This is the level 30 version of a Swordmaster I put on the forum a few weeks ago. Rending Tempest adds a lot. The level 16 version can be found here. Level 30 BuildShow
Revenant (Half-Orc), Ranger|Fighter/Swordmaster/Legendary Sovereign Arena Weapon: Zulaat Sword of Kings: Twofold Flinch Background: Cormyr (General) Theme: Wilder
ABILITY SCORES STR 18 -> 26 CON 12 -> 14 DEX 13 -> 20 INT 10 -> 12 WIS 13 -> 16 CHA 10 -> 14
SKILLS Insight
FEATS 1: Hybrid Talent (Arena Training via swapping Fighter Weapon Talent) 2: Disciple of Divine Wrath 4: Weapon Focus (Heavy Blade) 6: Death's Quickening 8: Mighty Crusader Expertise 10: Avenging Resolution 11: Enhanced Psychic Surge 12: Arena Battle Rhythm 14: Reckless Attacker 16: Headsman's Chop 18: Superior Will 20: Past Life Flashbacks 21: Rending Tempest 22: Critical Targeting 24: Ghostly Vitality 26: Vengeful Declaration 28: Enmity Shared 30: Ferocious Critical
POWERS At-Will: Twin Strike Encounter: Opportunist's Rend, Twofold Flinch (Sword of Kings), Death Rend Utility: Insightful Riposte
ITEMS Harmony Blade Zulaat +6, Ring of Free Time (2), Gauntlets of Destruction, Quickhit Braces (epic), Life Charm +5, Belt of Sonnlinor Righteousness (epic), Assault Boots, Ioun Stone of Might, Symbol of Victory +5 (2), Veteran's Elderhide Armor +6, Dice of Auspicious Fortune, Stone of Earth, Stone of Spirit
Use Past Life Flashbacks when rolling initiative. I assume the enemy starts adjacent (maybe because they moved up to hit me...). Also, start the battle at nonpositive HP.
First round: free action: Oath of Enmity AP: Psychic Surge 6 minors (rev. cheese + one ring of free time): Twofold Flinch Standard: Death Rend
Second round: Standard: Twin Strike 6 minors: Twofold Flinch
Each crit (there will be many) is used on Opportunist's Rend, which recharges on every crit due to Swordmaster. Also, each round is almost guaranteed to trigger Reckless Attacker, adding another MBA (sadly, can't be another OR).
Twofold Flinch can be used constantly because the build hits on anything but a 1, and Sword of Kings makes it never expend until I miss. If I use this nova every encounter, that's 120 uses of TF per day...but with only a 1/400 chance of missing. Also, I have a Stone of Earth just in case.
Have an AP every encounter due to 2 Symbols of Victory.
ATTACK BONUS all: 8 str, 15 level, 3 feat, 1 veteran's armor, 2 CA Psychic Surge: 5 enh, 2 past life flashbacks, 3 insightful riposte = 39 vs. reflex pre-crit Twofold Flinch: 6 enh, 2 prof, 2 past life flashbacks = 39 vs. reflex everything else: 6 enh, 2 prof, 4 ferocious critical = 41
For Psychic Surge, only miss on a 1. Use Dice of Auspicious Fortune and Stone of Spirit to guarantee that it always hits. Everything else only misses on a double-1.
Because of this, I'll just assume that every single attack is a hit, because this simplifies some of the calculations by a lot.
CRIT chance to crit = 1-.75^2 = .4375
Since each crit generates 2 additional attacks, that means for each initial attack, I am expected to actually make 1/(1-2*.4375) = 8 attacks. Therefore, instead of making 14 attacks per turn, I actually expect to make 120 (the MBA from Reckless Attacker contributes 8 of those). Psychic Surge is not included in this because it doesn't add anywhere; I will completely ignore it in my calculations.
Again, I assume every attack hits (at 120 attacks, you are expected to have 119.7 hits).
DAMAGE BONUS 8 str, 6 enh, 3 feat, 5 item, 5 headsman's chop, 4 ferocious critical, 2 critical targeting quickhit braces: 3d6 = 3*(21/5) = 6.3 per hit on average =39.3
This is not 100% correct (not all attacks get to add str mod, HC, FC, or QB). However, it's true for the vast majority of attacks, and I'm going to ignore all base damage (like the 1[W] from Opportunist's Rend), so in the end I am underestimating by a lot.
