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njdemke wrote:

I was relooking at your nova again and I had some comments. First your forgot in your new and improved nova that is at the top of the page to include instant planning. Since you have room for another minor action and you mention that you used instant planning to determine to hit numbers I assume that you simply forgot to include it in the write up, but that it is indeed necessary for the nova to work properly.

In your old nova you added up all the damage bonuses for the ranger and you misadded. It should have equalled 86 not 77 damage per hit for the ranger. This misaddition means your previous older nova was much more powerful than you originally thought. In the rangers numbers, you also didn't include mighty action which would add another plus one to hit and to damage. Also in the old nova I am confused why you used a withering weapon instead of a bloodclaw weapon which would add an additional 12 damage every attack and why you didn't use the helm of heroes trick which would grant the ranger an addional standard attack as a free action. I think the problem with older two round nova was that it was overkill. The ranger could complete all its actions in the two round nova example in only one round but the warlord needed two rounds because you spent one round casting heart of the Titan. Heart of the titan does increase damage but it is overkill and not necessary to kill any mob so far created in the monster manual.

I only mention the old method because I am unsure why you switched from inexorable surge to flawless snare. The only benefit that Flawless snare grants over Inexorable surge is that it can be done on a charge which grants you a plus one to attack and the ability to get to the enemy further away in one round, and it grants combat advantage to your ally which adds plus two to the ally's to hit bonus. Because you are not guaranteeing that the enemy will hit you between the warlords action and the rangers action you will not be getting the extra basic attacks. Inexorable surge would grant you on the other hand an additional 9 charisma damage per attack to the 11 attacks the ranger makes. Since all targets in the monster manual currently would be dead by round one according to your curent nova I do not mean to imply that a change in your new and improved nova build is necessary. However, for planning a fight in which there are multiple mobs besides one elite or solo it seems that inexorable would be preferrable. This is because the addional basic attacks that the flawless attack would grant if the target survived to attack the warlord, would be overkill and wasted because in fact nothing would survive round one which means that half the benefit of flawless is wasted. However, the benefit from inexorable surge, which is also wasted extra damage to the first target since all targets would currently die without the additonal charisma damage, could be switched to a new target i.e each new target would get the addional charisma damage. Imagine a case in which your DM created an alternate universe where Orcus cloned himself so that you had to fight two identical Orcuses.

Maybe I am missing something on why you included flawless snare. In your handbook you give flawless a black rating and inexorable a blue rating. Sculoose is even more damning of flawless and gives it a red rating, but he judges harshly powers that merely do damage. Since even you at one time felt that inexorable was superior, does that mean that your new incarnation of your nova build is a change in how you rate these two abilities or are you simply including flawless as a theoretical build to maximize damage on a nova but that you would prefer inexorable in a real life situation. I myself feel that inexorable is superior to flawless but I might not be understanding the true power of flawless. Perhaps if your DM doubles the hitpoints of Orcus. That would mean that the additional damage done by flawless would be useful, that is if Orcus attacked the warlord; the warlord survived; and thus the warlord granted basic attacks to all his allies. Then to determine which course of action is better flawless or inexorable you would need to add up all the damage done by the basic attacks of flawless and compare that to the extra charisma damage done over the course of a battle. The longer the battle went and the more creatures there were in the battle, the better inexorable would do in the comparison.

But assuming you explain why you switched from inexorable to flawless in your latest incarnation of your nova, I had another point of contention. Why do you not allow the ranger to use a double sword and take the fighter swap power that would grant rain of blows. Especially with the feat in epic tier called Martial Mastery that grants an extra use of an encounter power after the use of an action poin. This would grant the following:

Free action - Bravura Presence - Rain of blows
4d8 + 81 + 80 +81 + 80

Action point

Move action - Quicksilver stance
2d8 + 73

Standard action - Blade Cascade
10d8 + 81 + 80 + 81 +80 + 81

Standard action - Rain of blows
4d8 + 81 + 80 + 81 + 80

This would give the ranger a damage of 1220. With the extra charisma damage from inexorable surge this would be 9damage multiplied by 13 attacks to equal an additional 117 damage or 1337. Previously, the smaller weapon size of the double weapon does decrease damage potential a little but that is more than made up with the extra attacks that rain of blows would do. Perhaps there is some reason why you didn't include rain of blows and I am just missing it. Perhaps you didn't include it because there was no need to increase the damage potential of your warlord/ranger combo. You might have chosen a very typical ranger without trying to optimize it to show the power of the warlord. I realize that you wrote handbook for rangers so you understand much better than I do the nuances of ranger optimization. Of course at the moment the extra damage from rain of blows is unnecessary to kill any monster so far created because your nova example kills everything without this upgrade. However, such an extra upgrade in damage dealing potential could be useful in the future. I already mentioned doubling the hitpoints of a solo monster that is given in the monster manual as one example of making solos more difficult. Here is example from a game I played in. Our DM gave Orcus an artifact only usable by a deity that grants him the insubstantial condition so all attacks dealt half damage and killing Orcus was much more difficult than normal and any upgrade to damage dealing would have been appreciated. To add insult to injurty he also doubled Orcus' damage resistance And finally, the DM changed the wand of orcus to be ranged blast 4 so more targets were caught up in the weakening effect lessening damage dealing capacity of the Player characters. It was a oneshot battle that ended up in a TPK, but it was an interesting exercise. On a sidenote, it is hard to understand how Orcus can be an important deity like being when he can be killed in one round by two demigods in theoretical battles.

Nathan

Wow, you've given this some serious thought. Let me try to address your points...

Thanks for the catch; I have to add Instant Planning.

I did make some mistakes/omissions in the original nova; I realized them and fixed them as I saw them.

I was actually experimenting with Flawless Snare in theoretical scenarios for the added mobility and the Combat Advantage to the ally, but I agree, its benefits are pretty much wasted. I'll be returning Inexorable Surge to the build shortly.

There are a few reasons why I did not add Rain of Blows:
1. The point of the nova turn is to show the power of the Warlord, as you correctly mentioned.
2. The Ranger is a standard-issue TWF Ranger/Pit Fighter, and I prefer Waraxes over the Double Sword because of the huge effect on criticals, which add a lot more damage than Double Swords do (although this doesn't show up on nova turn calculations, it does show up on real-life simulations). I also prefer to use Cruel Cage of Steel because of the inherent +2 to hit and the fact that it stuns and therefore grants me combat advantage over Orcus (which is the reason that Flawless Snare is not so useful).
3. The damage is basically overkill, as you also said.

If your DM doubles Orcus' HP (which I actually approve of), here's what you do:
1. Add a Human Orbizard into the mix and buff him with Inspiring Word instead of the Ranger.
2. Use Guileful Switch.
3. Have the Wizard burn an AP and stunlock Orcus (+46 v. Will at this moment).
4. Beat on him until he dies.

Technically, this is the best way to take on Orcus; if not, someone has to be willing to take a tail slap and get stunned so the Warlord and Ranger can approach unimpeded. If you want, you can try to knock him unconscious with Sleep so you can coup-de-grace him to death, just for kicks.