's taking up the space a better Feat could use. Does this seem a problem in 4e?

Saph
2008-06-03, 09:58 AM
That's fine, assuming you're not, say, surrounded by minions (and a few brutes for extra fun). You're the striker - you're the one they're all going to be gunning for.

They are situational, but if you don't get frequent use out of your Defensive Mobility, your DM has to be doing something wrong (that, or your fighter/paladin is doing something seriously right)

+2 AC means a 10% less chance of being hit. That means that Defensive Mobility will benefit you one AoO in ten. So to get frequent use out of it - once per encounter, say - you have to be taking 10 AoO's per encounter. I haven't played 4e combats enough to say for sure, but I'm pretty sure taking that many AoOs is a sign you should be rethinking your tactics.

By comparison, Toughness gives you 5 extra HP. That's probably somewhere between half a hit and one hit, but it works against everything. I'd say an archer ranger is much better off taking the TWF class feature and avoiding AoOs instead of running past enemies.

- Saph

SmartAlec
2008-06-03, 09:58 AM
what is the logic behind this? you hit something with an arrow and it makes your allies more likely to hit it?

"Their armour is weak at the shoulder, and just above the neck."
- Legolas, The Two Towers

I'm seeing something similar here - the Ranger's shot hits a weak spot or makes clear to him some weakness in the enemy's fighting style or armour or somesuch that he can then communicate to the rest of the team.

SamTheCleric
2008-06-03, 09:59 AM
Regarding Feats, a question for those with the book in hand:

Have Feats been improved so that there aren't those that become obsolete with the gain of several levels? One of my big complaint with Feats in 3rd Edition was that there would be some feats that were great for someone level1-4 or so, but when he gets up to level 12+, he starts wishing he never had that Feat as it's taking up the space a better Feat could use. Does this seem a problem in 4e?

A few of the feats scale with level. Power attack is now a static -2 to hit, +2 to hit at heroic tier... and increasing as you get to paragon and epic tier.

Toughness gives you 5hp at each tier.

Jarlax
2008-06-03, 10:00 AM
yes ranged attack feats seem "underpowered" or just not there in general i suppose.

if it were me i would go with either weapon focus(bows) or quick draw

yes reloading your weapon is a free action but turning one minor action into a free action AND getting +2 on initiative is a pretty good deal.

feats are less important to your character then they were in 3.5 this may change in the martial power book but for now the best feats are really general feats. stuff like improved initiative, quick draw, weapon focus, durable, etc. the sort of feats anyone can really use.

Saph
2008-06-03, 10:00 AM
Regarding Feats, a question for those with the book in hand:

Have Feats been improved so that there aren't those that become obsolete with the gain of several levels? One of my big complaint with Feats in 3rd Edition was that there would be some feats that were great for someone level1-4 or so, but when he gets up to level 12+, he starts wishing he never had that Feat as it's taking up the space a better Feat could use. Does this seem a problem in 4e?

Not really, for three reasons:

1. You can retrain feats.
2. Many feats scale.
3. Feats are generally so weak that having bad feats doesn't make much difference.

- Saph

JaxGaret
2008-06-03, 10:06 AM
Yeah, the iniate feat is well, well worth it. Particularly into Cleric or Wizard. +5 to a skill and a class feature for a feat?

It's not quite a whole class feature. It's a class feature lite; it always doesn't work quite as well as if it were being used by a member of that class itself. Usually, only usable 1/encounter instead of At-Will.

While +5 to a skill is awesome in my opinion, I can see many people who would consider it "underpowered".


Totally worth it. I've created a few characters now and I couldn't come up with a good reason for any of them not to multiclass, including the wizard (who added cleric so he could heal).

I really like the multiclass feats. I can see plenty of characters preferring not to multiclass, though, especially once we get more splatbooks and more feats to choose from.

Yakk
2008-06-03, 10:10 AM
And even if you do provoke, it's only a 10% less change of being hit. So it's a weak, situational feat.

Not quite. For the most part, people attacking you have a base 50-50 chance of hitting you, roughly.

Going from hitting on a 11+ to a 13+ changes the hit chance from 50% to 40%. That means 1 in 5 of the blows that would have hit instead miss.

And on precise hunter, there might be 4 attacks that hit that target on the next round (possibly in reponse to your tasty +1 bonus). Instead of 2.0 hits on average, they'd get 2.2 hits, some of them possibly being per-encounter powers (after all, a bonus to hit means that the power is less likely to be wasted).

