Heavy Blade or Axe for a ranger?

[Teapot Salty]

Hey guys. Title says half the question, and the other half is simple: What feats? Heavy Blades are feat starved (or so I'm told ) but seem better featless. Thanks, and as always, go nuts.

[GPuzzle]

Heavy Blade. Hit more, hit better. Use a pair of Bastard Swords. And you really don't need to spend more feats on Heavy Blades more than those that build around their enchantments. Fire. Cold. Bloodied.

[MKV]

If your going to do this you should be a dwarf wear scale mail and use a pair of waraxes by level 3 you can make 6 attacks a turn with the right magic items and it only gets better

[Knaight]

Axe. Axes just have a cooler aesthetic.

[Inevitability]

Heavy blades. As a ranger, your static +damage bonuses should be through the roof. Heavy blades increase the chance of getting that sweet, sweet bonus delivered on every attack attempt you make.

[GPuzzle]

If your going to do this you should be a dwarf wear scale mail and use a pair of waraxes by level 3 you can make 6 attacks a turn with the right magic items and it only gets better

Care to explain?

[Dimers]

Without looking at a particular level/build/party? Heavy blade. Not just because blades are generally +1 attack over axes, but also because they fit the ranger's stats better. Ranger wants Dex and Str, heavy blades want Dex and Str, axes want Str and Con. Light blades are good choices too, especially now that rapiers are martial rather than superior.

[vasharanpaladin]

Hm. If you want raw damage, axes are it. Rangers don't suffer much from switching to Con-secondary for awhile to get Deadly Axe and other support feats, except for necessarily setting feats on fire to make up their AC (scale is necessary, plate can flip a fork). I, personally, do not believe in the interpretation that allows you to get scale proficiency instantly by multiclassing cleric.

On the other hand, if you favor optimization, neither of the presented options is the right choice; you want light blades. Rapiers no longer cost a feat for proficiency, and allow you to benefit not just from class-neutral support feats but also from multiclassing rogue for additional combat advantage shenanigans.

That said, heavy blades are something of a happy medium. More accurate than axes, hit harder than light blades, but the only major support item of note is Heavy Blade Opportunity (twin strike as an OA is just mean), because Headsman's Chop works for axes, too. And blades of all kinds like the Strength/Dex combination, so you don't have to go far out of light armor.

Now, my personal opinion? Axes are too much work to use to best effect, and the difference between light and heavy blades is mostly one of aesthetic preference. You'll want to keep Dex high to get Two-Weapon Opening regardless. Now, I'm more inclined to "power" options, so I'll take rapiers over longswords any day... but I also prefer range with my rangers (and consider Two-Blade Style to be an eyesore), so you won't likely see me doing that anyway.

[Mando Knight]

With the free Rapier proficiency, Light Blades can be easily optimized to be far better than Heavy Blades, particularly if you're not in a group that sets up prone targets for Headsman's Chop. The point where Rapiers fall off in damage compared to Bastard Swords when you have combat advantage is somewhere in the high-[W] per hit range, which most Ranger powers never reach since they tend to go for multi-hit attacks.

[vasharanpaladin]

Bastard Swords

First, rangers can prone their own targets (Hobbling Strike plus World Serpent's Grasp), party setup isn't required. Second, heavy blades fall behind light blades as a matter of course as soon as combat advantage is considered, seeing as specializing in light blades allows you to poach rogue support with impunity (Deft Blade is also a thing that heavy blades don't really have an analog for; accuracy trumps power here).

And third, one-handed "superior" weapons generally aren't; rangers rely more on their static bonuses to damage piling up than their [w]'s, and there are enough taxes spread throughout 4e that you've got much better feats to take than Weapon Proficiency (anything other than greatbow, mordenkrad, gouge, greatspear or fullblade).

That said, there's something to be said for ignoring CharOp in favor of aesthetics, even if I can't quite work myself up to it.

[Sol]

First, rangers can prone their own targets (Hobbling Strike plus World Serpent's Grasp), party setup isn't required. Second, heavy blades fall behind light blades as a matter of course as soon as combat advantage is considered, seeing as specializing in light blades allows you to poach rogue support with impunity (Deft Blade is also a thing that heavy blades don't really have an analog for; accuracy trumps power here).

And third, one-handed "superior" weapons generally aren't; rangers rely more on their static bonuses to damage piling up than their [w]'s, and there are enough taxes spread throughout 4e that you've got much better feats to take than Weapon Proficiency (anything other than greatbow, mordenkrad, gouge, greatspear or fullblade).

That said, there's something to be said for ignoring CharOp in favor of aesthetics, even if I can't quite work myself up to it.

greatbow is actually a textbook example of a bad superior weapon feat. Beyond the range difference, which might impact 2-3 shots fired over a 1-30 career, it adds a flat +1 damage over a longbow, with no other bonus whatsoever.

Regarding hobbling strike + WSG - it's a great combo, but not really worth relying on for Headsman's Chop, because it requires two hits on your turn to knock someone prone with HS+WSG, and they can just stand back up on their own turn, so you're only actually using Headsman's Chop with action points or with off-action attacks, unless you have a party member capable of proning them for you.

