Hey everyone, and thanks for giving this a read. I've been playing this character for four years now, starting from level 1, and have always enjoyed warlords as a class. However, upon reaching and advancing in epic tier, I've lost some of the fun in playing it, mainly because the best powers that the class has do not work as well as they used to. This is partly because of extremely large maps which more often than not spread out the party very far and thus invalidate the powers, and partly because my group is fixed and is, on a whole, less than ideal enabling material (see below).
Recently, I got some advice from the dm to try eternal seeker as an ED to get around some of the power-related problems, and this seems like a good first step in the right direction. Since I was a bit hung up on trying conventional top tier guide choices such as warmaster, this hadn't really crossed my mind as an option until it was mentioned. It could be that my creativity has run into brick wall, and I think the character could benefit greatly from a fresh look by someone else. Any advice would be greatly appreciated!
information on the party with leader-relevant notes on each member: Spoiler:Show
- halfling paladin/hospitaler/ceaseless guardian. Basic attack: something like 2d8 +1d10 +14. LOH: 75 ish hp x2 + saving throw, usuable 8x/day. - eladrin wizard/spellstorm mage/planeshaper. Magic missile: 18 (?) damage. - human infernal warlock/hellbringer/keeper of the everflow. Basic: eldritch bolt for roughly 60 damage on cursed target, possibly +11 if closest + target bloodied. - warforged barbarian/warforged juggernaut/reincarnate champion. Basic melee: 4d6+ 20-ish (high crit + warrings). basic charge: roughly 100 damage with added push + prone knocking. - me, str/cha dragonborn warlord/battlelord of kord/eternal seeker ( ED pending). Basic melee: 2d12 +23.
-2 x dreadmare mount (rare item from epic 4-2, also adds + 10 power bonus to charge attacks), basic melee 4d8+16.
It should be noted that the degree of optimization for each character is very high. We usually take hugely upscaled encounters to compensate for it, such as no short rests, two encounters as one, added solo's, etc, often two or more of the previous per fight. The paladin is built purely on mark potency, healing, save granting and defenses; he's so good at these that spending resources into them for me is more or less a waste. The warfoged focusses purely on (multihitting) charges with added gnoll and dragonborn support from his ED; usually he kills whatever he charges with an encounter power. The warlock is a generalist who does mainly hellish rebuke spam with the occasional damage/control blast and temp hp spreading via shared infernal pact. The wizard is an extremely good controller.
However, while the group is very powerful, they are lacking severely in the strength of basic attacks. When it comes to enabling, the only worthwhile things I have to work with are barbarian charges and the warlocks ranged basic (provided they are in range - the barbarian often charges the back lines on turn one with his speed 10 and is a bit of an isolated skirmisher).
Ironwrought Attack: Inevitable Strike Dragonborn Racial Power: Dragonfear Warlord Feature: Inspiring Word Paladin Feature: Divine Challenge Warlord Attack 1: Brash Assault Warlord Attack 1: Direct the Strike Warlord Utility 2: Shake It Off Warlord Utility 6: Rousing Words Bard Attack 7: Prescient Warning Warlord Utility 10: Tactical Orders Battlelord of Kord Attack 11: Tempest of Triumph Battlelord of Kord Utility 12: Blood-Tested Inspiration Warlord Attack 13: Death from Two Sides Warlord Attack 15: War Master's Assault Insight Utility 16: Insightful Riposte Warlord Attack 17: Hail of Steel Warlord Attack 19: Victory Surge Battlelord of Kord Attack 20: Path of the Storm Bard Utility 22: Note of Aggression Warlord Utility 22: Rush of Battle Bard Attack 23: True Prescient Warning Warlord Attack 25: Relentless Assault
FEATS
Level 2: Soldier of the Faith Level 4: Saving Inspiration Level 6: Superior Will Level 8: Weapon Proficiency (Fullblade) Level 10: Improved Defenses Level 11: Combat Commander Level 12: Fight On Level 16: Versatile Word Level 18: Reserve Maneuver Level 20: Versatile Expertise Level 21: Epic Reflexes Level 21: Armor Proficiency: Scale Level 22: Supreme Inspiration Level 24: Martial Mastery Level 24: Heavy Blade Mastery Level 26: Epic Resurgence
ITEMS
