Power Attack or Toughness at 18?

[WeiQuinn]

OK, I have a pure 28-point Elven Ranger that's been my main since Headstart. He has the Deepwoods Sniper Enhancement, Weapon Finesse, Dodge, Improved Critical: Ranged and Piercing.

He only has a 13 Constitution along with a +5 Constitution Item. He has plenty of Dexterity to cover the penalty of using Power Attack. So, how important is Toughness? Should I be of the school of thought that if I kill it faster (ie. Power Attack) that I'll sustain my life longer (ie. Toughness) without the need for the extra Hit Points?

Of course, being Ranged based, Power Attack is a melee only feat...

[Noctus]

ranged Ranger ---> very few times when you have aggro. ---> Thoughness not that important than on a tank.

Power Attack is good for Portal beating and killing puny trashmobs.

[ArkoHighStar]

have you used any tomes?

[DelScorcho]

pure elf ranger, so toughness will only net 20 + 22 (42 hitpoints). Depends on how important those hitpoints are to you.

[WeiQuinn]

have you used any tomes?

+2 Dexterity favor tome and a +1 Constitution cake...

You gonna tell me to reroll as a Dwarf Tempest? ;)

[WeiQuinn]

pure elf ranger, so toughness will only net 20 + 22 (42 hitpoints). Depends on how important those hitpoints are to you.

Good point... if I play correctly and melee as an off tank when needed, then Power Attack will be the better choice.

[gfunk]

here are some numbers for perspective when making your decision:

-Improved crit ranged increases your normal bow damage by about 11.8%, and the effects damage by 11.4% (on a triple pos bow). If you are using a lightning II bow, it only increases your (total) damage by about 9.0% (assuming a +27 to total damage+ a bloodstone and a 2% chance of lightning strike for 600 points) because of the greater proportion of damage attributed to the lightning strike effect. Average damage per shot (vs. no fortification) would be something like:

47.3...triple pos longbow without improved crit
48.4...mineral II assuming acid immunity
52.8...triple pos longbow with improved crit
53.9...mineral II
58.3...lightning II without improved crit
63.5...lightning II with improved crit

If you are attacking a mob with 50% fort (average total damage per shot):

44.3...mineral II assuming acid immunity
46.1...triple pos longbow without improved crit
48.7...triple pos longbow with improved crit (a 5.8% increase vs numbers without improved crit)
49.8...mineral II
57.0...lightning II without improved crit
59.4...lightning II with improved crit (a 4.1% increase vs numbers without improved crit)

Of course, when mod 9 comes out I would suspect we will be running things like shroud on hard or elite, which means that harry gains evasion (will other mod 9 mobs have evasion as well?). That means you can knock off 12 points of damage on the lightning II bows, making the cheap triple pos bow the best weapon)

Overall, I personally think that improved crit ranged is worth a 5 to 10% increase in dps at end game, so I'm not a huge fan of it unless you are ranging close to 100% of the time.

-Improved crit pierce increases your normal rapier damage by about 13.6 %, and the effects damage by 14.0% (on a triple pos rapier), so if your melee at least half the time then its really worth having. Of course, in the new mod you might mostly use mineral II rapiers in which case you could dump it for toughness if you don't plan on stat damaging or crit based effects like radience.

-Power attack increases the typical dex-based rangers normal damage by about 18.5%, assuming that you have a 26 buffed str, +2 for elf racial enh, 12 for favored enemies, 5 for weapon. When attacking non-favored enemies this jumps to a 33.3% increase and somewhat makes up your lower non-favored dps. (of course, power attack doesn't affect weapon effects, so its only an increase to your normal damage making it roughly equal to a net increase of half of the above numbers). I personally like power attack and try and put it on all of my melee characters, because it still holds a large proportion of its benefit even as a mob's fortifications increases (the net dps effect vs non-fortified mobs is a similar percent increase to that of improved crit ranged, however with ranged you are starting with a lower dps number anyways, so the absolute increase relative to your parties dps is not as significant)

toughness: I guess it depends on how many enhancements you can fit into your build (though 3ap's arent that difficult for most people, some people might struggle to fit it in). With no enhancemnts, toughness is only worth 22hp, so its pretty minor imo. If you can fit in 3 toughness enhancements its now worth 42hp which might be pretty significant depending on how many hp you started with. Personally I would take power attack over toughness for sure, unless I was significantly under 300 hp, or if I had a poor attack bonus.

[Impaqt]

"Plenty of Dex" and a 13 COn on a 28pt Elf....

Do you have the required base 13STR for Power attack even?

[Zenako]

You might well be able to swap an old one, and take the other one at 18 and be better off than you are now. For example, Dodge is only giving you one AC? Are you a great AC build? It is not like you are taking the Dodge/Mobility/Spring Attack type of line of Feats.

As for STR, I would hope he has a 13+ STR, even on an elf.

[WeiQuinn]

You might well be able to swap an old one, and take the other one at 18 and be better off than you are now. For example, Dodge is only giving you one AC? Are you a great AC build? It is not like you are taking the Dodge/Mobility/Spring Attack type of line of Feats.

As for STR, I would hope he has a 13+ STR, even on an elf.

As this character was built during Headstart to be a ranged Ranger, he had Shot on the Run. Dodge is all that remains of Shot on the Run, other than Point Blank Shot. I could drop that for Toughness and then pick up Power Attack (14 native Strength + 6 item + 2 Ram's Might = only 22 Strength) at 18.

[QuantumFX]

+2 Dexterity favor tome and a +1 Constitution cake...

You gonna tell me to reroll as a Dwarf Tempest? ;)

No. Reroll as an Elf tempest! They’re much cooler than stinky dorfs.

[WeiQuinn]

No. Reroll as an Elf tempest! They’re much cooler than stinky dorfs.

I could do that, but I already have 2 Tempest Rangers, one is Dexterity based, the other is Strength based.

[WeiQuinn]

OK, problem solved. I switched out Dodge for Toughness (brings me up to 280 HP with the enhancements) and can now take Power Attack at level 18.

Come on Mod 9!