Normal Attack: 0.5 hit
Hunter Attack: 0.5 hit, 5% to 10% chance of +0.2 hit, more likely (say twice) to be double-damage attacks: 0.52 to 0.54 hit: 4% to 8% boost in your average damage per action.

A +1 to damage feat (Weapon Focus) adds 5% to your damage when your average attack does 20 damage.


Precise Hunter is even worse. It only triggers on a critical - that's a 5% chance. When it does trigger, even in ideal conditions (the enemy isn't dead after the crit, and all three other party members are in position to attack next turn) they also only have an extra 5% chance to hit. So even given perfect conditions, you have less than a 1% chance of the feat actually doing anything useful.

Using the same trick, it is actually 1 in 10 hits will trigger it (remember, no confirmation rolls), and will increase your 50% hit chance to 55%, or (over a fight) make you hit about 10% more. (if you would have hit 10 times, you would now have hit 11 times, assuming the buff is up).


Elven Precision triggers only in combination with an encounter power, and only adds a +2 bonus - so that's a feat that'll make a difference 1 out of 10 encounters at best.

+2 bonus means instead of hitting 50%, you hit 60% of the time -- or 1.2x times as many hits when you use the power. On top of that, you'll tend to use this ability when you miss with a Daily power -- thus, it makes the hit portion of your daily power go off 20% more often.

As a ranger, the Hunter's Quarry adds +1 to damage against your Quarry (on average) and another +1 on your crit (8 instead of 6 -- 6+1+1).


Shift, fire, then take a full move.

Congrats -- whenever a monster gets within melee range of you, you are reduced to using an at-will power. :)

...

At level 1, Toughness kicks ass. At level 5, it isn't as good. At level 10, it's pretty meh. At level 11, it isn't bad again.


Certain feats, like power attack and backstabber, are nice but only if you're a paragon, or preferably epic, character.

Backstabber is a no-brainer. +2 damage (+4 on crits) on every opportunity attack by a rogue? Tasty!

Power attack? That is far more meh than you might think. -2 to hit is hitting ~10% less often. The effect is worse on a "tough" creature with a high defense.

It is still probably worth it on at-will attacks, but probably not on the badass attacks.

...

BTW, look at Hunter's Quarry. I believe you have to tag the closest enemy: which means that in order to strike down the big bad, you have to dash through the minions and then get out.

AKA_Bait
2008-06-03, 10:11 AM
It's not quite a whole class feature. It's a class feature lite; it always doesn't work quite as well as if it were being used by a member of that class itself. Usually, only usable 1/encounter instead of At-Will.

While +5 to a skill is awesome in my opinion, I can see many people who would consider it "underpowered".

Although they aren't as good as the true class feature, an additional encounter power, even without the skill bonus,
seems to me much more powerful than the bonuses granted by the feats currently available.



I really like the multiclass feats. I can see plenty of characters preferring not to multiclass, though, especially once we get more splatbooks and more feats to choose from.

Potentially, but I wouldn't want to count that before it happens. As I see it, the initate feats are quite a bit more powerful than the regular feats (my premise is encounter power > normal feat). Unless the new feats that come out with later splat books are accordingly more powerful, which would render pretty much all the regular PBH heroic tier feats suboptimal, then the iniatite feats would remain a better option.

Saph
2008-06-03, 10:26 AM
Not quite. For the most part, people attacking you have a base 50-50 chance of hitting you, roughly.

Going from hitting on a 11+ to a 13+ changes the hit chance from 50% to 40%. That means 1 in 5 of the blows that would have hit instead miss.

+2 bonus means instead of hitting 50%, you hit 60% of the time -- or 1.2x times as many hits when you use the power. On top of that, you'll tend to use this ability when you miss with a Daily power -- thus, it makes the hit portion of your daily power go off 20% more often.

This is misleading. The only statistic that matters when you're picking feats for effectiveness is "How much/how often will the feat help?" If it's a +2 bonus, that means it'll make the difference 10% of the time. So the 1 in 10 chance is the more accurate one.

And sorry, but Precise Hunter is terrible, even with dual-attacking. For it to have any effect at all: a) you have to crit, b) the monster has to be alive and subject to attacks from your allies next turn, and c) one or more of those attacks has to miss by exactly 1 point without the feat. Run the numbers on that and you'll see that the chances of it doing anything are absurdly low. (Did I mention that it also requires a Wis of 15?)


BTW, look at Hunter's Quarry. I believe you have to tag the closest enemy: which means that in order to strike down the big bad, you have to dash through the minions and then get out.

