In my experence Guardian is better for a striker. A good defender can have trouble useing it if he is good at getting enemies near him to attack him. A striker can just hang around a defender and will almost always be able to get it to triger, plus triggering any mark punishment.
In my experence Guardian is better for a striker. A good defender can have trouble useing it if he is good at getting enemies near him to attack him. A striker can just hang around a defender and will almost always be able to get it to triger, plus triggering any mark punishment.
The listing isn't based on the role that wants to take it - it is based on what role the theme most closely emulates.
Seeker of Illefarn needs red. It has a feature that only kicks in once per twenty attack rolls. Way, way too situational, especially given the existence of the Ironwrought and Noble Adept.
Those are about the only things I can see that are off about the guide at first glance. Here's to hoping it'll end up as good as it promises to be!
A lot of those ratings are based on how situational they are. Seer as an example can be disturbingly bad if you can't get your party members to take it - it feels very metagamey in actual play as you deliberately try to blow bad rolls on relatively meaningless checks. Outlaw is Dark Blue simply because you can charge and daze targets with say Howling Strike, then pop back 1 square with the usual charge package items.
Seeker of Illefarn on the other hand is not red. The encounter option is basically a +1 to hit for many CharOp style builds until it triggers. You can't be surprised, which is nice for low perception builds. You get +2 to all defenses on round 1. It isn't Sky Blue or Dark Blue, but I think it is a very solid Black.
Seeker of Illefarn needs red. It has a feature that only kicks in once per twenty attack rolls. Way, way too situational, especially given the existence of the Ironwrought and Noble Adept.
Those are about the only things I can see that are off about the guide at first glance. Here's to hoping it'll end up as good as it promises to be!
A lot of those ratings are based on how situational they are. Seer as an example can be disturbingly bad if you can't get your party members to take it - it feels very metagamey in actual play as you deliberately try to blow bad rolls on relatively meaningless checks. Outlaw is Dark Blue simply because you can charge and daze targets with say Howling Strike, then pop back 1 square with the usual charge package items.
Seeker of Illefarn on the other hand is not red. The encounter option is basically a +1 to hit for many CharOp style builds until it triggers. You can't be surprised, which is nice for low perception builds. You get +2 to all defenses on round 1. It isn't Sky Blue or Dark Blue, but I think it is a very solid Black.
The problem is that if you want +1 to hit, you can have it far more reliably. It just isn't worth it to take what is '+1 to hit, except it kicks in even less of the time, and it doesn't combo with anything else, and it involves not having an encounter power'. You can't Dice of Auspicious Fortune a hit with that +1 unless you happen to roll a 1 on the dice. You can't play with that +1 by gaining CA or debuffing defenses to get you to the hit threshold you need. It's a feature that stands alone, unaffected by anything less, and thus, less valuable.
As for Outlaw, my issue is...at that point, why not just take Son of Alagondar or Mercenary, if you want status effects? They both have better features and they work just as well.
The Seer point I can understand, though - but I think it deserves a Green in that case. Not a low rating.
Mountain Cleave Rule: You can have any sort of fun, including broken, silly fun, so long as I get to have that fun too (e. g., if you can warp reality with your spells, I can cleave mountains with my blade).
It is always nice to see two handbooks on the same topic, It greatly increases the Charop discussion and contributes to a healthy debate.
That said, in my handbook I eventually decided against saying what theme worked best with what role/class/race, because that is a very subjective matter. Example; Many would look at the Guardian and say it is a great theme for defenders, and they would be right. However, a melee striker could find just as much use from it, as they too like free attacks, and some defenders would rather be an Outlaw or a Mercenary, which are known as 'striker' themes, because dazing and proning are two very good things to make a defender sticky. One of the deserved exceptions to this was the Devil's Pawn theme, which is explicitly geared toward Hellocks.
I look forward to this guide's completion.
It's not a matter of Right vs. Left, it's a matter of right vs. wrong
It is always nice to see two handbooks on the same topic, It greatly increases the Charop discussion and contributes to a healthy debate.