Symbol of Victory +2 x1 Adventurer's Kit Vanguard Fullblade +4 Golden Crown of Battle Command x1 Strikebacks x1 Ring of the Dragonborn Emperor x1 Ring of the Protector Salve of Power Climber's Kit Thieves' Tools Demonskin Tattoo (paragon tier) x1 General's Belt x1 Faervian, legendary blade of myth drannor +5 Agile Nagascale Armor +5 x1 Siberys Shard of Radiance (epic tier) Corellon's Boon of Arcane Might (level 23) Iron of Spite Diplomat's Scabbard Polyglot Gem Timeless Locket +5 x1 Phantom chaussures x1 Dreadmare + invulnerable barding (epic tier) Farbond Spellblade Longsword +5 Elixir of Water Breathing (paragon tier) Talent Shard (level 18) Potion of Invulnerability (paragon tier) Gloves of the Healer (epic tier) Keoghtom's Ointment Iron Armbands of Power (epic tier) x1 Solitaire (Violet) Ring of Tenacious Will x1
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For those unfamiliar with the weapon: faervian allows for a once per encounter free action attack with an at-will arcane attack on a target you just hit, so long as you or an ally has access to it. It is a rare weapon you get for completing the epic 3-1 LFR mod provided you had the non-epic version. Free action blasts are always nice to use.
In addition, the character is currently mounted on a dreadmare (refluffed to be less evil), another rare item, this time from epic 4-2. While mounted, the mount gives the character a speed of 8, at will flight and hover and at-will teleport 5, along with a +10 power bonus to charge attacks. Essentially it frees up the feet slot and acts like a far superior version and combination of airstriders and boots of teleportation. As a bonus, it's also an additional enabling target with a fairly good basic.
Reasoning behind some of the choices: Spoiler:Show
The character is built around the party, and has made some questionable choices for it. Resourceful presence seems to outweigh bravura as a presence since the only one with a worthwhile basic is the warlock. In addition, the barbarian usually uses his free action attack on his turn for a free action charge upon killing something, and in practise never gets to take the basic while he can still benefit from the damage bonus. Resourceful also has the advantage of granting a free shift to each inspiring word target, which somewhat compensates for the among of party spreading in each fight.
As far as standard action powers go, the choices are rather straightforward. The undesputed best enabling power is death from two sides on the barbarian, and the plan is to use it whenever possible. Into the breach might be better than hail of steel in this party; i am a bit unsure but picked HoS for safety. Death from two sides (+ recharge options) is the default (barbarian) enabler and if he is indesposed for whatever reason, HoS can still be a backup enabler option for the other members.
When it comes to immediate-action powers, the warlord choices tend to fall apart. Vengeance is mine would theoretically be good if party members weren't spread out so far, or if it triggered on something other than me being hit (90% of the time, me being hit in epic tier means i get some kind of condition which prevents me retaliating in melee), or if I had an ally with a decent MBA. The other choice, hold that thought, would require a ranged weapon to use reliably. A farbond spellblade along with keeping a hand free to draw it as part of the attack (via the scabbard item) makes this salvageable, but the damage of my RBA at 2d8 +12 (possibly +7) is pathetic, along with the other party members all having optimized to hit rates along with utility powers to reroll or buff misses themselves.
This is where eternal seeker comes in; I thought picking prescient warning and greater prescient warning from the bard instead of warlord powers to grant additional basics to the lock in between turns would be the best option. They are both actual interrupts and thus trigger before the actual hit occurs, and have ranged 10 without restricting the character to a subpar weapon in between turns. This is assuming that eternal seeker allows me to pick or retrain to a level 7 bard power instead of a warlord one when resourceful maneuvre retrains the worthless paragon path encounter power. The ED also allows me to take note of aggression as an additional encounter utility power for extra charge enabling, and doubles action point potency. Excess standard actions for myself (if I for some reason can’t DftS or HoS) could be used to grant ranged basics to the lock.