This strikes me as very bad tactics, but it's your playstyle, I guess.

- Saph

Indon
2008-06-03, 10:29 AM
"Their armour is weak at the shoulder, and just above the neck."
- Legolas, The Two Towers

I'm seeing something similar here - the Ranger's shot hits a weak spot or makes clear to him some weakness in the enemy's fighting style or armour or somesuch that he can then communicate to the rest of the team.

And after a few seconds, the fellowship forgot the creature's weakness.

Edea
2008-06-03, 10:46 AM
This does definitely seem to favor multiclassing. The level 2, 4, 8 and 10 feat slots can all be consumed with multiclass feats (and that's definitely where I'm going with my Wizard (hopping into Cleric), assuming the playgroup I'm in right now gets that far). Unless you're human, that leaves slot 1 and slot 6 open pre-paragon. Not a lot of room; Imp. Init, Ritual Casting, Skill Training and Exp. Spellbook fill out the rest of my possible heroic slots. Must be different for different classes (I am -so- grabbing Perception training at 6th).

Dark Tira
2008-06-03, 10:50 AM
This does definitely seem to favor multiclassing. The level 2, 4, 8 and 10 feat slots can all be consumed with multiclass feats (and that's definitely where I'm going with my Wizard (hopping into Cleric), assuming the playgroup I'm in right now gets that far). Unless you're human, that leaves slot 1 and slot 6 open pre-paragon. Not a lot of room; Imp. Init, Ritual Casting, Skill Training and Exp. Spellbook fill out the rest of my possible heroic slots. Must be different for different classes (I am -so- grabbing Perception training at 6th).

I'm of an opinion that unless your multiclass has the same primary stat the 4th and 10th level power swaps can be ignored.

Talya
2008-06-03, 11:00 AM
Seems they went out of their way to remove most "good" and "bad" character build choices. There are few synergies, few ways to really make a character stand out.

SmartAlec
2008-06-03, 11:01 AM
And after a few seconds, the fellowship forgot the creature's weakness.

Either that, or they/it realised what the party was doing (possibly because the Ranger yelled it out - but then, how else was he going to tell the team?) and tried to compensate somehow, defending their vulnerable areas against the party's attacks.

Dark Tira
2008-06-03, 11:05 AM
Seems they went out of their way to remove most "good" and "bad" character build choices. There are few synergies, few ways to really make a character stand out.

I don't know, I'm pretty impressed from what I've seen so far from the 4th ed. optimization boards . Of course if you wanted to stand out in 3.5 core all you had to do was really suck and 4th ed. really loses out on the character hosing options.

Kurald Galain
2008-06-03, 11:44 AM
I suppose it would be a workable trick to take Toughness at first level, and swap it out on second. It's not like you have anything better to swap out, and you're allowed one swap per levelup...

Azerian Kelimon
2008-06-03, 11:47 AM
I suppose it would be a workable trick to take Toughness at first level, and swap it out on second. It's not like you have anything better to swap out, and you're allowed one swap per levelup...

But what for? Once the feat's gone, the benefit is out too. There's no real reason to do it. Much better to simply take Durable, which is like Toughness on steroids.

Dark Tira
2008-06-03, 11:52 AM
But what for? Once the feat's gone, the benefit is out too. There's no real reason to do it. Much better to simply take Durable, which is like Toughness on steroids.

Durable is good but it's not quite directly comparable to toughness. Toughness also increases your surge value by at least 1 so a fighter that has 11-12 surges already would probably gain a lot more benefit from Toughness than Durable.

Person_Man
2008-06-03, 11:53 AM
It seems like they went out of their way to make the 4E rules as balanced as possible, by removing everything that scales. This is a very good thing, in theory.

But I'm thinking that this will just make codex creep an even bigger problem in 4E then it has been in previous editions. Writers won't be able to resist making their classes/feats/powers more potent then the core classes/feats/powers, if only to make them stand out from the pack and make their splat book popular. This is normal. Previously, this rendered things like the Monk and Weapon Specialization useless, but not the Druid, Power Attack, metamagic feats, etc.

Unless they keep very tight editorial control over 4E, its likely that each splat book will render the rules that came before it almost entirely sub-optimal. Or conversely, splat books will be extremely boring and no one will buy them, because who cares about a +2 Bonus to your Jump check during a full moon after you successfully make an attack?

Little_Rudo
2008-06-03, 12:04 PM
if it were me i would go with either weapon focus(bows) or quick draw

yes reloading your weapon is a free action but turning one minor action into a free action AND getting +2 on initiative is a pretty good deal.

