I don't have a racial preference though granted most of my characters are human.
Some classes I was considering were:
Warlock Dark Spiral (halfling/?)
Sorcerer Wild Mage (human)
Looking for suggestions so I don't gimp a table.
Baselines I'm comparing this to would be:
Half-Orc Brutal Rogue with backstabber (1d4+8+2d8)
Ranger with Twin Strike using a greatbow and HQuarry (2d12+1d6+2)
Barbarian with Devastating Strike and Heavy Blade Focus with greatsword 2h use (1d10+6+1d8)
Melee <> ranged I get that. I just threw some benchmarks with fairly basic builds.
Any help welcome.
Thanks in advance!
Thanks.
Sorcerer is a viable, fun class.
I play a highly effective drow Darkpack Warlock. (Striker/Controller) If you want some details on the build, send me a private message.
What you need to do is forget about boosting damage initially and instead focus on being a bit more survivable.
Arcane Strikers tend to have pretty low defences (AC in particular), expending feats and other resources to boost their defences is generally a waste of time as you never reach any sort of "comfortable" level.
Therefore it's better to focus on boosting your Hit Points (e.g. Toughness Feat etc.), not only does this allow you to take more punishment and thereby last longer in a fight, but your surge value is higher, making healing more efficient.
The best advice I can give you is to take Auspicious Birth or Born Under a Bad Sign as your background and then Toughness (with an 18 primary stat, that will give you 35 HP at level 1). If you are taking a human, you will want Implement Expertese for the extra bonus to attack rolls (or Superior Implement Mastery and then buy a superior implement that suits)
At 1st level, the monsters you will be fighting should be relatively easy to hit, but in order to maximise your abilities, try to take AoE attacks (burst & blast) to maximise your chance of damaging something with each attack.
Once you gain a few levels, you can look towards increasing your damage output, but intially you want to be reliable... showboating your talents early will get you killed... especially when you need to take the group healer's two minor action heals every encounter in order to keep running.
Invest in magical items that give you a variety of damage resistance types, your defences will never be great, so resistance will reduce the damage to will inevitably take.
Hope that helps...
PGC
The problem with Arcane Strikers, on the whole, is that they are (or can be) a serious resource sink. Especially a low-level.
That actually is good advice except ... I've found that I don't really need super-high defenses. When I first wrote up my character I had planned on taking Leather Armor proficiency (now it might be Unarmored Agility), two-weapon defense and Nimble SpellCaster (don't provoke OAs).
But I've found that I didn't need to do that. YMMV, but I just hide in the back, took Spatial Trip (encounter power teleport 1/2 your speed) and use my Storm Soul to gain +4 to defenses if I'm getting attacked. I use my Second Chance if I'm critted.
As far as background, I took Hellion so I could be trained in acrobatics. It helps when I use my Spatial Trip to be able to balance on whatever high-up out-of-the-way spot there is.
Allen.
The problem with Arcane Strikers, on the whole, is that they are (or can be) a serious resource sink. Especially a low-level.
That actually is good advice except ... I've found that I don't really need super-high defenses. When I first wrote up my character I had planned on taking Leather Armor proficiency (now it might be Unarmored Agility), two-weapon defense and Nimble SpellCaster (don't provoke OAs).
But I've found that I didn't need to do that. YMMV, but I just hide in the back, took Spatial Trip (encounter power teleport 1/2 your speed) and use my Storm Soul to gain +4 to defenses if I'm getting attacked. I use my Second Chance if I'm critted.
As far as background, I took Hellion so I could be trained in acrobatics. It helps when I use my Spatial Trip to be able to balance on whatever high-up out-of-the-way spot there is.
Allen.
I haven't had this experience. My warlock|swordmage was rocking a 15 to 17 ac through level 4, and I never had any serious problems and I've never played low. However, I was built to take a beating without AC and had a ton of surges, so maybe this isn't typical. Other players did think it was funny that I liked getting attacked and beaten on though. Hellocks are crazy that way though.
The real question to ask yourself though is how tactical a player are you?
Sorcerers are easy to play. They apply their damage bonus no matter what with no additional action on the part of the player.
