domain feats for runepriest

[Dimers]

I'm lining up runepriest at-will attacks to benefit from the divine "Power Of X" domain feats -- Power of Skill, Power of Arcana, Power of Love (and now Huey Lewis is running through the heads of everyone my age) ...

Spoiler: This is what I've decided so far.

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Word of binding gets Civilization, Darkness, Earth, Life, Love, Poison, Trickery, Wilderness.

Word of diminishment: Death, Destruction, Luck, Torment, Tyranny, Undeath, Winter. Wow, "luck" is kinda the odd man out in that list, huh? Murder, arson and jaywalking.

Word of exchange: Change, Freedom, Hope, Justice, Skill, Storm, Strife, Vengeance.

Word of shielding: Creation, Madness, Moon, Protection, Sea, Strength, War. It's not unusual for protection, strength and war to get lumped together thematically. In fact, the priest's shield power gets boosts from all three of those categories too.

That gives me seven domains for diminishment and shielding, eight domains for binding and exchange.

Spoiler: I made my decisions with a few things in mind.

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First, I'm trying to end up with about the same number of domains per power. I don't want effect overlap between the power and the feat, e.g. both giving an ally an AC bonus or temp hit points. Nor do I want clashing mechanics, like a bonus to damage rolls for the power with flat damage. I don't want them to be anti-thematic, like associating Freedom with binding. Ideally the secondary stat of the power should fit with the feat's associated skill or power improvement or general concept, like Wisdom being a better match than Constitution when it comes to Knowledge Domain.

I don't want any power to have two different domains that change the damage type. Unfortunately, shielding doesn't really fit any of those four (Poison/Storm/Undeath/Winter), and diminishment is best for two, so I've already failed as far as that goes.

The original feats' matches seem to try to avoid giving one power multiple boosts from a single core deity's domains. I don't care about that at all. If somebody really wants to spend three feats improving an at-will for an AEDU class, hey, be my guest.

I've got four domains left to assign and I'd be happy to have input. Arcana, Fate, Knowledge, Sun. I don't think word of shielding fits any of them well, and that's unfortunate, because it should get either 1 or 2 to keep things as even as possible. I'm also not sure about my answers for Life or Freedom -- like, Life defaulted to word of binding because diminishment was anti-thematic and the other two already provide temp HP.

[Dimers]

No responses or comments on the topic? Beuller? ... Bueller? ... #showinmyage

[Eradis]

I'd truly like to help you out, but I've never played a Rune Priest nor be enough interested in that class to really dig into it. The 4th edition forums are quite desert, so maybe an additional post might help attract a bit of attention?

Anyway, if I find something interesting on that, I'll post the link here.

[Yakk]

So, at-will optimization is top-tier optimization.

If you spend resources optimizing an encounter power, you get a boost 1/encounter.

If you spend resources optimizating an at-will power, that boost can apply every round (and sometimes more than once per round through various tricks).

Feats that apply to encounter powers are useless; feats that apply to at-will powers specifically can be quite strong.

The power gap between at-will and encounter is medium sized at level 1 -- a [W] roughly. It fails to grow fast enough as you gain levels; by epic, it is like 2-3[W]. Creatures have 10x the HP, and the delta from using an encounter over an at-will is 2-3 times larger.

I'm just saying be careful about double-boosting at-wills.

[darkdragoon]

Encounter powers are relatively easy to recur, although Runepriests by default can't (ab)use a chunk of them very well. Even dailies have a couple reuse/don't expend although that's mostly an arcane schtick.

[Dimers]

I'm just saying be careful about double-boosting at-wills.

The people I play with avoid being jerks to each other or me, so I don't have worries about balance. So if you set aside possible abuses, do you have any thoughts on what fits well? If anything fits at all -- if you want to argue that runepriests shouldn't have access to Domain feats in the first place, I'd listen to reasons.

[Yakk]

It makes total sense that Runepriests don't have access to Domain feats. From what I remember of their fluff, they use divine power through the runes of divine language without being granted it by the gods.

Instead of the domain feats, what I'd add is new Rune States on those at-wills.

A new Rune State requires a different kicker on a power and a different Rune Master effect.

