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3 years ago ::
May 27, 2010 - 5:09PM
#1
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Date Joined:
Jun 13, 2001
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I will be playing a new character for LFR and wanted to go with an arcane striker. Prevailing wisdom and the CO boards imply this is sub-optimal so I was hoping for some guidance here.
I don't have a racial preference though granted most of my characters are human.
Some classes I was considering were:
Warlock Dark Spiral (halfling/?)
Sorcerer Wild Mage (human)
Looking for suggestions so I don't gimp a table.
Baselines I'm comparing this to would be:
Half-Orc Brutal Rogue with backstabber (1d4+8+2d8)
Ranger with Twin Strike using a greatbow and HQuarry (2d12+1d6+2)
Barbarian with Devastating Strike and Heavy Blade Focus with greatsword 2h use (1d10+6+1d8)
Melee <> ranged I get that. I just threw some benchmarks with fairly basic builds.
Any help welcome.
Thanks in advance!
Thanks.
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3 years ago ::
May 27, 2010 - 7:17PM
#2
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Date Joined:
Aug 26, 2007
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I have a wild sorcerer, and she's quite effective. Long range, good (but not top line) damage, excellent survivability (mostly by not being near the monsters in a lot of fights). Chaos Bolt can be a real minion killer with the bouncing, though it's not predictable. The rogue will do the most damage, but takes more work to keep alive. The ranger is comparable, maybe slightly more damage. But the Sorcerer can attack more defense types (a human sorcerer can take a Fort, Reflex, and Will at-will attack!), and has better options for area bursts (including an at-will option.) So, you trade a little bit of single target damage for multi-target options. The Barbarian is a true glass cannon, massive damage, but he'll fall over all the time.
Sorcerer is a viable, fun class.
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3 years ago ::
May 28, 2010 - 6:05AM
#3
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Date Joined:
Aug 10, 2007
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I agree with kirbyk, Sorcerer is an excellent choice for an Arcane striker. (All 4 of the builds are very good at pounding out damage.)
I play a highly effective drow Darkpack Warlock. (Striker/Controller) If you want some details on the build, send me a private message.
Dan Anderson
@EpicUthrac
Living Forgotten Realms Calimshan Writing Director
Living Forgotten Realms Epic Writing Director
Meet me at TotalConfusion:
http://www.totalcon.com/RolePlaying.html
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3 years ago ::
May 28, 2010 - 9:15AM
#4
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Date Joined:
Jun 14, 2009
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Most RPGA'ers aren't worried that everyone show up at the table with the most bleeding edge optimized character you can build. I have seen plenty of warlocks and sorcerers that are quite effective and I've been happy to have them at my table. If your average DPR is .0006 lower than a melee ranger, it's really not the end of the world.
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3 years ago ::
May 28, 2010 - 11:35AM
#5
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Date Joined:
Aug 19, 2007
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Yeah, there is a wide range between "acceptable" and "optimal", and anywhere in that range is OK. You don't have to optimize a sorcerer to be above acceptable, but you do have to optimize a warlock pretty hard.
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3 years ago ::
May 30, 2010 - 6:51AM
#6
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Date Joined:
May 24, 2007
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The problem with Arcane Strikers, on the whole, is that they are (or can be) a serious resource sink. Especially a low-level.
What you need to do is forget about boosting damage initially and instead focus on being a bit more survivable.
Arcane Strikers tend to have pretty low defences (AC in particular), expending feats and other resources to boost their defences is generally a waste of time as you never reach any sort of "comfortable" level.
Therefore it's better to focus on boosting your Hit Points (e.g. Toughness Feat etc.), not only does this allow you to take more punishment and thereby last longer in a fight, but your surge value is higher, making healing more efficient.
The best advice I can give you is to take Auspicious Birth or Born Under a Bad Sign as your background and then Toughness (with an 18 primary stat, that will give you 35 HP at level 1). If you are taking a human, you will want Implement Expertese for the extra bonus to attack rolls (or Superior Implement Mastery and then buy a superior implement that suits)
At 1st level, the monsters you will be fighting should be relatively easy to hit, but in order to maximise your abilities, try to take AoE attacks (burst & blast) to maximise your chance of damaging something with each attack.