From this source, we get 39.3*120*2 = 9432 damage to the nova.
RENDING TEMPEST This is the real damage. Rending Tempest adds 1[W] per hit in a turn (except the MBA). It stacks with itself. Therefore, each round it contributes (118*119/2) [W] damage. Multiplied over 2 rounds = 93613 damage to nova.
However, some of the attacks are crits. Specifically, 43.75% of them are. So if we maximize 43.75% of the [W]'s, that adds another 8191 damage to the nova.
I made a lot of tiny assumptions here and there...but I also ignored a lot of base damage from the attacks, including all non-RT crit damage, so I'm pretty sure I ended up underestimating damage, possibly by as much as 1500. But 1500 damage on this particular nova is practically a rounding error.
Damage over 2 rounds = 111236 (6 digits! )
Now, here's a problem. I am submitting this to the nova category. However, if I were to submit it as a DPR build, even taking a DPR of zero in rounds 3-10, I would still end up with a Mean KPR of 112.36, making this the new Level 30 king (...by a lot). I think we all agree that this is not good.
My idea: how about if after dealing X amount of damage, you have to somehow engage a new target. Every time you engage a new target, they are assumed to start N squares away (this includes on round 1). Overkill within one attack is counted toward DPR (so if you do 2*X damage in a single attack, that can be counted), but you cannot attack a dead enemy (so if you expect to deal X damage on each hit of a Twin Strike, your second attack must be at a different target).
This way it's not all that much harder to calculate (you already need to calculate the expected damage of each attack; just figure out when the total exceeds X), but it adds a lot more realism. Have to move every once in a while, have to retarget every once in a while. Would hurt most of my builds (which is good, because most of my builds are broken as hell).
I'm thinking X = 2 or 4 kills worth of damage (to model an elite or solo). N = 4 or 5 squares. Old builds that weren't designed to conform to this get italicized or something to show that they were made under old rules (is a good idea anyway; a number of builds require a lot of setup, which is no longer totally valid).
Few questions.
1) How are crits generating extra attacks? In this build you have a harmony blade, and not a rending weapon.
2)
Reckless Attacker
Paragon Tier Prerequisite: 11th level, fighter Benefit: The first time you score a critical hit with a fighter attack power on your turn, you can make a melee basic attack as a free action. If you do so, you take a –2 penalty to AC until the end of your next turn.
ONLY on first crit.
3) Mighty Crusader Expertise, where is it, I can not find in the compendium.
4) Isn't there some rule about getting only 1 free attack per turn limit?
So I'm rumaging around with a character that will go live tonight. Lvl 11 Dwarf Seeker|Assassin\Rogue. Calc'ing out the damage comes to roughly 120 over 3 rounds (I suck at math so I'll be rounding for my own purposes) so does that give me a KP3R of 1? What health am I using? The standard lvl 11 npc seems to have around 110 hp but I've seen a number with significantly more.
Math and I aren't friends so I'm trying to keep it as simple for my feeble brain as I can. Here's a breakdown of what I think I'm doing Spoiler:Show
Round One: RBA (all my attacks are RBAs but if I go only at-wills I think I lost a total of 1d8+1d6 damage) 1d8 weapon + 2d8 Assassin + 2d8 Venomhand Assassin + 9 + 2 (Light Blade Exp) + 6 (Draw First Blood) = 39.5 + 3d6 Sneak Attack (CA via Superior Reflexes) + 3d10 Assassin Strike = 39.5 + 10.5 + 16.5 = 66.5
I'm +20 to hit Ref normally, so with CA I should pretty much only have a 5% chance to miss. 66.5 (.9) + 66.5(.05) = 59.85+3.325=63.175
Then my two attacks after than (assuming I can hit different targets) are 1d8 weapon + 2d8 Assassin + 9 + 6 29.5(.9) + 29.5(.05) = 26.55+1.475 = 28.025 (2 rounds) 56.05 Total is 119.225 over 3 rounds.