If these effects are balanced with protection/destruction, you maybe also want to add a passive benefit as well.

An off-the-cuff example:

Rune of War
You gain a +1 feat bonus to weapon attack rolls, increasing to +2 at level 11 and +3 at level 21. In addition you can enter the Rune of War state

Rune State: While in the Rune of War state, the first time an enemy adjacent to you takes damage each round it takes an additional wisdom modifier damage.

(kickers for each at-will power and rune of mending)

(alternatively to a kicker on rune of mending, a power whose use replaces a use of rune of mending)

(or, kickers for only some at-will powers)

---

It comes with a passive benefit (expertise feat). It grants a new Rune State. And it grants kickers on many powers. The kickers/rune state share a power-budget with the existing Rune States and Kickers on powers.

Rune of Peace (Allies gain temporary HP; if they deal no damage, they gain twice as many)

Rune of Warning

Rune of Growth

Rune of Fear

etc.

[darkbard]

So, at-will optimization is top-tier optimization

This is simply untrue. From level 3 onward, a character should have a MINIMUM of three encounter powers (L1, L3, theme, possible MC or other feat power), all of which should be superior to an AW. Thus, At-Will powers won't come into play until round 3 or 4, at which most combats should already be decided, if not over.

What is true, though, is that optimization is build upon constant (read: not just applicable to Encounter power) application. But that's far different than optimizing AWs themselves.

[tiornys]

This is simply untrue. From level 3 onward, a character should have a MINIMUM of three encounter powers (L1, L3, theme, possible MC or other feat power), all of which should be superior to an AW. Thus, At-Will powers won't come into play until round 3 or 4, at which most combats should already be decided, if not over.

What is true, though, is that optimization is build upon constant (read: not just applicable to Encounter power) application. But that's far different than optimizing AWs themselves.

Arguably, top tier optimization demands utilization of all of your actions, which puts a premium on non-standard action Encounter powers, primarily those that are Minor actions or Immediate actions. This, in combination with Action Points, allows you to leverage your highly optimized At-will from the first or second round of combat, without sacrificing your Encounter powers, and even when Daily powers are involved.

[Yakk]

If you are optimizing a specific power, it should be at-will, or encounter-long and per-encounter/self refreshing.

You can optimize some encounter power at epic and get a way to make it at-will.

The classic Ranger optimization consists of optimizing Twin Strike. Then using encounter powers as minor/off turn actions. And your daily attack powers are ideally similarly off-turn/minor. You also attempt to make your non-twin-strike powers be optimized by how you optimize twin strike, but the classic ranger can easily deal half of its damage via twin strike.

You can do the same with hellish rebuke or eldrich strike slide & cripple builds, booming blade riposte bulids, etc. Heck, charge optimization usually ties into an at-will "basic attack" or "can be used on a charge" power.

Encounter powers are often barely better than at-will powers, and a modest investment can make the at-will out perform the encounter power. With repeated and large investment, at-wills can blow any encounter powers out of the water.

This small gap between at-will and encounter power usefulness is one of the reasons why you try to have off-action encounter attacks. Instead of your power boost from using an encounter power being (encounter minus at-will) it becomes (encounter).

The superlinear effectiveness of multi-tap just compounds this. But even without multi-tap superlinear boost, it still holds.

[darkbard]

Many of your points about minor and off-turn actions are sound advice, as is that to look for stacking bonuses that add their modifiers to all attacks. And certain niche striker builds DO spam one "At-Will" (charge, TS HR, etc.), but the advice that such tactics should apply to all optimized builds is not sound. Generally, it's striker optimization, and, more specifically, only for those strikers who have multitap powers (like TS or HR).

But top tier Ranger optimization is NOT the one who spams TS with every standard action. It's the Ranger who MCs Fighter and PPs Shock Trooper for two triple tap powers that add those same static modifiers that would apply to TS. Yes, TS is the staple AW power even for such builds, but it's not coming into play until later rounds (and after Encounter and Daily powers at more advanced levels).

The general rule of thumb (except in very niche builds) is not to optimize around an AW power but around modifiers that apply to all attacks, including AWs. It's an important distinction.