Flavor 2: WC Help

[ThomasHunter]

As I mentioned in my SB thread, I started off with a list of feats that I deemed desirable and/or necessary. This is still much more in the theory stages, but here is the list of (heroic) feats that I came up with. Note that this would be a TWF build:


TWF
Power Attack
Cleave
Great Cleave
Quicken (necessary???)
Empower Healing
IC: Slash (greatsword most likely)
Improved Trip (really outside of my comfort zone with this one)
Dodge (almost considered a throw in and certainly not able to take unless using a human)


I have three toons sitting at around 9th level all with their +20 hearts that I would consider for this build. I have a Human, a Helf, and a Halfling (now if they all just walked into a bar, we might have a joke here!).

I thought about playing around a bit with the Helf. This would be a STR based build that would take OC at 21 for sure. Maybe take that Bard song feat at 24 (although I am unsure how worth it that one is as a feat).

At least with WC, I am in familiar territory having leveled a few "traditional" builds. This included a 16B/4F (my very first TR who is wallowing as a WF at 21), a 14B/4F/2R Dwarven TWF build (who is waiting his first TR, but might wait for the PRR pass for ideas yet), and a pure Bard try who is sitting at 10 right now (the Helf mentioned above).

I like the idea of the Helf here and taking the Fighter Dil. This would net some extra damage and extra tactical DC's. Admittedly, I am not much of a tactical DC user, but I would be willing to learn.

What is potentially the most interesting (arguably) part of this build is a possible FVS splash. I think folks like splashing Cleric, but splashing FVS seems "better" for a Bard (more SP?). Initially I was thinking splashing 1 level of FVS, but looking at the WP tree, splashing 2 levels for a bit more PRR (10) seems fine too. So, that would mean 18B/2FVS.

What this has to weigh against is the WC capstone. That is +2 STR, +2 CON, and +25 HP, +1 Damage from Inspire Courage.

Or, with the FVS splash, you gain the use of Divine Might for 2 minutes at a time. With a starting CHR of 15, I think by level 28, this could fairly easily be a +9 Insight bonus to STR. With the +10 PRR and the +15 HP and the use of the Smite attack, is this worthwhile as a splash?

I simply do now know and am hoping that you good folks are able to help.

I appreciate your thoughts and any suggestions. Happy adventuring!

[mezzorco]

FULL BARD VS FVS SPLASH:
You also forget Warmaster active bit, with music bonuses.
Inspire courage improves by +1 at level 20, for a total of +2 counting capstone.
You're also losing a 4th, a 5th and a 6th level spell slots (nothing useful anyway).

On the other hand, FvS gives you +3 to all saves, 10 PRR and Divine Might.
Take into account that, while you gain full damage to both weapons from inspire courage, you only gain half bonus to offhand from STR.

A +10 insight bonus to STR is +5 dmg to main hand and +2/3 to off hand, while pure bards get +3 dmg to main hand (+2 insp courage, +2 STR) and +2/3 to off hand.

Pure bards do slightly less damage, have more hp (warmaster +2 CON and +25 hp), have +1 to cold line DC and are more supporting (+2 damage from insp courage for entire party). While Warmaster is active, pure bards do more damage than FvS splash.
Going pure bard, you have more APs to spend on trees like spellsinger, meaning more spellpower and other very useful things.
Going FvS splash instead, you have to sacrifice 8 APs at least, and quite a bit of spellpoints refreshing divine might.

All in all, if you like what you gain and don't mind what you loose, FvS can be a good splash. To me cons are more than pros, I would stay pure and spend more APs on SS.



REGARDING FEAT SELECTION
Given that a Warchanter is an excellent buffer, I feel that Extend Spell fits both thematically and practically speaking.
Also, Quicken Spell could be very useful to throw an emergency CCW or MassCMW, I would say quicken is a highly desirable feat.

Lastly, Empower Healing. It can be only used with cures, heal, mass heal, and Rejuvenation Cocoon. You won't have heal/mass heal, and I don't think you will twist for Rej Cocoon, so we're speaking about cures here.
Maximize Spell works with cures, and with other spells too. You could use it for free with Reverberation SLA from Spellsinger, giving you a nice quickened-maximized dot. Other examples are Shout SLA or Greater Shout spell for aoe damage. Especially a quickened-maximized Shout SLA would be very mana efficient and spammable in heavy aoe situations (it only has 10 AP spent as a prereq so it's quite tempting).


I have a THF Horc Warchanter, went pure. My heroic feat selection is: Power Attack, Cleave, Great Cleave, IC: Slashing, Extend, Quicken, Maximize.

Hope to be of help, good luck with your build ;)

[Rusty_Can]

Improved Trip (really outside of my comfort zone with this one)



Improved Trip requires Combat Expertise.