When compared to warmaster, the direct competitor, I seem to gain in the strength of powers. Missing spring the trap hurts, but having an additional minor action charge on the barbarian each encounter seems highly competitive. Standard actions for myself can theoretically be better than the barbarian’s so long as DftS keeps recharging via ap, crits or powers, or as long as dailies are available, which should be most of the time.
Regarding the paragon path: BoK is more reliable when it comes to damage buffing than infernal strategist, as flanking is an absolute PITA to setup and maintain in epic tier. Also, I wouldn’t gain anything from having a second presence, and lose the +2 to hit part of BoK’s inspiring word buff. Maybe if I tried an intelligence build for resourceful or flat out tactical, instead? I tried that, but that would require a complete retrain of the stat array and inventory swap, basically changing the entire character for another one (usually on charop I’d say to this that the person should stop whining and only play what’s best, but I’ve played the character for four years and didn’t exactly know which epic party I would end up in). The intelligence build also has a few downsides, including lesser will defense, less powerful immediates, jumping through hoops to gain supreme inspiration, losing the crit package, etc.
Again, while I think I’ve given it a lot of thought, I’m looking for a fresh look on things. Is there anything else I could do to be a better enabler or buffer? Also, on the power front, I'm a bit in the dark on if there are any good encounter or daily powers better than the ones I currently have from other classes than bard or warlord; eternal seeker sort of makes everything available (Litigation's guide on the ED seems a bit outdated). Any advice is greatly appreciated. Also, free cookies to whoever read through everything
I have absolutely no idea how a barbarian goes from a straight up pathetic +19 statics on an MBA to over a hundred points of damage on a charge. It's just...not adding up at all for me, how he's gaining seventy points of damage on a single hit. And even with barebones items, a +5 magic sword, +6 iron armbands, and +8 STR ought to add up for 19 already. Did this guy not take Weapon Focus or something? I...wouldn't call that 'highly optimized' by any stretch at all.
EDIT: To clarify, I'm saying this because I feel like I'm not getting something here. Parts of this writeup straight up contradict each other, and I need things clarified before I can provide any advice on what choices to make.
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).
You're not restricted to arcane at-wills with Faervian. If you do go Eternal Seeker, you can even swap out one of your at-wills for another class's at-wills to get it done.
There are solid power options that don't rely on basic attacks, though I'll grant they're not the warlord's sexiest options. But, for example, Sudden Assault gives a _standard action_ to a target within 5, which can be vicious. Into the Breach can leverage the barbarian by giving him a charge. I find it odd that you picked the bard basic granting powers. I guess if the warlock is the easy guy to work with, but it just seems odd overall.
Technically, you can really get odd with Eternal Seeker - Thunder Summons and Warden's Lure for enemy repositioning, Divine Phalanx for ally repositioning. With Faervian you can even go pretty heavy into implement powers (Cha ones anyways). Or just turn into a striker, orienting on powers like Storm of Blades and Hurricane of Blades. Basically, I'd go a bit more crazy if I were doing that.
I was pondering going Avatar of Io and investing in a few breath feats on my dragonborn warlord. Also possibly having some decent charge options depending on the group, but haven't played him at epic so not sure which route I'd go.
Reserve Maneuver-ing Battlelord power is definitely the way to go, but I don't believe you can Eternal Seeker anything there. Maybe Join the Crowd would work for you?
Keith Richmond Living Forgotten Realms Epic Writing Director
I have absolutely no idea how a barbarian goes from a straight up pathetic +19 statics on an MBA to over a hundred points of damage on a charge. It's just...not adding up at all for me, how he's gaining seventy points of damage on a single hit. And even with barebones items, a +5 magic sword, +6 iron armbands, and +8 STR ought to add up for 19 already. Did this guy not take Weapon Focus or something? I...wouldn't call that 'highly optimized' by any stretch at all.
EDIT: To clarify, I'm saying this because I feel like I'm not getting something here. Parts of this writeup straight up contradict each other, and I need things clarified before I can provide any advice on what choices to make.
Hey Armisael, thanks for the response.