Edit: So if I read things right, I should be looking to do 8*lvl+24 in one round to get a basic KPR of 1. Since I do an avg of 39.667 damage a round, and I need to hit 112 for a kill, I get a KPR of .354?
So not stellar, but I'm not a primary striker so I'm pretty okay with these numbers.
1) How are crits generating extra attacks? In this build you have a harmony blade, and not a rending weapon.
2)
Reckless Attacker
Paragon Tier Prerequisite: 11th level, fighter Benefit: The first time you score a critical hit with a fighter attack power on your turn, you can make a melee basic attack as a free action. If you do so, you take a –2 penalty to AC until the end of your next turn.
ONLY on first crit.
3) Mighty Crusader Expertise, where is it, I can not find in the compendium.
4) Isn't there some rule about getting only 1 free attack per turn limit?
There are actually multiple problems here. Perhaps the most troublesome is that Twofold Flinch is a Ranger power, not a Fighter power. So, even though the build can only make one free action attack per turn and can only attack off the first crit, those are non-issues.
Also, Mighty Crusader Expertise is a feat in Dragon 402 ("Tools of Two Trades").
There are actually multiple problems here. Perhaps the most troublesome is that Twofold Flinch is a Ranger power, not a Fighter power. So, even though the build can only make one free action attack per turn and can only attack off the first crit, those are non-issues.
Also, Mighty Crusader Expertise is a feat in Dragon 402 ("Tools of Two Trades").
The recursive crits come via Harmony Blade. The single Reckless Attacker MBA that I use per round is triggered by a crit with Opportunist's Rend that presumably will happen at least once per round.
I am okay with you saying my argument is stupid, or commits the munchkin fallacy, or any other bad thing you want. Particularly if you give a reason/explanation for it.
However, I will ignore any post that calls me stupid, or a munchkin, or what have you. Not because it bothers me; I've just found that people only start name-calling when that's the best argument they have left.
@borg: The truly massive sources of potential damage are the things that boost damage non-linearly. Examples: Rending Tempest, Punishing Radiance, recursive criticals (Rending/Harmony Blade), stacking zones.
Not a single one of those things has a cheese tag associated with it. They really probably should. Maybe even just something like "NLD" for "nonlinear damage" so you can cover all of them at once.
Oddly enough, I'd say calling for a 'minimum distance' isn't quite right, not the way you're proposing it at least. In a real combat, most of the time you'll have two or more enemies in your grill if you're melee, and probably three to four targets in range if you're ranged. I think it's fair to assume you'll have at least one other enemy in melee range, but afterwards things become doubtful. How about this?
A) If melee, you have two enemies in range at start, adjacent. B) If ranged, you have four enemies in range, two adjacent to each other, the other two separate from the first two and also nonadjacent with each other. C) If necessary after dispatching Enemy 2/4, either assume an average of 5 squares distance OR assume a target is within 1d10/1d12 range (where 1 is adjacency). I believe the latter is truer to how a combat goes, but the former is more reliable.
I see what you're saying. That's a bit more complicated to account for though.
Also, if the damage cap is 2 kills worth, for example, then that roughly translates to either 1 elite or 2 standards that are both in range. Which is one reason I think the cap should be at 2 kills or 4 kills, not just 1...it can somewhat simulate one powerful enemy or a cluster of weaker ones.
There's plenty of reasons that this is not an accurate simulation, but it's simple. And it's more accurate than what we do now.
I am okay with you saying my argument is stupid, or commits the munchkin fallacy, or any other bad thing you want. Particularly if you give a reason/explanation for it.
However, I will ignore any post that calls me stupid, or a munchkin, or what have you. Not because it bothers me; I've just found that people only start name-calling when that's the best argument they have left.