Warlocks require a minor action to apply their damage bonus. On top of that, they need to plan their movement to gain optimal use of their class abilities (prime shot, Shadow Walk, choosing a target to curse).
Both classes can gain a lot of mileage from taking various weapon feats and items (weapon focus, two weapon fighting, syberis shard, etc.), but a warlock needs either to use a Pact Blade/Hammer or spend a feat to take Arcane Implement (sorcerer dagger or swordmage sword).
Sorcerer powers are also fairly simple. They deal damage. Often to multiple targets.
Warlock powers are more subtle. They can render a single foe useless and split up the bad guys to make the fights manageable (by immobilizing and other status effects), but the emphasis on control for most warlock powers make them do slightly less damage than sorcerer powers and some people just really like to see big numbers.
I've got a Drow Storm Sorc that's just a nightmare to deal with sure he doesn't deal mega damage like some of the other arcane strikers but a Storm Sorc is designed with the philosophy of "death by a thousand paper cuts". Hit the weak targets first, auto damage the BBEG (it never fails), and all that auto damage adds up over the course an encounter.
ps- I also want to say that a warlock or sorceror can fulfill their role just fine. It's not as easy as a ranger, but then what is?
Although not a striker per se, a genasi wizard with the elemental empowerment feat does some serious damage and can still control. I've seen them in action and they're mean. Just another option for you.
ps- I also want to say that a warlock or sorceror can fulfill their role just fine. It's not as easy as a ranger, but then what is?
Everyone knows that wizards are controllers, not strikers. If someone pulled out a large bonus to damage on their wizard, I'd have to stop the game to force him or her to justify that damage bonus.
On topic, I'd recommend a sorcerer for anyone who isn't interested in heavy optimization, yet doesn't want to be overshadowed by a middling ranger or rogue in terms of pure damage. If you don't care, it doesn't matter; however, the very existence of this thread indicates a level of concern.
Remember that sorcerers deal area damage, not single target damage like all of the examples on your list. As such, they are going to deal less damage to a single target relative to a ranger or rogue with the same level of optimization.
Everyone knows that wizards are controllers, not strikers. If someone pulled out a large bonus to damage on their wizard, I'd have to stop the game to force him or her to justify that damage bonus.
Why? The damage boosts (feats, items, etc.) that are available to the sorcerer are also available to other arcane casters like the Wizard. It sounds like you have one particular image of the Wizard and anyone who sees it differently is suspect.
Why? The damage boosts (feats, items, etc.) that are available to the sorcerer are also available to other arcane casters like the Wizard. It sounds like you have one particular image of the Wizard and anyone who sees it differently is suspect.
Indeed...my 6th level genasi wizard has a +9 bonus to damage on all her spells (between a 21 Int, a +2 Staff of Missile Mastery, Elemental Empowerment, and Resplendent Gloves). Nothing mysterious in there.
I'm very happy with the damage results he is starting to bring out, via static damage, comparable to other melee / ranged strikers.
Sorcerers have the harder road due to no multiple (w) attacks, so you just gotta optimize harder to hit better.
-Skip
I also recommend Sacrifice to Caiphon (feat) for CON'Locks. If you miss with an Encounter power, you can take some HP and get it back. Keep a tab on what your healing surge value is, though, or you may regret doing this.
You guys have fallen victim to an inside joke. Sithobi1 has a paragon "genasi" elemental empowering wizard, and there's a local DM who would routinely make him justify where all of his huge static damage bonuses come from (though now the demand to "Justify that!" is a joke in and of itself). And yes, he signs up on Warhorn as a striker with that character. Although, now with hybrids, I often have a hard time knowing which role to sign my characters up for.
I use the older categories: I call my genasi blaster "artillery," and I know folks who used to call their swarm druids "tank." Warhorn could definitely use some new categories, though--or a two-category option.
mdonais: be aware that fire tieflings got hit hard by errata recently.
One of the 2 main Tiefling feats improved as it changed from a feat bonus to an untyped bonus. +1 to hit with fire and feat powers and +1 damage. The other feat is +2 damage with fire powers (+3 at paragon +4 at epic) both feats also help fear powers but most wizards have none.
This bonus (+1 to hit +3 damage) is enough to give them striker dps and they have it on AOEs and sometimes with control effects attached for free.