Regading the barbarian, I'm unfortunately not able to access his character to provide a 100% accurate answer, and I'm not completely familiar with the upper echelons of charge opping. It could be that his basic is slightly higher now,; the actual number of the basic was from level 24 when I last asked. On that level, he claimed to be feat starved and took the increased critical hit range feat by dropping weapon focus. Unless the +3 horned helm was in a previous LFR adventure, which I'd have to recheck, there's only one level 26 uncommon players can have before starting the level 26 adventure, and I'm sure he'd pick the horned helm over the armband upgrade since it adds more damage. Also, I think I derped there with the weapon die as he uses a 2d6 weapon die weapon.
Assuming it's a gouge, on charges, he gains a +10 power bonus from his mount (the same rare item mount from the lfr epic I use), then +9 twice from dragonborn arrogance in pushing and proning a target. After that come all the bonusses from feat/item charge optimization; surprising charge, a weapon which gives +1 w when charging (not vanguard), +3d6 horned helm, +2d6 warforged juggernaut, possibly the at-will for another +3d6, and gauntlets of brutality to reroll all ones on other dice. I'm sure i'm missing a few bonusses. This leads up to roughly 8d6 (4w) + 8d6 + 47 brutal 1, which is 32 + 32 + 47 = 111 unless I made a math error, and again im sure I miss something and that it isn't 100% accurate. He'd lose 12 damage per hit by doing a multihit charge, but then again, multihits lol.
You're not restricted to arcane at-wills with Faervian. If you do go Eternal Seeker, you can even swap out one of your at-wills for another class's at-wills to get it done.
There are solid power options that don't rely on basic attacks, though I'll grant they're not the warlord's sexiest options. But, for example, Sudden Assault gives a _standard action_ to a target within 5, which can be vicious. Into the Breach can leverage the barbarian by giving him a charge. I find it odd that you picked the bard basic granting powers. I guess if the warlock is the easy guy to work with, but it just seems odd overall.
Technically, you can really get odd with Eternal Seeker - Thunder Summons and Warden's Lure for enemy repositioning, Divine Phalanx for ally repositioning. With Faervian you can even go pretty heavy into implement powers (Cha ones anyways). Or just turn into a striker, orienting on powers like Storm of Blades and Hurricane of Blades. Basically, I'd go a bit more crazy if I were doing that.
I was pondering going Avatar of Io and investing in a few breath feats on my dragonborn warlord. Also possibly having some decent charge options depending on the group, but haven't played him at epic so not sure which route I'd go.
Reserve Maneuver-ing Battlelord power is definitely the way to go, but I don't believe you can Eternal Seeker anything there. Maybe Join the Crowd would work for you?
Hey keith, thanks for taking a moment to respond.
From the top of my head, all classes which use non-augmentable charisma-based implement attacks are arcane ones, so while strictly speaking im not restricted to arcane attacks, I still need to use my charisma modifyer to attack. I hadn't thought about retraining out an at-will power yet; that might have some fun potential. Brash assault is fairly good if I squeeze in the harlequin style feat, but another hardcore at will might save me the feat.
I had used sudden assault once in the level 23 epic adventure. I wasn't very impressed by it then, but given the ever growing increase in barbarian standard action damage, it might not be a bad choice. Still, if I always use it to grant the barbarian an extra charge, it's inferior to the level 17 into the breach (more damage and easier targetting for me), and that one is heavily inferior to death from two sides, which I'm trying to recharge as often as possible. Is it worth giving up a reliable immediate to have an additional standard action to fall back on if the main plan fails? With the current build, I'd go from 3 immediates + 1 daily immediate to 2 immediates and 1 daily, which is a little thin.
On join the crowd, I used that one as well for the level 23 adventure, and was unable to get it to trigger even once. The main reasons are massive party and enemy spreading and enemies constantly flying outside of range. It 'might' work slightly better now that my character has at will flight and hover, I'm not sure. However, given a large map with alternate targets to achieve and no enemy close to others, which seems to be the design or upscaling intent, I'm not favoring that power's odds. Addind a clustering power to the party might be a very good idea since that is something the party doesn't have while the warlorck and the wizard are both very proficient in thoroughly messing up clustered foes; I think I just might drop HoS or greater prescient warning for it.
