4e: Opinions on "Strikers"

[Crow]

Some info from people who have actually seen the books would be great.

Have you noticed any significant differences in the damage output of the Ranger and Rogue as compared to the other martial classes? Can a melee ranger out-damage a fighter, warlord, or paladin? Or are they pigeon-holed into archery in order to achieve their "striker" potential. (I just wonder, as many people have been saying the ranger's ranged attacks are where it's at.)

[Azerian Kelimon]

Some info from people who have actually seen the books would be great.

Have you noticed any significant differences in the damage output of the Ranger and Rogue as compared to the other martial classes? Can a melee ranger out-damage a fighter, warlord, or paladin? Or are they pigeon-holed into archery in order to achieve their "striker" potential. (I just wonder, as many people have been saying the ranger's ranged attacks are where it's at.)

Sorta. Depends on the weapon. A fighter using a maul and Storm of destruction is gonna be dealing 20d6+2STR. A Rogue with Backstabber using a shortsword and Assasin's point is gonna deal 10d8+7d6+STR+DEX. Could be better, could be worse. Note that the fighter's a secondary striker, though. The paladin and warlord are much crappier at damage.

And as always, archery is weaker. Strikers are much better at melee.

[Xilehxt]

Definitely. Between all the double attack powers and hunter's quarry, a two weapon fighting ranger out damages a defender any day. So does an archery ranger; they are strikers for a reason...

[Myshlaevsky]

Rogues are consistently doing higher damage. I've not really looked at rangers yet, but I know they have some mad attacks and Hunter's Quarry helps quite a bit.

[Criz Reborn]

The paladin and warlord are much crappier at damage.

Well the Paladin is much better at defending/tanking than the Fighter from what I have seen as well.

And as always, archery is weaker. Strikers are much better at melee.

How did you figure this? I havent read all the powers yet, but from what I have seen most of the Ranger's abilities require 2-h weapon or ranged weapon and do the same damage. Dex gets added to ranged dmg now so it should be level with melee shouldnt it?

[Azerian Kelimon]

Well the Paladin is much better at defending/tanking than the Fighter from what I have seen as well.



How did you figure this? I havent read all the powers yet, but from what I have seen most of the Ranger's abilities require 2-h weapon or ranged weapon and do the same damage. Dex gets added to ranged dmg now so it should be level with melee shouldnt it?

Rule of D&D: Archery is ALWAYS the weaker approach. Nobody knows WHY, but it always falters.

True since 1st edition.

The two weapon powers are a bit better than the ranged ones. Not by THAT much, but better nonetheless.

And yeah, the paladin does classic defense better. This is because he has a Leader tack on the defender concept. Personally, I prefer that the best defense be a good offense.

[Morty]

Rule of D&D: Archery is ALWAYS the weaker approach. Nobody knows WHY, but it always falters.

Many things are different in 4ed. Maybe archery is one of them?
I don't claim it is, but I wouldn't say it's not before trying it out properly.

[Azerian Kelimon]

Many things are different in 4ed. Maybe archery is one of them?
I don't claim it is, but I wouldn't say it's not before trying it out properly.

Nah, it's still weaker. Hell, you can even see how it works out worse with the 1st level powers. Dire Wolverine strike works much better in melee; Sudden Strike is much more useful than Split the tree, as it does better damage against a single enemy, which is precisely the striker's motto.

It's not THAT noticeable, it's just there.

[Johnny Blade]

Well, first off, those roles are guidelines, they just tell you what you are best at. Each class can fill at least two roles. The only one that seemed rather limited was the Rogue, and it's not among the classes I've seen in play.

For example, in my one and only 4e session so far, I played a fighter, while our striker was a Warlock. The Warlock's player, however, didn't feel too comfortable in his role, so I often did the striker job. And the fighter, at least, is good at that.


Anyway, most of the time, the strikers outdamage the defenders (or are at least more effective fighting individual enemies).

[Morty]

Nah, it's still weaker. Hell, you can even see how it works out worse with the 1st level powers. Dire Wolverine strike works much better in melee; Sudden Strike is much more useful than Split the tree, as it does better damage against a single enemy, which is precisely the striker's motto.

It's not THAT noticeable, it's just there.

Well, there's always the fact that you can kill people from 50 feet without having to close up to them. It sorts of makes up for slightly worse damage, doesn't it?

[Azerian Kelimon]

Well, there's always the fact that you can kill people from 50 feet without having to close up to them. It sorts of makes up for slightly worse damage, doesn't it?