Unfortunately, the +2 Initiative for Quick Draw is a feat bonus, meaning it doesn't stack with Improved Initiative's +4 feat bonus. Not that it isn't a good feat for certain builds (someone who uses a lot of minor actions could take it for that alone), but not quite as universally good as Improved Initiative.

Kurald Galain
2008-06-03, 12:09 PM
But what for? Once the feat's gone, the benefit is out too.

Well, obviously. The reason is that a flat bonus to hit points is more useful if you have less hit points. So you can take it at level 1 if you're feeling squishy, and swap it out when you feel it's obsolete.

Aron Times
2008-06-03, 12:19 PM
Regarding Feats, a question for those with the book in hand:

Have Feats been improved so that there aren't those that become obsolete with the gain of several levels? One of my big complaint with Feats in 3rd Edition was that there would be some feats that were great for someone level1-4 or so, but when he gets up to level 12+, he starts wishing he never had that Feat as it's taking up the space a better Feat could use. Does this seem a problem in 4e?
You can retrain heroic feats into paragon feats at paragon tier, and paragon feats to epic feats at epic tier.

Dark Tira
2008-06-03, 12:28 PM
You can retrain heroic feats into paragon feats at paragon tier, and paragon feats to epic feats at epic tier.

Or even Heroic Tier feats with Epic Tier. As long as you meet the prereqs.

TheOOB
2008-06-03, 12:36 PM
For the record, +2 AC isn't a 10% less chance of being hit, the math isn't entirely that simple. Lets say your foe has to roll a 16 to hit you normally, then with defensive mobility it reduces the chance that they will hit you by 50%(from 20% to 10%). Yes it changes the overall hit rate by 10%, but it's can be a bit more important then that.

Yes there are a few bad feats in the book, but most of them are at least worth taking, keep in mind that different builds will have different powers which will make different feats more attractive. Yes rangers have an at-will power that makes them rarely cause AoO's, that doesn't mean they have to take it, there are 3 other perfectly good ranger at-wills, and more on the horizon.

Artanis
2008-06-03, 12:51 PM
I think one of the major problems is that people are still looking at 4e feats and expecting 3e feats. They look at the 4e feat list and don't see stuff like Power Attack or Cleave and think "wow, these all suck".

The thing is though, 4e feats are NOT the same sort of thing as 3e. You get a metric assload of feats in 4e, and they give you some bits and pieces that help you out, but aren't the sort of central definition of an entire build the way they would be in 3e. Even the multiclass feats, which are probably the most powerful and versatile of them all, are simply too few and too limited to form the very foundation of an entire character the way that Power Attack or Natural Spell was.



tl;dr:

Take them for what they are, NOT what they were, and they look a whole lot less underwhelming.

Yakk
2008-06-03, 01:29 PM
I'm talking about leverage. 1 in 10 blows hitting when they missed before: if you are balanced around 1 blow in 10 hitting, then that is a huge boost to your accuracy -- a 100% increase in your damage per action, assuming nil-miss abilities.

If you are balanced around 8 blows in 10 hitting, that boosts your reliability, but your actual hit rate doesn't change much -- a mere 12.5% increase in your damage per action.

If you go further, and look at something like the Ranger 15 Bladestorm chain-attack ability (I think that is the name?): Going from a 50% to a 60% hit rate increases average damage per Bladestorm by 50%!

Going from 60% hit rate to 70% increases average # of hits from 1.5 to 2.3.

Going from 70% to 80% increases average # of hits by 70% (2.333 to 4).

Damage-per-action is a good bit of math. It is, in my opinion, a great way to examine the effects of a power. Defensive powers impact enemy damage-per-action, and offensive powers impact your damage-per-action. Other abilities impact shared damage-per-action for multiple players, and hence become more powerful...

wodan46
2008-06-03, 01:50 PM
Toughness seems far too good, and something that every character should take. On a Wizard, it means +25% total HP and +25% to HP healed on Surges. On a Fighter, its still +17% to total HP and HP healed on Surges.

Saph
2008-06-03, 01:59 PM
Yakk: The problem with this is that Defensive Mobility doesn't reduce enemy damage-per-action at all. It only triggers on AoO's, which are something that you generally get when you make a mistake. Having an opponent get a free shot at you is never a good thing - in 3.5 combat I usually go an entire session without provoking one, except in situations where the enemy is weak enough that I don't care.

So the only way Defensive Mobility is worth it is if your DM routinely makes it impossible for you to move without getting AoO'd repeatedly - and if that's the case you're in such deep trouble that the feat's unlikely to make much difference.