Do you know of other, non-bard immediate enabling powers that outclass theirs (and which can be used by a str/cha build)? The reason I went for the bard ones is the range on them, and that they trigger before the party member is actually hit. The warlord ones simply do not do much or are unreliable in my experience.
In my opinion, if you weren't impressed with Sudden Assault, you guys either weren't creative enough, or the party's positioning was really, really poor. With two ranged casters and a melee striker, it shouldn't be hard to find a position where either the wizard can fire off another hard control power, the warlock can shoot down an enemy with full curse support, or the barbarian can ravage an enemy with a full-blown charge. Granted, your own damage won't be very impressive (1[W]+Str, woohoo), but as the leader that shouldn't be your priority.
If you find that your party refuses to position itself correctly, set it up yourself with a minor or move action power that moves your allies. You already have Tactical Orders, consider a long range power like Knight's Move or Primal Gust (Shaman) too.
In my opinion, if you weren't impressed with Sudden Assault, you guys either weren't creative enough, or the party's positioning was really, really poor. With two ranged casters and a melee striker, it shouldn't be hard to find a position where either the wizard can fire off another hard control power, the warlock can shoot down an enemy with full curse support, or the barbarian can ravage an enemy with a full-blown charge. Granted, your own damage won't be very impressive (1[W]+Str, woohoo), but as the leader that shouldn't be your priority.
If you find that your party refuses to position itself correctly, set it up yourself with a minor or move action power that moves your allies. You already have Tactical Orders, consider a long range power like Knight's Move or Primal Gust (Shaman) too.
Hey Sven,
Sudden assault runs into a few timing/practical problems to be the best choice over into the breach. Firstly, which power in the party beats a full charge from the barbarian plus my own charge (gains +1w and +10 damage over sudden assault)? My weaker attack plus hellish rebuke with curse damage x2 roughly equals the damage, assuming the lock gets hit somewhere before the start of his next turn after casting it (so that the curse damage triggers twice and once more during his sown turn for another power). If he doesnt get hit, the charge does more damage while also adding an enemy repositioning/soft control effect. An aoe blast of the lock can definitely do it, however we currently have 0 clustering powers in the party; when was the last time in epic you saw him use fiery bolt to effectively damage 4 targets?
For a hard control effect, this usually lasts until the end of the *caster's* next turn, meaning that if the caster is somewhere close behind me on initiative, the effect effectively ends immediately. I'd have to delay to get around this, which can give enemies a good chance in getting in attacks in the meantime to mess up the plan. In addition, this costs the controller an encounter power when chances are good he already has some other effect on them, effectively limiting his longer turn controller capability. That said though, I think there might be something to be said for dumping hail of steel for warden's lure and then tactical assaulting for a wizard's mass charm (if I can convince him to planeshape that for 2x/encounter); maybe I'll try that one.
Utility powers of other classes are unfortunately off-limits, since the ED restricts itself to only 'class encounter and daily powers'. Knight's move is something I've wanted to try for a while; so far I've been reluctant since it competes directly with either an additional heal or saving throw and preventsme from moving to a new target during my turn, but i think it's well enough established by now that the paladin can handle both of those by himself.
With all advices so far, the encounter lineup seems to be: One heroic tier interrupt, DftS, warden's lure, sudden assault. Any other advice?
Just wanted to bump this once to see if there was any additional advice; the game will be in three days from now. After reading the tips from the above posters and consulting some party members(and realising the mounts could also get attacks in by hail of steel), I'll probably go with touch of command, death from two sides, hail of steel and warden's lure as encounter powers. Question I have now is if anyone knows if there is a str or cha daily power from level 19 or lower that beats victory surge in potential damage contribution to the party. So far I've come off empty, but perhaps someone has an awesome suggestion like there were for the encounter powers? (Not that it's a bad power, but it hasn't been able to really impress me in epic tier).
I have absolutely no idea how a barbarian goes from a straight up pathetic +19 statics on an MBA to over a hundred points of damage on a charge. It's just...not adding up at all for me, how he's gaining seventy points of damage on a single hit. And even with barebones items, a +5 magic sword, +6 iron armbands, and +8 STR ought to add up for 19 already. Did this guy not take Weapon Focus or something? I...wouldn't call that 'highly optimized' by any stretch at all.