Not really, because you REALLY want the monster dead, 'cause once it's done munching on your defender and leader, it's gonna shred you, big time. Trust me, if a striker is not going for the biggest damage possible, there's something he's not doing right.

[Rutee]

...How is Archery weaker when you can use it to pick off artillery and controllers without getting in reach of the enemy's brutes and soldiers?

How is Archery weaker, period, actually? Archery's biggest weakness is that it can be hard to use Hunter's Quarry, not that it is itself weak.

[The Necroswanso]

Rule of D&D: Archery is ALWAYS the weaker approach. Nobody knows WHY, but it always falters.

True since 1st edition.

Soft cover, that's why.

[Johnny Blade]

Well, there's always the fact that you can kill people from 50 feet without having to close up to them. It sorts of makes up for slightly worse damage, doesn't it?

He's right about at least one thing, though: an archery-oriented ranger mixes in some controller-style powers, so he'd probably end up being less dangerous as a striker.

However, I'd say that as far as quality in general is concerned, the fighting styles are more or less equal.

(I don't know much about the Ranger, though. It looked rather bland if you ask me, so I didn't even consider playing one.)

And, about archery in general: there were a lot more enemies to deal with in our session, and battlefields are generally larger in 4e (my DM said that, at least), which makes it a little hard to reach enemy "glass cannons".
So, while I don't know how good archery will wind up being in general, it should get a little boost by some of the changes.


EDIT: Damn, am I slow or what? Yeah, what Rutee said.


Another EDIT:

Not really, because you REALLY want the monster dead, 'cause once it's done munching on your defender and leader, it's gonna shred you, big time. Trust me, if a striker is not going for the biggest damage possible, there's something he's not doing right.

That's true, but an archer also doesn't want to get too near to the enemy. That's where I could picture the Ranger's and Warlock's controller-style powers to be useful: team up with the real controller of your group to get rid of the mooks first, so your meat shields are freed up to keep the big guys away from you.

If that works out, you should do fine. If it doesn't, you're probably in for it unless you have some powers that work with TWF, too.

[Azerian Kelimon]

...How is Archery weaker when you can use it to pick off artillery and controllers without getting in reach of the enemy's brutes and soldiers?

How is Archery weaker, period, actually? Archery's biggest weakness is that it can be hard to use Hunter's Quarry, not that it is itself weak.

Archery is weaker on the fact that it does less damage, which is anathema to the whole PURPOSE of strikers. Not to mention, controllers and artillery are supposed to have better defenses against ranged attacks, so the advantage is nulled if you miss more.

It gets a lot better with levels, though. For example, archery gets Three-in-One shot as a capstone, while TWF just gets follow up Blow.

[purepolarpanzer]

Archery is weaker on the fact that it does less damage, which is anathema to the whole PURPOSE of strikers. Not to mention, controllers and artillery are supposed to have better defenses against ranged attacks, so the advantage is nulled if you miss more.

It gets a lot better with levels, though. For example, archery gets Three-in-One shot as a capstone, while TWF just gets follow up Blow.

I thought dying was the anathema of strikers?

But yeah, it's really a matter of opinion here. Archery does less damage, but it keeps you safe and leaves targets open instead of forcing you to chew through brutes and such.

[Crow]

Do Rangers get the same choices as they did in 3.5 between Archery and Two-weapon fighting? Or is that handled by powers now? Do powers require one of the two? Or is a greatsword-wielding ranger still feasable? Can someone explain what Hunter's Quarry is?

Is there any way for Rogues to sneak attack with anything other than a "light blade"? Also, is the sneak attack damage really significant when compared to what you get with powers? I have heard it is only like 3d6 in epic levels. Can a rogue pick up a club in an emergency and still expect to do "striker" damage?

[Azerian Kelimon]

I thought dying was the anathema of strikers?

But yeah, it's really a matter of opinion here. Archery does less damage, but it keeps you safe and leaves targets open instead of forcing you to chew through brutes and such.

Meh, in fact, apparently, archery is a late bloomer.

Looking at the epic powers almost EVERYTHING favors archery, and there's nary a TWF power. Apparently, the devs didn't learn from Necropotence that it's only the last life point that counts.

In the low paragon levels and the heroic tier, TWF is MUCH better, but on high levels, archery is king.

[JaxGaret]

Seconding what everyone already said here, yes, the Fighter does come close to rivaling the true Strikers in damage capability, but still lags behind a fair bit, and is not nearly as mobile as the Strikers are, which means that he is somewhat less likely to get his big hits in at the appropriate juncture of the battle.