HC is still a better damage feat than greatbow would be in that case, though.

[vasharanpaladin]

greatbow is actually a textbook example of a bad superior weapon feat. Beyond the range difference, which might impact 2-3 shots fired over a 1-30 career, it adds a flat +1 damage over a longbow, with no other bonus whatsoever.

And yet, greatbow is skyblue/"TAKE THIS" and the vast majority of one-handed "superior" weapons are red/"IT'S A TRAP" with the exception of those affected by racial weapon training feats. CharOp considers greatbows to be A-1 for rangers and bastard swords to be polished crap for anyone who can't get them via Githzerai Blade Master. Though yes, perhaps a better example on my part would be the superior crossbow, which gives both a similar +1 increase over its simpler cousin compared to longbow->greatbow, and a 5% overall increase in average damage due to the increased proficiency bonus.

As for Hobbling Strike, you're also meant to pair it with feats like Vicious Advantage, and I seem to recall seeing something that makes standing up provoke an OA, which would also get the bonus from HC. No, the main draw for heavy blades is HBO, with the associated brokenness of twin strike going off against anyone stupid enough to provoke an OA from you. But you're still better off with longswords in this case, no need to waste the feat slot.

And if you're going to be abusing combat advantage anyway? Rapiers are still better. But, ah... hehe, my group put rangers under a moratorium anyway. Because yes, the answer to everything is twin strike.

[GPuzzle]

Could've sworn people thought that the Bastard Sword was better than the Longsword because while the Ranger goes for multi-attacks, the number of dice he'll be rolling due to those attacks will eventually show off. I mean, a nova sequence can have a Ranger rolling up to 38 dice with a single AP. It will eventually appear. But yes, in terms of DPR, it won't really show up.

Greatbow is basically the same deal, although I'd prefer a Superior Crossbow, and only Elven Rangers using Greatbows can Snap Shot - unless you're a Drow dual-wielding Hand Crossbows.

So the weapon's dice impacts the nova more, the weapon's proficiency bonus affects the DPR more.

And since we're talking Rangers...

Surprisingly, Anarch of Shyr is an excellent Paragon Path. I got a nova with it that made 26 attacks, exploiting fire and cold damage with some lightning damage thrown in. The damage went through the roof.

Also, you only provoke an OA if you stand up if you were knocked prone by the Battlemind's Might of the Ogre. In fact, I should make a build exploiting that...

[masteraleph]

As others have said, Heavy Blade, but Light Blades are actually better with a few exceptions (Genasis, for example, prefer Heavy Blades.

[Mando Knight]

Could've sworn people thought that the Bastard Sword was better than the Longsword because while the Ranger goes for multi-attacks, the number of dice he'll be rolling due to those attacks will eventually show off. I mean, a nova sequence can have a Ranger rolling up to 38 dice with a single AP. It will eventually appear. But yes, in terms of DPR, it won't really show up.

Greatbow is basically the same deal, although I'd prefer a Superior Crossbow, and only Elven Rangers using Greatbows can Snap Shot - unless you're a Drow dual-wielding Hand Crossbows.

So the weapon's dice impacts the nova more, the weapon's proficiency bonus affects the DPR more.

Proficiency bonus matters whenever you're making an attack (or, rather, 5% of every time you make an attack, the +1 from some single source matters). +1 average damage from large-[W] weapons maters more when you're making fewer, higher-[W] attacks. The Ranger does the opposite, generally splitting up the attacks into multiple fewer-[W] attacks, meaning that static bonuses (such as those available for light blades) become more powerful. Weapon Focus is better for a Ranger at basically all levels than a Weapon Proficiency is, and similarly so is the damage bonus from Light Blade Expertise (provided you have a flanking buddy).

[Teapot Salty]

Can I add, in the three PHB only.

[Dimers]

Same answer, really. Without errata the light blade category is a little weaker, simply because the ranger can't use rapiers without spending a feat, knocking average down slightly when she goes for shortswords instead. But there's no item or feat that Changes Everything for either heavy blades or axes, pretty much anywhere.

[Inevitability]

Can I add, in the three PHB only.

And how about errata for these 3? If it applies, just use a rapier, like people suggested. If not, use Blade Cascade and wreck everything without having to worry about your weapon.

[GPuzzle]

Ah, crap.

You should get Martial Power. And take the minor action attacks. Nothing says "Screw You!" like 6 attacks in a row.

[darkdragoon]

Bows generally have less support, so somebody wanting to eek every last bit of damage often ends up having to get a greatbow anyway.


There's a fairly useful item set for carrying both a light and heavy blade.

[Epinephrine]

Why bother choosing, just use a khopesh. The damage dice of a heavy blade with the accuracy of an axe.
(to be fair, occasionally useful, if there is a good reason to want something like Heavy Blade Opportunity with an Axe, like getting +Con to damage on your now nasty opportunity attack, e.g., Battlemind)