That said, in my handbook I eventually decided against saying what theme worked best with what role/class/race, because that is a very subjective matter. Example; Many would look at the Guardian and say it is a great theme for defenders, and they would be right. However, a melee striker could find just as much use from it, as they too like free attacks, and some defenders would rather be an Outlaw or a Mercenary, which are known as 'striker' themes, because dazing and proning are two very good things to make a defender sticky. One of the deserved exceptions to this was the Devil's Pawn theme, which is explicitly geared toward Hellocks.
I look forward to this guide's completion.
Thanks!
Just to be clear, I'm not at all saying where the themes work best for which role/class/race.
Guardian is a theme which mimics a Defender. If your character wants to add some Defender capability, that's a great theme to take. There are other themes that also have that same kind of capability, so there's a natural grouping there. That doesn't however mean that a Defender is the best choice for the theme, simply that it boosts the ability to function as a Defender by that character.
I think tough melee Strikers and Leaders get more out of it, particularly when there's a lockdown Defender in the party.
Seeker of Illefarn on the other hand is not red. The encounter option is basically a +1 to hit for many CharOp style builds until it triggers. You can't be surprised, which is nice for low perception builds. You get +2 to all defenses on round 1. It isn't Sky Blue or Dark Blue, but I think it is a very solid Black.
The problem is that if you want +1 to hit, you can have it far more reliably. It just isn't worth it to take what is '+1 to hit, except it kicks in even less of the time, and it doesn't combo with anything else, and it involves not having an encounter power'. You can't Dice of Auspicious Fortune a hit with that +1 unless you happen to roll a 1 on the dice. You can't play with that +1 by gaining CA or debuffing defenses to get you to the hit threshold you need. It's a feature that stands alone, unaffected by anything less, and thus, less valuable.
You can have it far more reliably, but not from your theme...
It doesn't stand alone any more than any other option. Emotionally, it might feel as if it doesn't come into play all that often, but the same can be said for a +1 to hit. There will be entire combats where a +1 to hit is meaningless - no one argues against taking a +1 to hit feat on that basis, the same should apply here.
If you have a 65% chance of hitting, in effect, the following happens on every attack you make until it triggers: 5% of the time, you crit. Let's count crits as 2 hits to keep things simple. 60% of the time, you hit. 30% of the time, you miss. 5% of the time, you reroll. Of which, 5% of the time, you crit, 60% of the time you hit, and 35% of the time you miss.
So 280 hits out of 400 attacks without the reroll.
With the reroll, 12 of those misses turn into hits and 1 of them into a crit. Or effectively 294 hits out 400 instead of 280 hits. That's not quite the benefit of a +1 to hit, but it is really close. The higher your to-hit chance, the bigger your chance of critting, the more valuable it becomes - with certain builds, it actually exceeds the benefit of a +1 to hit - Daggermaster Rogues as an example who hit on a 3 as an example.
An extra 14 hits out of 400 might not seem all that special, but that's in effect an extra 5% hits per swing(as opposed to an extra 7% hits from a +1)
Seeker of Illefarn on the other hand is not red. The encounter option is basically a +1 to hit for many CharOp style builds until it triggers. You can't be surprised, which is nice for low perception builds. You get +2 to all defenses on round 1. It isn't Sky Blue or Dark Blue, but I think it is a very solid Black.
The problem is that if you want +1 to hit, you can have it far more reliably. It just isn't worth it to take what is '+1 to hit, except it kicks in even less of the time, and it doesn't combo with anything else, and it involves not having an encounter power'. You can't Dice of Auspicious Fortune a hit with that +1 unless you happen to roll a 1 on the dice. You can't play with that +1 by gaining CA or debuffing defenses to get you to the hit threshold you need. It's a feature that stands alone, unaffected by anything less, and thus, less valuable.
You can have it far more reliably, but not from your theme...
It doesn't stand alone any more than any other option. Emotionally, it might feel as if it doesn't come into play all that often, but the same can be said for a +1 to hit. There will be entire combats where a +1 to hit is meaningless - no one argues against taking a +1 to hit feat on that basis, the same should apply here.