Both the Fighter and Wizard are secondary Strikers, btw. Here's the full list:

Cleric: Leader/Controller
Fighter: Defender/Striker
Paladin: Defender/Leader
Archery Ranger: Striker/Controller
TWF Ranger: Striker/Striker
Rogue: Striker/Controller + Skillmonkey (optional)
Warlock: Striker/Controller
Warlord: Leader/Defender
Wizard: Controller/Striker

So if you wanted, say, a defensively-oriented party, you would load up on Paladins and Warlords, and if you wanted an offensively-oriented party, you would go with Fighters, Clerics and TWF Rangers.

[Azerian Kelimon]

Do Rangers get the same choices as they did in 3.5 between Archery and Two-weapon fighting? Or is that handled by powers now? Do powers require one of the two? Or is a greatsword-wielding ranger still feasable? Can someone explain what Hunter's Quarry is?

Is there any way for Rogues to sneak attack with anything other than a "light blade"? Also, is the sneak attack damage really significant when compared to what you get with powers? I have heard it is only like 3d6 in epic levels. Can a rogue pick up a club in an emergency and still expect to do "striker" damage?

In order:

1) No, it's handled by powers.

2) Mostly. A few powers do not require one style, but most do. So no, no greatsword ranger.

3) Hunter's quarry let's you designate an enemy as your quarry. Against that enemy, once per round, you do more damage.

4) Nope. It's only slings, crossbows, and light blades. So you better pack a few replacement daggers with you.

5) Hell yes it is. It's the thing that makes rogues strikers. Without it, the fighter does a MUCH better job at mashing things to bloody pulp (And, depending on the weapon, he can STILL outshine a rogue with his big powers, s'long as the weapon uses a big dice).

6) No, it climbs up ot 5d6 at epic levels, and you can up it to Xd8 with a feat.

[Rutee]

Dual Wield only deals Str. Mod more damage, though. It's not like it's an insurmountable or major difference. The big thing for them is that they will /always/ be able to Hunter's Quarry their target, since if you're meleeing it, it's closest to you.

[JaxGaret]

Dual Wield only deals Str. Mod more damage, though. It's not like it's an insurmountable or major difference. The big thing for them is that they will /always/ be able to Hunter's Quarry their target, since if you're meleeing it, it's closest to you.

Which does make a pretty fair difference. We're talking about 5+ damage per round in the Heroic tier.

[Azerian Kelimon]

Actually, Rutee, after a deeper analysis, I've had to change my mind.

Dual Wield is better at low levels, yes.

At high levels, though, it's a twisted mockery of it's former brilliance. It sucks, to put it bluntly.

The ability to always Hunter's quarry your target is really minor, if for that you have to pay a price equal to being sucky at high paragon levels and the epic tier.

[JaxGaret]

Actually, Rutee, after a deeper analysis, I've had to change my mind.

Dual Wield is better at low levels, yes.

At high levels, though, it's a twisted mockery of it's former brilliance. It sucks, to put it bluntly.

The ability to always Hunter's quarry your target is really minor, if for that you have to pay a price equal to being sucky at high paragon levels and the epic tier.

I haven't checked it at higher levels yet, I'll take a look to see what you are talking about. Anything specific that stood out for you?

[Azerian Kelimon]

Yeah, and it was incredibly blatant.

No TWF attack powers.
.

I had to read it twice or thrice to be sure that no, I wasn't hallucinating.

Or rather, no USEFUL ones.

Let's check level 29, the big one, for powers.

We have Three-in-one Shot, a very strikery attack that does MASSIVE damage. Archery only.

And then we have Follow up Blow and Weave a Web of Steel (Somebody kill me for so much alliteration). One lets you tack on an offhand basic melee attack at a -2 penalty after every use of a melee power. Nice, but not very damaging. Sure, it adds up after, oh, 6 rounds, but by then, the mob is more or less dead. And then there's WaWoS, which is basically a counter. It has extremely unimpressive damage, though it lets you reduce the damage from incoming attack, or nullify it.

They seem fine, yes. But realize this: They're not striker powers by a long shot. Both of them do craptastic damage, one requires a long battle, and the other one requires you to take a hit. They're very disappointing, as they do not come even close to the Warlock powers, or the incredible Assasin's point of the rogue.

And it gets worse with encounter powers. Put simply, archery compensates for it's pretty lackluster beginnings with a more powerful endgame, while TWF takes a nosedive in power past Blade Cascade.

[ShadowSiege]

Cover becomes a nonissue for rangers using ranged attacks once they get a weapon with:

Phasing: Ignores attack penalty from cover and superior cover. Minimum enhancement +3 (level 14)

Edit: Also, since archery focuses on Dex, attack and defense benefit from it (AC & Reflex), so when you do wind up being attack, you have a better chance of not being hit.