Annoyingly, the paragon paths for the Ranger are restricted by your choice of combat style, which you can't retrain. So either you take a sub-par feat, or you can't take the archery paths later on.

- Saph

Dark Tira
2008-06-03, 02:04 PM
Yakk: The problem with this is that Defensive Mobility doesn't reduce enemy damage-per-action at all. It only triggers on AoO's, which are something that you generally get when you make a mistake. Having an opponent get a free shot at you is never a good thing - in 3.5 combat I usually go an entire session without provoking one, except in situations where the enemy is weak enough that I don't care.

So the only way Defensive Mobility is worth it is if your DM routinely makes it impossible for you to move without getting AoO'd repeatedly - and if that's the case you're in such deep trouble that the feat's unlikely to make much difference.

Annoyingly, the paragon paths for the Ranger are restricted by your choice of combat style, which you can't retrain. So either you take a sub-par feat, or you can't take the archery paths later on.

- Saph

Actually, I can see Defensive Mobility being a good choice for Artful Dodger Halfling Rogues. Having something like +8 AC vs. AoO seems really good for positioning yourself. I still agree it's crap for the ranger though.

Azerian Kelimon
2008-06-03, 02:05 PM
Toughness seems far too good, and something that every character should take. On a Wizard, it means +25% total HP and +25% to HP healed on Surges. On a Fighter, its still +17% to total HP and HP healed on Surges.

It's actually very meh.

Compare it to Durable. That, my friend is ONE HALF extra HP. Much more awesome, ain't it?

Dark Tira
2008-06-03, 02:13 PM
It's actually very meh.

Compare it to Durable. That, my friend is ONE HALF extra HP. Much more awesome, ain't it?

The problem with Durable is that it's worse on the economy of actions scale. Toughness is great because it's passive. Durable will always require some form of action to take advantage of in combat and it doesn't even give you additional second winds so there are a lot of situations where you won't gain any benefit from having it at all.

wodan46
2008-06-03, 02:14 PM
Lets say you have a Level 5 fighter with 12 surges and 54 HP. Toughness gives him 8 bonus HP, plus 24 bonus HP from the increased size of the surges, for a total of 32 HP. Durable gives 2 more surges, each giving about 27 HP.

Also, as pointed out before, better surges is more useful than having more surges, as surges require triggers, which cost actions and encounter abilities if done in combat.

Azerian Kelimon
2008-06-03, 02:16 PM
Lets say you have a Level 5 fighter with 12 surges and 54 HP. Toughness gives him 8 bonus HP, plus 24 bonus HP from the increased size of the surges, for a total of 32 HP. Durable gives 2 more surges, each giving about 27 HP.

Toughness>Durable in that case.

27 * 2 = 54. Don't see where you're getting the math from.

See, when I see durable, I'm comparing it considering I'm going to have a Warlord or cleric giving me surge use, or that I'm going to use a few of those "spend a healing surge" powers, or that I'm using dwarven armor. With appropriate tinkering, like all the things I mentioned, Durable is much, MUCH better.

Dark Tira
2008-06-03, 02:22 PM
Lets say you have a Level 5 fighter with 12 surges and 54 HP. Toughness gives him 8 bonus HP, plus 24 bonus HP from the increased size of the surges, for a total of 32 HP. Durable gives 2 more surges, each giving about 27 HP.


There's something funky about the math here. A level 5 fighter still gets only +5 hp from toughness and each of the healing surges would only give 13 hp.

wodan46
2008-06-03, 02:29 PM
I miswrote, the surges should only be 13.5 HP apiece, I was adding the 2 surges together.

Toughness gives 3+Level HP, which at Level 5 would result in each Healing Surge giving +2 HP more than under Durable.


62 HP and 12 surges is better than 54 HP and 14 surges. I am not being too precise on the Con, but the point remains.

Dark Tira
2008-06-03, 02:33 PM
Toughness gives 3+Level HP, which at Level 5 would result in each Healing Surge giving +2 HP more than under Durable.


According to my book it gives 5 hp at each tier. So 5hp at 1, 10hp at 11, and 15hp at 21.

Azerian Kelimon
2008-06-03, 02:34 PM
I miswrote, the surges should only be 13.5 HP apiece, I was adding the 2 surges together.

Toughness gives 3+Level HP, which at Level 5 would result in each Healing Surge giving +2 HP more than under Durable.


62 HP and 12 surges is better than 54 HP and 14 surges. I am not being too precise on the Con, but the point remains.

Nope, it ain't.

