I see the benefit in making an attack miss, I don't see the benefit in making the enemy question whether he should attack the fighter or not. Meanwhile, Rain of Blows lays the smack down and now the enemy is thinking twice about provoking any more attacks from the fighter. That is defending.
They're both defending.
The advantage of making the enemy question whether or not he should attack the Fighter is uncertainty. As an example, say you're playing D&D and there's a guy wearing Plate+Heavy Shield and longsword upfront and another guy holding a staff in one hand and wearing robes in the back. Who do you attack knowing nothing else?
If you're right to attack the staff wielder 90%+ of the time, you can have some confidence in your tactical decision making process. What happens when it turns out that the guy up front is actually some weird controller and staff+robes guy is just a insignificant brute type with just enough hit points and defenses to soak up a Nova? Really bad things tend to happen to the party because too many resources went the wrong way.
Same thing happens with a Defender causing uncertainty - the DM may have to change his decision of who to target in the 2nd round and when that happens, it usually ends up being a huge win for the party in terms of resource burn.
Putting an ogre in a dress still doesn't invalidate the argument that it's a lot easier to defend the party from a dead ogre in a dress than it is to simply make him miss. You also need to keep in mind that using shield edge takes combat challenge off the table, making shift+charge your squishies an option.
@MWAO - As I said, it isn't doing anything to enfore his mark. Causing uncertainty in an enemy and having him attack an ally the next round is not enforcing the mark. I'm not saying it isn't a style of defending, only that the idea that it is somehow more "defendery" than straight up dealing lots of damage and threatening mark violators with more damage is ridiculous.
There's plenty of ways for fighters to defend in this game. Damage is certainly one of them, and probably the only one that existed when it was just the PHB, outside of Shield Push/Distracting Shield of course, and even then you're still dealing more damage.
You are far overthinking the psychology of defending, Khan; if your enemies are that easy to manipulate, optimization becomes straitforward and basically irrelevant. Sorry, my DMs aren't made of Tofu.
Being able to deal a lot of damage with Rain of Blows is completely irrelevant to the strength of a fighters punishment or even the perception of it, while a beast might not know that "Rain of Blows" was used against it, all monsters understand combat mechanics, you can do more with a standard action than you can with an OA or IA (I realize there are exceptions, opportunity rend, etc. but this is a general truth). I could also go so far as to claim that getting hit by 3 weak attacks might make a monster more willing to risk 1 more attack if you want to go by the 'perception' view, though I'm sure someone will now argue 'ah ha! now they will provoke from the fighter and he'll get to do even more damage!'.
But hey, I can play that game too. You willbe in a situation where there's absolutely no chance of you using your IA on Combat Challenge, in fact this is going to happen roughly every other round. The absolute most solid tactic to use against a defender is to apply control to them, melee types even moreso; unless your DM is made of tofu, you willget hammered by control that will render you unable to defend, Shield Edge Block prevents that. And even if you luck out and never have to use it to force a miss, you can still use it for free damage. At Will + Interrupt > Rain of Blows until Epic in terms of raw damage anyway, especially for the cliche Hammer or Sword wielder. This is where Armisael jumps in and reminds me about Strikebacks, Backlash Tattoo, and Counterstrike Guards and I'll happily point out that they're basically Paragon items and that's just more item dependancy which you can't rely on, and that when you are getting dazed or stunned, IRs are useless.
I'll also go ahead and point out the absurdity of the argument that when Sheild Block "is used it might actually make an enemy think twice before attacking the fighter again". Not that that doesn't occur, but that that isn't a bad thing. Fighter OA (with Optimization) is a far more accurate, damaging, and controlling attack than their CC (ie. is a better Defender feature). OAs end turns if you feat properly (Prone, Slow, Pushed 2, and movement stopped). By the psychological argument, Shield Edge Block is a far superior power. "You can't render me ineffective, and you can't get away from me" is the Ultimate Defender Creed.
I'll freely admit that a Spiked Chain, Rapier, or Tripple Headed Flail fighter is probably going to choose Rain of Blows, that 3rd attack makes a big difference at later levels and not everyone is into retraining, but then you're losing out on other things. I'll close with the statement I probably should have opened with: I never said Shield Edge Block was better than Rain of Blows, I never said it wasn't defensive, and I never said that you don't need to have offense, I said "Suggesting Rain of Blows over Shield Edge Block is a perfect example of people not knowing how to play a Defender." Do not misinterpret my words, or read into their meaning, if you want to take offense and get defensive, go for it, but you'll just be proving my point.