F-111 Interdictor Long (200+ squares) distance ally teleporter. With some warlord stuff. Broken in a plot way, not a power way. Thought Switch Higher level build that grants upto 14 attacks on turn 1. If your allies play along, it's broken. Elven Critters Crit op with crit generation. 5 of these will end anything. Broken. King Fisher Does an excellent job at keeping an enemy disabled in a few ways. Strong. Boominator Fun catch-22 booming blade build with either strong or completely broken damage depending on your reading. Very Distracting Warlock Lot's of dazing and major penalties to hit. Overpowered. Pocket Protector Pixie Stealth Knight. Maximizing the defender's aura by being in an ally's/enemy's square. Yakuza NinjIntimiAdin: Perma-stealth Striker that offers a little protection for ally's, and can intimidate bloodied enemies. Very Strong. Chargeburgler with cheese Ranged attacks at the end of a charge along with perma-stealth. Solid, could be overpowered if tweaked. Void Defender Defends giving a penalty to hit anyone but him, then removing himself from play. Can get somewhat broken in epic. Scry and Die Attacking from around corners, while staying hidden. Moderate to broken, depending on the situation. Skimisher Fly in, attack, and fly away. Also prevents enemies from coming close. Moderate to Broken depending on the enemy, but shouldn't make the game un-fun, as the rest of your team is at risk, and you have enough weaknesses. Indestructible Simply won't die, even if you sleep though combat. Sir Robin (Bravely Charge Away) He automatically slows and pushes an enemy (5 squares), while charging away. Hard to rate it's power level, since it's terrain dependent. Death's Gatekeeper A fun twist on a healic, making your party "unkillable". Overpowered to Broken, but shouldn't actually make the game un-fun, just TPK proof. Death's Gatekeeper mk2, (Stealth Edition) Make your party "unkillable", and you hidden, while doing solid damage. Stronger then the above, but also easier for a DM to shut down. Broken, until your DM get's enough of it. Domination and Death Dominate everything then kill them quickly. Only works @ 30, but is broken multiple ways. Battlemind Mc Prone-Daze Protecting your allies by keeping enemies away. Quite powerful. The Retaliator Getting hit deals more damage to the enemy then you receive yourself, and you can take plenty of hits. Heavy item dependency, Broken. Dead Kobold Transit Teleports 98 squares a turn, and can bring someone along for the ride. Not fully built, so i can't judge the power Psilent Guardian Protect your allies, while being invisible. Overpowered, possibly broken Unnamed Avenger|Runepriest/Hammer of Vengance Do lot's of damage while boosting your teams. Strong to slightly overpowered. Charedent BarrageA charging ardent. Fine in a normal team, overpowered if there are 2 together, and easily broken in teams of 5. Super Knight A tough, sticky, high damage knight. Strong. Super Duper Knight Basically the same as super knight, only far more broken. Mora, the unkillable avenger Solid damage, while being neigh indestuctable. Overpowered, but not broken. Swordburst Maximus At-Will Close Burst 3 that slide and prones. Protects allies with off actions. Strong, possibly over powered with the right party.
I'd like to submit Tas for consideration on the DPR Kings. We might need to implement the NLD tag just for this build - it has a non-zero chance of killing everything on the planet in one turn. With a knife.
Finding those exponentially growing combos is one of the goals of optimization. I don't feel we should throw them into the same basket. They won't nerf each at the same time. I am leaning to having the following tags ZA: Zone abuse (if it doesn't exist already) RM: I will add Punishing Radiance NoA: Abuses no action attacks
I will close the poll tonight, update my first and fifth post, add in the tags and tag builds accordingly, add in the new candidates, then invent bread 2.0.
DPR = Damage Per round ~= Chance to hit * damage on a hit KPR = Kills Per Round. 1 Kill = 8*Level+24 damage = DPR/(8*level+24) KPNR = Kills Per N Rounds. How many standards can you kill in N rounds?
DPR = Damage Per round ~= Chance to hit * damage on a hit KPR = Kills Per Round. 1 Kill = 8*Level+24 damage = DPR/(8*level+24) KPNR = Kills Per N Rounds. How many standards can you kill in N rounds?
While you're editing stuff... the DV-RBA tag is only on two builds, neither of them very high-ranking. It feels out-of-place to me on the list, it's not nearly as general as the rest are.
I am okay with you saying my argument is stupid, or commits the munchkin fallacy, or any other bad thing you want. Particularly if you give a reason/explanation for it.
However, I will ignore any post that calls me stupid, or a munchkin, or what have you. Not because it bothers me; I've just found that people only start name-calling when that's the best argument they have left.
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