EDIT: To clarify, I'm saying this because I feel like I'm not getting something here. Parts of this writeup straight up contradict each other, and I need things clarified before I can provide any advice on what choices to make.
Funny that you judge the Barbarian by the only way you can think of to optimize. And as I am the barbarian I feel like I can clarify some things for you. Let me first say that I do not pretend to be highly optimized, but I think that my character will definitly fall in the somewhat optimized as a minimum.
First your remark that without Weapon focus you wouldn't call it opimized by any stretch at all. This is a typical remark you see on forums like this where only the optimization on paper counts. In real play I honestly think that feats like Charging Rampage and Brutal Charge add a lot more damage in the end than Weapon Focus. Even utility feats that make sure you can act and charge will in the end make you deal more damage (think of superior will and desciple of freedom).
Then the calculations to explain the damage difference between charge en MBA.
MBA:
2d12 (2 weapon damage from a Full Blade, and yes i know the FB isn't the best out there, but I used it from level 1 so it kind of grew on me) +9 strength +5 weapon enchantment +6 Iron Armbands of Power
Thus 2d12+20, with gauntlets of destruction the average for this is 34.
Charge at will:
2d12 Weapon 3d6 Howling strike 3d6 Horned Helmet 2d6 Warforged Juggernaut 2d6 Thundergod Weapon +9 Strength +5 Weapon enchantment +6 Iron Armband of Power +10 mount +9 Dragonic Arrogance push +9 Dragonic Arrogance prone
2d12 + 10d6+48 (average 102)
Ofcourse the draconic arrogance is really weak if the target has DR or on Multi Attack powers. I also could get the damage higher with frost chees and a better weapon (gouge). But I like my character as it is now, especially since I almost never suffer from conditions (+7 on all saves and save at beginning of turn for Dazed/Stunned/Slowed/Restrained/Immobilized/Any power with Charm/Fear/Psychic key word) and my defenses are not that bad with an AC against ranged and melee of 48 most of the time (things the optimization boards sometimes forget when they only take damage into account).
You might want to take a step back and actually read some optimization threads. CharOp does essentially two kinds of optimization. Theoretical Optimization, which when done for damage is indeed "Maximum damage, ignore everything else." It can also be for the faintly ridiculous like "solo an encounter without attacking." This is sort of a playground area for testing ideas, developing concepts, finding synergies, and in general "breaking" the game.
Practical Optimization, which uses elements we discover when doing TheoryOp, does indeed care about defenses, mobility, status effects, i.e., actual play. In fact we have a term for "things that allow you to be able to attack" like Superior Will. We discuss it as Action Economy. In a variety of contexts. Leaders enable action economy by adding extra attacks/actions, controllers remove actions from enemies, defenders restrict enemy choices and make the choices bad, strikers remove actions by inflicting the "dead" condition. If you go look at the practical builds, you'll find them doing a great deal more damage, but also having very good defenses (brokenly good, in some cases, since a Barb|Sorc can be basically unhittable and still be one-rounding multiple creatures).
You cited two feats, one Epic that requires Gnoll or a specific ED, and one Paragon that requires critting and that you be Raging, as being better than weapon focus. Setting aside that you have to crit (and barring specific party help you can't guarantee that, while Weapon Focus applies to every attack) a lot of practically optimized Barbarians are hybrids specifically to get rid of Rages, because so few of them are worth the Standard. Barbarian dailies are overall very weak. One of the feats is of course better than Weapon Focus, because it is an Epic feat that allows you to apply all your Charge mods to an encounter multi-attack, but then it is Epic, you have quite a lot of feat space at this point.
CharOp works on math. We don't say Weapon Focus is good because it is an opinion, it objectively contributes more damage than many other damage feats. When we are feeling fiddly we'll go break down a builds KPR (Kills per round) and see if Weapon Focus pushes it over the .5 or 1 KPR mark. So to some degree it is build dependent, depending on how close you are to certain benchmarks. Also most optimized builds don't take Weapon Focus anymore because of the abundance of +4 to damage feats that require a specific element.