"Invokers are probably better round after round but Wizard dailies are devastating. Actually, devastating is too light a word. Wizard daily powers are soul crushing, encounter ending, havoc causing pieces of awesome." -AirPower25 Sear the Flesh, Purify the Soul; Harden the Heart, and Improve the Mind; Born of Blood, but Forged by Fire; The MECH warrior reaches perfection.
A) Why are you getting tagged on the daze-prone defenses to begin with? You have every reason in the world to invest in WIS, and well, your STR is gonna be high by default. If you're really paranoid about getting tagged, it's also trivial to buy into this one amulet that negates an effect a day, for emergencies. B) Why is you getting dazed a bad thing? This is your goal. You WANT that daze to target you (not hit you, obviously). If you redirect Dazes to you by dealing damage, then mission accomplished. You've got the powers to burn to get out of them if push comes to shove, too. C) Why are you leaving the target with good choices? When I talked about a triple-hitter, I meant Stance+CC+At-will, nothing more than that. At that point, you have either one or two shots at landing Pinning Challenge, which means the monster is going nowhere. So, it can either attack you - and proc a counterstrike (Parry and Riposte, for instance?), eating three meaty hits, or it can sit there while you chop it to pieces. I strongly disagree with the idea that fighters need to burn many, if any encounter powers on status effects - because they don't. Two feats can get you Immobilize + Prone after Paragon on any Fighter who'd bother with damage except Tempests (and tempests have other tricks), and if you can't keep people in place after that, damn son, you got bigger problems than CC can fix. D) Why are the fighter's hits 'weak'? Marked Scourge adds a very decent amount of punch to the first one per round, and similarly, a PP like Son of Mercy can add even more pain. Why is the enemy getting a free pass on eating three attacks, instead of you assuming they're properly optimized to cause a ****ton of hurt?
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).
I never said Shield Edge Block was better than Rain of Blows, I never said it wasn't defensive, and I never said that you don't need to have offense, I said "Suggesting Rain of Blows over Shield Edge Block is a perfect example of people not knowing how to play a Defender."
That shield edge is better is exactly what you are saying here.
"If you know how to play a defender, you would suggest shield edge block over rain of blows" "If you don't know how to play a defender, you would suggest rain of blows over shield edge block"
While you never flat out say it is better, you imply that if shield SEB isn't used, you don't know how to play a defender, which is absolutely false.
I said neither of those things you have in quotes. I can forgive you for misunderstanding what I said, but do not misquote me. Thank you for demonstrating why RAW vs RAI is so important though.
@Arm: "Attack the Defender" is still a 'good choice' given the way you look at A and B, as a DM I'd be more than capable of face planting that defender and be grinning like an idiot while I did so. And really, mentioning a mix of fighter feats, paths, and weapon choices and trying to combine them into one argument doesn't work, at least not for me. By the time you're kicking off more than one of the things you've mentioned, Rain of Blows vs Shield Edge Block is barely a choice anyway, you're 1 level from replacing them. And I'm pretty sure I already conceded that Flail users will probably go with Rain of Blows ... Spear users are as much Defenders as any Tempest or even LDBs Pathfinder Ranger, you're in Thunderglaive Sir Prones-a-lot territory there.
"Invokers are probably better round after round but Wizard dailies are devastating. Actually, devastating is too light a word. Wizard daily powers are soul crushing, encounter ending, havoc causing pieces of awesome." -AirPower25 Sear the Flesh, Purify the Soul; Harden the Heart, and Improve the Mind; Born of Blood, but Forged by Fire; The MECH warrior reaches perfection.
I said neither of those things you have in quotes. I can forgive you for misunderstanding what I said, but do not misquote me. Thank you for demonstrating why RAW vs RAI is so important though.
@Arm: "Attack the Defender" is still a 'good choice' given the way you look at A and B, as a DM I'd be more than capable of face planting that defender and be grinning like an idiot while I did so. And really, mentioning a mix of fighter feats, paths, and weapon choices and trying to combine them into one argument doesn't work, at least not for me. By the time you're kicking off more than one of the things you've mentioned, Rain of Blows vs Shield Edge Block is barely a choice anyway, you're 1 level from replacing them. And I'm pretty sure I already conceded that Flail users will probably go with Rain of Blows ... Spear users are as much Defenders as any Tempest or even LDBs Pathfinder Ranger, you're in Thunderglaive Sir Prones-a-lot territory there.