Once you gain a few levels, you can look towards increasing your damage output, but intially you want to be reliable... showboating your talents early will get you killed... especially when you need to take the group healer's two minor action heals every encounter in order to keep running.
Invest in magical items that give you a variety of damage resistance types, your defences will never be great, so resistance will reduce the damage to will inevitably take.
Hope that helps...
PGC
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3 years ago ::
May 30, 2010 - 8:14AM
#7
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The problem with Arcane Strikers, on the whole, is that they are (or can be) a serious resource sink. Especially a low-level.
That actually is good advice except ... I've found that I don't really need super-high defenses. When I first wrote up my character I had planned on taking Leather Armor proficiency (now it might be Unarmored Agility), two-weapon defense and Nimble SpellCaster (don't provoke OAs).
But I've found that I didn't need to do that. YMMV, but I just hide in the back, took Spatial Trip (encounter power teleport 1/2 your speed) and use my Storm Soul to gain +4 to defenses if I'm getting attacked. I use my Second Chance if I'm critted.
As far as background, I took Hellion so I could be trained in acrobatics. It helps when I use my Spatial Trip to be able to balance on whatever high-up out-of-the-way spot there is.
Allen.
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3 years ago ::
Jun 01, 2010 - 6:33PM
#8
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Date Joined:
Oct 25, 2007
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The problem with Arcane Strikers, on the whole, is that they are (or can be) a serious resource sink. Especially a low-level.
That actually is good advice except ... I've found that I don't really need super-high defenses. When I first wrote up my character I had planned on taking Leather Armor proficiency (now it might be Unarmored Agility), two-weapon defense and Nimble SpellCaster (don't provoke OAs).
But I've found that I didn't need to do that. YMMV, but I just hide in the back, took Spatial Trip (encounter power teleport 1/2 your speed) and use my Storm Soul to gain +4 to defenses if I'm getting attacked. I use my Second Chance if I'm critted.
As far as background, I took Hellion so I could be trained in acrobatics. It helps when I use my Spatial Trip to be able to balance on whatever high-up out-of-the-way spot there is.
Allen.
I haven't had this experience. My warlock|swordmage was rocking a 15 to 17 ac through level 4, and I never had any serious problems and I've never played low. However, I was built to take a beating without AC and had a ton of surges, so maybe this isn't typical. Other players did think it was funny that I liked getting attacked and beaten on though. Hellocks are crazy that way though.
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3 years ago ::
Jun 03, 2010 - 9:29AM
#9
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Date Joined:
May 28, 2001
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Yeah warlocks are actually very resilient (just their shadow walk gives them constant concealment for +2 AC). And both Sorcerers and Warlocks have several low level escape utility powers.
The real question to ask yourself though is how tactical a player are you?
Sorcerers are easy to play. They apply their damage bonus no matter what with no additional action on the part of the player.
Warlocks require a minor action to apply their damage bonus. On top of that, they need to plan their movement to gain optimal use of their class abilities (prime shot, Shadow Walk, choosing a target to curse).
Both classes can gain a lot of mileage from taking various weapon feats and items (weapon focus, two weapon fighting, syberis shard, etc.), but a warlock needs either to use a Pact Blade/Hammer or spend a feat to take Arcane Implement (sorcerer dagger or swordmage sword).
Sorcerer powers are also fairly simple. They deal damage. Often to multiple targets.
Warlock powers are more subtle. They can render a single foe useless and split up the bad guys to make the fights manageable (by immobilizing and other status effects), but the emphasis on control for most warlock powers make them do slightly less damage than sorcerer powers and some people just really like to see big numbers.
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3 years ago ::
Jun 04, 2010 - 12:04AM
#10
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I've got a Drow Storm Sorc that's just a nightmare to deal with sure he doesn't deal mega damage like some of the other arcane strikers but a Storm Sorc is designed with the philosophy of "death by a thousand paper cuts". Hit the weak targets first, auto damage the BBEG (it never fails), and all that auto damage adds up over the course an encounter.
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