[JaxGaret]

Yeah, and it was incredibly blatant.

No TWF attack powers.
.

I had to read it twice or thrice to be sure that no, I wasn't hallucinating.

Or rather, no USEFUL ones.

Let's check level 29, the big one, for powers.

We have Three-in-one Shot, a very strikery attack that does MASSIVE damage. Archery only.

And then we have Follow up Blow and Weave a Web of Steel (Somebody kill me for so much alliteration). One lets you tack on an offhand basic melee attack at a -2 penalty after every use of a melee power. Nice, but not very damaging. Sure, it adds up after, oh, 6 rounds, but by then, the mob is more or less dead. And then there's WaWoS, which is basically a counter. It has extremely unimpressive damage, though it lets you reduce the damage from incoming attack, or nullify it.

They seem fine, yes. But realize this: They're not striker powers by a long shot. Both of them do craptastic damage, one requires a long battle, and the other one requires you to take a hit. They're very disappointing, as they do not come even close to the Warlock powers, or the incredible Assasin's point of the rogue.

And it gets worse with encounter powers. Put simply, archery compensates for it's pretty lackluster beginnings with a more powerful endgame, while TWF takes a nosedive in power past Blade Cascade.

I just looked through it, and I can see what you are saying. The Archery direct attack powers definitely do have an edge over the Ranger direct attack powers in the Epic tier.

However, I think you are forgetting what the Ranger's job is: to take a single enemy down, now. Things like Follow Up Blow and Weave a Web of Steel are great for compacting damage dealt into a small frame of time. In other words, they effectively utilize the one most important thing to a character: actions.

You're using Interrupt and Minor actions to increase your damage output, and the TWF Ranger already has plenty of excellent damaging Encounter abilities from the Paragon tier. They can instead be making sure that all of their Utility powers - oh, those sweet, sweet Epic Utility powers - are as high level as possible with their level swaps, instead of having to always trade up for better archery powers, because you were previously gimped and now you have to take the best Epic ones.

Sometimes you have to look at the bigger picture instead of just looking narrowly at two powers and making a snap judgment.

I'm not saying that Archery doesn't catch up to TWF in the Epic tier, but I think that saying that "Archery is King in Epic" might be overstating things a fair bit. They seem to be pretty evenly matched at that point.

[Johnny Blade]

I don't think the later TWF powers are that bad. The damage output is unimpressive at first, sure.
But many of them incapacitate your enemy somehow, meaning that you can stay in battle longer than, say, a Rogue.

EDIT: Of course, Rogues do the same thing, but the Ranger almost seems to be able to guarantee that an enemy is out cold for one or two turns.

[Azerian Kelimon]

Lemme explain the unimpressiveness:

An encounter power is better than an epic daily power.

So...yeah. Sad, indeed.

(For the record, the encounter power is Death Rend. Compared to WaWoS, it's 100% better at the damage dealing department.

Seriously. This repeats itself at lower levels, even. Cloak of Thorns and Bloodstorm, for another example. Frankly, I have this feeling the designers had tons of ideas for Ranger utilities, realized that they had jack for dailies and encounter powers, and decided to slap some Utilities as attack encounter and daily powers.)

Edit: For even MORE proof of the archery superiority, a level 23 ENCOUNTER power, Manticore Volley, is strictly better than WaWoS and FuB, the DAILIES that come six levels later. Truly lame.

[JaxGaret]

Lemme explain the unimpressiveness:

An encounter power is better than an epic daily power.

So...yeah. Sad, indeed.

(For the record, the encounter power is Death Rend. Compared to WaWoS, it's 100% better at the damage dealing department.

Seriously. This repeats itself at lower levels, even. Cloak of Thorns and Bloodstorm, for another example. Frankly, I have this feeling the designers had tons of ideas for Ranger utilities, realized that they had jack for dailies and encounter powers, and decided to slap some Utilities as attack encounter and daily powers.)

Again, you're missing the point: Follow Up Blow stacks with all of your attacks. You're dealing more damage per round to the enemy. That's a good thing. Think of a Ranger getting good to-hit numbers against an enemy with FuB and Master of the Hunt up, attacking them with a Blade Cascade... things get really, really nasty.

And then, when they try to attack you back, you slap them with WaWoS for even more damage, and if you hit with both of your attacks, all of their attacks miss. All of them.

So you just rocked their world and didn't take a lick. Time to Safe Stride away and let someone else mop up. Or if they tried to Blast you, you Hit the Dirt instead of WaWoS.