Toughness is only better if you consider it alone.

Now, add in a Leader giving you extra heals, powers that let you use healing surges, Healing Surge items that require you to spend one to get another shot at the power, ITEMS that let you spend surges, etc, and Durable becomes better. There are plenty ways to use healing surges without taking actions, and in pretty much all cases, it's better to regain a fourth of your HP than to have 5/10/15 extra of it.

Dark Tira
2008-06-03, 02:39 PM
Nope, it ain't.

Toughness is only better if you consider it alone.

Now, add in a Leader giving you extra heals, powers that let you use healing surges, Healing Surge items that require you to spend one to get another shot at the power, ITEMS that let you spend surges, etc, and Durable becomes better. There are plenty ways to use healing surges without taking actions, and in pretty much all cases, it's better to regain a fourth of your HP than to have 5/10/15 extra of it.

That might be true if toughness didn't also boost the quality of healing surges. Durable is simply much more situational than toughness. Durable not a bad feat but it's really tough to compare the two since there are times one is better than the other.

wodan46
2008-06-03, 02:39 PM
Oh, the pre-release materials indicated 3+Level HP, guess it is weaker than I thought. Still, Durable needs you to have plenty of surge triggers handy if you want to use it in combat.

Artanis
2008-06-03, 02:45 PM
Regarding Defensive Mobility:

Hey, a free feat is a free feat, even if it sucks :smalltongue:. It looks to me like one of those feats that might be surprisingly handy, even if it's unimpressive on paper.


Regarding Precise Hunter:

...ok, yeah, it looks like it sucks. It might wind up being really good in practice, but it ain't exactly impressing me.


Regarding Heroic-tier Feats for Archers:

None of the feats are all that impressive for anybody. Improved Initiative looks like its effect would be both a big boon and come into play pretty reliably when you consider that encounters are usually going to be several enemies at once. And...uh...ok, there ain't much else, but like I said, the other classes tend to get screwed too. Even the Channel Divinity feats are less impressive than at first glance when you consider that you can only use one Channel Divinity power per encounter, so using one of the feat-granted ones keeps you from using any of the others the class might get.



All in all, it's like I said in my previous post: they're little boosts here and there, which is exactly what they're intended to be. So take them for what they are in 4e, NOT what they were in 3e.

Yakk
2008-06-03, 03:22 PM
Yakk: The problem with this is that Defensive Mobility doesn't reduce enemy damage-per-action at all. It only triggers on AoO's, which are something that you generally get when you make a mistake. Having an opponent get a free shot at you is never a good thing - in 3.5 combat I usually go an entire session without provoking one, except in situations where the enemy is weak enough that I don't care.

There are tiers of bad dudes. You do care if two minions get an OA on you, but you don't care about it that much. At first level, each OA from a minion is ~2 damage -- or 1.8 damage if you have the feat.


So the only way Defensive Mobility is worth it is if your DM routinely makes it impossible for you to move without getting AoO'd repeatedly - and if that's the case you're in such deep trouble that the feat's unlikely to make much difference.

That is what minions and swarms of bad guys do. They get in the way!

There should be bad guys trying to run around the defender, going after strikers and leaders and controllers. The defender should be frantically trying to slow them down by Marking them and interposing themselves.

And if every time you have someone next to you, you have to either use a relatively crappy at-will or burn a move action to shift out of range, then the guys chasing after the striker are winning.

In battles against a single bad guy who is expected to die in 2 to 3 rounds, one shouldn't expect to suffer AoO -- the bad guy has 4 people to worry about! But when you are fighting 10 opponents at once...

Note that as a Striker, your job is to kill the tough bad guys. You are a second-rate controller (whose job is to kill/disable the swarming minions), but you are exceptionally good at causing serious problems for that bag-of-HP over there. In this case, that means you need to first position yourself to mark the target (to get the extra 3.5 to 4.5 damage per attack on them), then burn as many per-encounters as you can taking him down, then burn at-wills effectively to do more damage. All of which, you should have minions chasing you down and trying to harass you.

It is true that with shifts, you can avoid OAs -- but if you have enough AC and +AC during OAs, you can afford to take short-cuts and let a few minions swing at you...

Then again, it is possible that the ideal feats for a Striker are not the ones that help you move around, but rather those that help you kill things dead.


Annoyingly, the paragon paths for the Ranger are restricted by your choice of combat style, which you can't retrain. So either you take a sub-par feat, or you can't take the archery paths later on.

*nod*