Err...I doubt that. Until level 17, you have no reason to sub RoB out. Even then, it's debatable whether you want to do it (I think there's a power on that level that is a double-tap plus Daze, but I might be imagining things), but the point is that what replaces RoB is still damage. What replaces Shield Edge Block is something else entirely, because at that point it's kind of worthless (realistically, you actually will retrain it, not replace it, but let's assume you have some sort of 'brand loyalty' to it for some reason).
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).
I said neither of those things you have in quotes. I can forgive you for misunderstanding what I said, but do not misquote me. Thank you for demonstrating why RAW vs RAI is so important though.
@Arm: "Attack the Defender" is still a 'good choice' given the way you look at A and B, as a DM I'd be more than capable of face planting that defender and be grinning like an idiot while I did so. And really, mentioning a mix of fighter feats, paths, and weapon choices and trying to combine them into one argument doesn't work, at least not for me. By the time you're kicking off more than one of the things you've mentioned, Rain of Blows vs Shield Edge Block is barely a choice anyway, you're 1 level from replacing them. And I'm pretty sure I already conceded that Flail users will probably go with Rain of Blows ... Spear users are as much Defenders as any Tempest or even LDBs Pathfinder Ranger, you're in Thunderglaive Sir Prones-a-lot territory there.
That is the same thing you said, in a few different ways.
Uh... wtf? Zathris, I fail to see where I took offense, got defensive, and put words in your mouth.
I am currently playing a paragon sword and board fighter, and a paragon sword and board knight. Neither is optimized for damage. I have also played a dwarven hammer and shield fighter and a halfling flail fighter, and neither was optimized for damage. I'm not somehow vested in two-handed fighters being awesome, and I'm certainly not taking anything being said here personally.
It's just that... fighters can defend by threatening damage, and to imply otherwise is false. I'm not taking any offense here, just defending a very reasonable and valid claim and criticizing your over generalization.
I also fail to see how my view is overthinking things. I find it rather simple. Monsters want to avoid taking a lot of damage. So a fighter that threatens an extra attack on top of his high-damage turn is inticing monsters to attack him and respect his mark. That's pretty basic. I'm not claiming that monsters will always obey the mark, that obviously depends on the specifics of any given turn in any given encounter. But focusing on damage is a way to defend. That's why Combat Challenge offers an extra attack, like Warden's Fury and Aegis of Assault, and Divine Challenge offers up auto-damage, like Mind Spike. There are other mechanics involved in defending of course, but at the end of the day monsters are usually taking more damage for ignoring the mark.
The extreme opposite of this is the Ultimate Defender/Catch 22 mentality where a fighter has to drive his opponents batsh*t crazy insane as they try decide what to do because he makes them eat every action they take no matter what it is. That's another style of defending, but it's not the only style of defending.
I don't know why you think a defender is getting dazed/stunned every other round by melee opponents, but I haven't experienced that. In fact, my sword and board fighter is built with balanced defenses and rarely even takes hits. Shield Edge Block will only help against a melee attack from an adjacent enemy. Besides, if the guy you are fighting in combat hits you and Dazes you, well... that is exactly what you want (I know Armisael made the same point but it is worth noting again). Why complain? He attacked you, so what do you need your Combat Challenge attack for anyways? Would it have been better if the enemy missed? Maybe. Would it be better if the enemy died that much quicker instead, while still aiming at you instead of your allies? Definitely.
I'll close with the statement I probably should have opened with: I never said Shield Edge Block was better than Rain of Blows, I never said it wasn't defensive, and I never said that you don't need to have offense, I said "Suggesting Rain of Blows over Shield Edge Block is a perfect example of people not knowing how to play a Defender." Do not misinterpret my words, or read into their meaning, if you want to take offense and get defensive, go for it, but you'll just be proving my point.
I think having to respond to this is a bit silly, but it would be unfair to me to let you imply that I said or did any of these things. I haven't attacked you Zathris, and I have no need to. We're just disagreeing on mechanics here. It's not that serious. But I never put those words into your mouth. You suggested that a damage-focused fighter is simply a striker, not a defender, and that choosing Rain of Blows over Shield Edge Block is indicative of not knowing how to play defenders.
It seems clear to me and to others that you do not think focusing on damage is a viable tactic for a fighter to play as a defender. If that is not what you meant to say, perhaps you should consider being less provocative with your words and simply be more clear.
As it stands, my only aim here is to provide the truth of the matter. I should be able to disagree with you as I'm doing without you calling my motives into question unjustly.