If you have a 65% chance of hitting, in effect, the following happens on every attack you make until it triggers: 5% of the time, you crit. Let's count crits as 2 hits to keep things simple. 60% of the time, you hit. 30% of the time, you miss. 5% of the time, you reroll. Of which, 5% of the time, you crit, 60% of the time you hit, and 35% of the time you miss.
So 280 hits out of 400 attacks without the reroll.
With the reroll, 12 of those misses turn into hits and 1 of them into a crit. Or effectively 294 hits out 400 instead of 280 hits. That's not quite the benefit of a +1 to hit, but it is really close. The higher your to-hit chance, the bigger your chance of critting, the more valuable it becomes - with certain builds, it actually exceeds the benefit of a +1 to hit - Daggermaster Rogues as an example who hit on a 3 as an example.
An extra 14 hits out of 400 might not seem all that special, but that's in effect an extra 5% hits per swing(as opposed to an extra 7% hits from a +1)
Right, but allow me to point out one thing: where there's a player, there's a party. This is why I think it's really, really important to point out that Seeker of Illefarn doesn't work in tandem with absolutely anything. If your Seer roll is a 4, you can work around it by delaying and letting an ally set you up. The value of that roll turns from 0 (miss) to 1 (hit), and it's basically at your command, and it has the really good side effect of letting you know that if you get your setup, you can unload with your best shot and have it be failproof. If your dice of Auspicious Fortune roll is a 2, you can sub it in *precisely* when you know you can hit on a 2, and eliminate the chance of failure from the roll utterly while at the same time disposing of a mostly useless roll. That's what makes Seeker of Illefarn less valuable than say, the +1 option of the Purple Knight - with the Knight, you can communicate with your party and accurately gauge just how much force your Leader has to apply (or if you're the Leader, what buff to dispense) to make the +1 count. One option increases your control over your fate, the other one doesn't.
And further, there's also that ugly truth we don't acknowledge often, but that absolutely matters: +1 to hit is often not as valuable as +1 to hit. A +1 to hit with Sly Flourish isn't worth as much as +1 to hit with Knockout, not by a long shot. Seeker of Illefarn has very good odds of coming up on a roll that is, in the grand scheme of things, irrelevant. You're going to make more at-will attack rolls than encounter and daily power rolls over your character's life. Thus, with an uncontrollable reroll, the odds are skewed in favor of you wasting it on a weak power instead of great one. Seeker of Illefarn is just not that good, the lack of control over when it kicks in hurts it too much to be worthwhile. For that same price, a simple +1 to attack rolls once per encounter, triggered on command, will be far more valuable. Don't you agree?
Mountain Cleave Rule: You can have any sort of fun, including broken, silly fun, so long as I get to have that fun too (e. g., if you can warp reality with your spells, I can cleave mountains with my blade).
And further, there's also that ugly truth we don't acknowledge often, but that absolutely matters: +1 to hit is often not as valuable as +1 to hit. A +1 to hit with Sly Flourish isn't worth as much as +1 to hit with Knockout, not by a long shot. Seeker of Illefarn has very good odds of coming up on a roll that is, in the grand scheme of things, irrelevant. You're going to make more at-will attack rolls than encounter and daily power rolls over your character's life. Thus, with an uncontrollable reroll, the odds are skewed in favor of you wasting it on a weak power instead of great one. Seeker of Illefarn is just not that good, the lack of control hurts it too much.
As I noted, there's edge case options where Seeker is actually more valuable than a +1 to hit because to-hit and crit chance is very high. Such as a Daggermaster Rogue using Knockout.
And the odds are actually skewed towards better powers - the powers you use first are the ones more likely to be used on the roll, and typically, those are the daily/encounter powers, not the at-wills for the most part - simply because if you use it, you can't use it thereafter.
Also, let's be clear about what we're talking about here - the value of something that comes close to a +1 to hit, no surprise, +2 to all defenses for round 1 of combat, and a +2 bonus to one of the most important skills. Honestly, that's at least Black for me.
