Best Class for an Opportunity Attack Build?

[PoeticallyPsyco]

Was inspired reading through the Warden Paragon Paths, saw one that (as its level 20 power) gave you an extra square of reach and Threatening Reach for as long as you were in that form (so probably the rest of the encounter). That's really good... but also pretty late. There are other paragon paths that can give you threatening reach earlier, like Stoneblessed for one round or Polearm Master for the rest of the encounter, both at level 12.

So Warden isn't actually necessary for the build.

And the question becomes, what class is optimal for spamming opportunity attacks? It might be Warden after all (with its reach-granting dailies), but it might not.

Spoiler: Build ideas so far:

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I'm thinking a Glaive with the Polearm Gambit and Heavy Blade Opportunity feats, giving you more and better OAs respectively. So a base class with a good At-Will for Heavy Blade Opportunity is key.

Key stats so far are Strength, Dex, and Wis, all of which are required at moderate levels for the above feats. Warden works well here, with two of those as its primary stats. This also makes Stoneblessed look worse than Polearm Master, because it relies on Con as well, and that's a lot of MAD (though it does grant a permanent square of extra reach, which is lovely).

An at-will that pushes/slides the target would be lovely, with Polearm Master increasing the distance and another feat whose name I forget letting you make the target prone if you move them more than two squares with a polearm.

[Mando Knight]

If you're looking for an Opportunity Attack focused build that's stacking weapon-specific modifiers, isn't Fighter the default choice? Polearm Momentum (the feat that lets you knock targets prone after sliding them) requires at least a Fighter multiclass, and Fighter also gives you your Wisdom modifier to the attack roll on OAs to ensure the hit.

[Kurald Galain]

Definitely Fighter.

It's also one of the strongest defenders period, and funnily it can mark on an OA (so if your OA target misbehaves, he eats a second attack as an immediate!)

[PoeticallyPsyco]

Okay yeah Combat Superiority is brutal with Threatening Reach.

That said, Combat Challenge only gives you the immediate interrupt if your foe is adjacent to you, which is a little antisynergistic and also notably worse for this than the Nature's Wrath features for Warden.

Guess it's time to finally learn how the heck hybrid classes work...

Okay, that actually doesn't mix too badly. For some reason Hybrid Combat Challenge won't work with MBAs anymore (unless that was errata'd), but you can pick up Heavy Blade Opportunity at the same time as or just before you get your Threatening Reach power, so that's not too bad. Losing the other Warden class features does suck... but it's not really "losing" them, I guess, on what was going to be a Fighter anyway.

Probably go Str primary, Dex secondary, and Wis tertiary, giving a decent AC despite having lost heavy armor, getting decent Initiative, and qualifying for all the weapon feats I want. This also means Dwarf no longer a front-runner for race, since we don't have additional benefits to Second Wind from Warden and its ability boosts aren't particularly good for the build anymore.

[masteraleph]

Warden definitely can help- Form of Winter's Herald and Treacherous Ice are two great heroic dailies (the latter a utility) that make shifting away difficult for a whole encounter, at 15 Form of the Crushing Mountain helps significantly. Iron Soul Monk flurry can do that for a round every encounter. As you've noted, Polearm Master or Stoneblessed both can provide threatening reach, either daily or encounter depending. Spiked Chain MC also features a threatening reach daily, but obviously we've now got some incompatible things so you'd have to pick and choose what you want the most (note that Spiked Chain does actually work with Polearm Master and works nicely with Flail Expertise/Lashing Flail/Dragging Flail, but obviously not with Polearm Momentum). To increase reach, potentially (hybrid) Arena Fighter and take Staff Expertise plus your pick of reach weapon to increase the reach by one. Note that Polearm Gambit only allows an OA with voluntary movement; forced movement still doesn't provoke.

The other question is what you're going for- that is, is the goal here punishment on a per turn instead of per round basis, or is the goal actually Opportunity *attacks* (that is, would opportunity actions work for you?) If the goal is just a lot more punishment, then beyond the epic tier defender feats like Rapid Combat Challenge, here are a few interesting things:

1) Dust Storm Assault (Fighter D15)- not OAs, but you do get to punish with Opportunity Actions within 3

2) At low levels, a Knight can actually do some good stuff. For example, go Human and take an extra at will for Footwork Lure, take Flail Expertise and World Serpent's Grasp. Flail Expertise will let you prone using Flail Expertise, World Serpent's Grasp means that when you punish with your Defender Aura and the Defend the Line stance, you slow, and if you get a chance to attack them again, you can prone. In paragon Half Elf might work better if you poach Eldritch Strike for an MBA with a built in slide + Arcane, so you can take White Lotus feats

3) Massively multiclassing Berserker. Take only martial Barbarian powers; the main goal here is to be able to use Vengeful Guardian, your punishment feature, as much as possible. Str/Dex, Alhulak main hand in heroic. Flail Expertise. MC Fighter and Novice Power for Come and Get it at 7. At 9 you gain the Barb D9 that lets you expand your aura by 1 for an encounter. At 11, take Traveler's Harlequin as your PP to MC into lots of stuff. MC Spiked Chain and take the utility swap to get threatening reach with spiked chain until end of encounter, also Lashing Flail to knock enemies prone on MBAs. MC Paladin (or maybe Blackguard stat depending) and take Adept Power for Avatar of Righteous Nobility for another aura expander. At 17 MC Warden and take Warden's Lure with novice power instead for the auto pull. At 20, Form of the Crushing Mountain to hold enemies adjacent to you. You can also take Battle Awareness for another punishment, MC Binder for some invisibility. I think I built this out and at 22 I had like 3/4 multiclass or powerswap feats. Potential interesting options here- Drow for cloud of darkness and Skulker of Vhaeraun for extra damage; Dune Trader if you really hate Barbarian powers and want some more cool powerswaps without spending a feat, Misshapen for the U6 power swap that forces enemies to move away from you.

4) Similar to the above, but Revenant Half Elf Gloom Pact hexblade. Mostly strikerish in heroic, but Gloom Pact gives you insubstantial when an adjacent enemy drops to 0 or you reduce an enemy to 0, and you get a solid slug of damage from your feature. Your weapon is a Reach 2 one handed flail, and your MBA slides (prones with flail expertise) and penalizes that enemy's attack rolls, your 2x/day encounter dazes, is multitarget, and grants partial concealment. You take MC Squire of Righteousness to gain defender aura, and Novice Power (which doesn't directly do anything for you), Acolyte Power, and Adept Power, and forego a paragon path for Paragon Multiclassing. You take Versatile Master and use the second half of the feat to grab stuff from other classes- in particular, you use the at will swap from PMCing to dump Eldritch Bolt and pick up Vengeful Guardian (the berserker punishment), since PMCing doesn't specify the need for a level for the at will swap. You can also grab the D9 and D15 from the build above, eventually. Not as powerful as the Berserker but at least a little interesting.