What stacks?

[Galinar]

So I am looking to play a 6 ranger 14 paladin assimar scourge. I am wondering what will stack. I will be using dual heavy maces. So will holy sword stack with knights training and the scourge enhancement destroyer of the dead? How does improved Critcal affect the range. Also does celestial champion from divine crusader stack?

[Discpsycho]

Base heavy mace critical profile is 20 x2

- Knight's Training adds +1 range (morale)
- Holy sword adds +1 multiplier, +1 range, both competence bonuses.
- Divine Crusader's Celestial Champion adds +1 range (feat). Legendary Dreadnought's Pulverizer adds +1 range (insight), if you prefer that
- Scourge adds +1 multiplier (sacred)
- Improved Critical adds +1 range
- While you didn't mention it, Overwhelming Critical is worth tacking on the list, and adds +1 multiplier on 19-20 (level 21 feat). Admittedly every melee build takes this, but adding it to the list makes this build easier to compare to other melee setups on paper.

This gives you +4 range and +2 multiplier, for a total of 15-18 x4, 19-20 x5.

In Legendary Dreadnought, Pulverizer can replace Celestial Champion for no net change in range. It also opens up Devastating Critical for another +1 multiplier on 19-20, giving you a final profile of 15-18 x4, 19-20 x6. It also offers Lightning Mace if you need more doublestrike (15% with half uptime). Food for thought, if you're not married to DC.

Interestingly, no endgame heavy maces have expanded crit ranges, so profiles are the same regardless of which weapons you pull. They do all have Impact, so Improved Critical won't do you any favors at that point.

On the other hand, Phosphor has a base crit profile of 16-20 x2 and all versions of Forgotton Light have 18-20 x2. In early epics these are both reasonable choices, giving 12-20 x4 and 14-20 x4 respectively at level 20.

[Coffey]

Would take a while to collect a couple Phosphors but well worth it!

[SpartanKiller13]

Interestingly, no endgame heavy maces have expanded crit ranges, so profiles are the same regardless of which weapons you pull. They do all have Impact, so Improved Critical won't do you any favors at that point.

Improved Critical is a pre-requisite for Overwhelming Critical, so it's worth grabbing anyway; if you plan to sit at cap you could grab like IC:Slashing for using longswords if you need DR breaking (with KT & Holy Sword they're pretty solid). Or IC:Ranged for your thrower :P

[droid327]

Improved Critical is a pre-requisite for Overwhelming Critical, so it's worth grabbing anyway; if you plan to sit at cap you could grab like IC:Slashing for using longswords if you need DR breaking (with KT & Holy Sword they're pretty solid). Or IC:Ranged for your thrower :P

Or stick with IC:B for Warhammers and use Oathblade for slashing (its Keen)

[Khalibano]

Hey all,

Very nice breakdown of the bonuses Discpsycho.

Just wondering if something has changed, as knights training was originally not supposed to stack with improved critical.

From wiki : "Heavy Maces, Morningstars & War Hammers critical threat range is increased by 1. The bonus is unaffected by Improved Critical: Bludgeoning (final crit profile 18-20/x3)."

This also seemed to have been confirmed by the developers:

For the battle axe when the player has both knight's training and improved crit we will give an additional bonus to equalize it. We do something similar with swashbuckler, I'll update the post.

We're not inclined to do that with the blunts because of dreadnought.

-T

Are you sure they stack? I have not had the chance to test it myself, but have an Aasimar Scourge battle engineer im working on levelling, so woukd really like to know for sure.

Thanks in advance

[droid327]

Are you sure they stack? I have not had the chance to test it myself, but have an Aasimar Scourge battle engineer im working on levelling, so woukd really like to know for sure.

Thanks in advance

KT and IC stack for all weapons, yes. It just stacks double for Battleaxe, adding 2 instead of 1

[Alrik_Fassbauer]

Improved Critical is a pre-requisite for Overwhelming Critical, so it's worth grabbing anyway;

Thanks as well, I didn't know that.

Does there exist a list of what feats have which prerequisites ?

[Khalibano]

KT and IC stack for all weapons, yes. It just stacks double for Battleaxe, adding 2 instead of 1


Sorry, my question is not about battleaxes, its about blunt weapons only. I apologiise, my earlier post should have been more clear in this respect...


Just wondering if something has changed, as knights training was originally not supposed to stack with improved critical.

From wiki : "Heavy Maces, Morningstars & War Hammers critical threat range is increased by 1. The bonus is unaffected by Improved Critical: Bludgeoning (final crit profile 18-20/x3)."

This also seemed to have been confirmed by the developers:


For the battle axe when the player has both knight's training and improved crit we will give an additional bonus to equalize it. We do something similar with swashbuckler, I'll update the post.

We're not inclined to do that with the blunts because of dreadnought.

-T

...the question still remains: does knights training stack with improved critical for bludgeon weapons specifically? It would be great if someone could confirm, as the wiki and info on forums from a Dev are not very clear, and to me they suggest no stacking.

Thanks once again in advance

[Rauven]

Sorry, my question is not about battleaxes, its about blunt weapons only. I apologiise, my earlier post should have been more clear in this respect...



...the question still remains: does knights training stack with improved critical for bludgeon weapons specifically? It would be great if someone could confirm, as the wiki and info on forums from a Dev are not very clear, and to me they suggest no stacking.

Thanks once again in advance

Khalibano, you're misreading the Wiki.

Knight's Training (https://ddowiki.com/page/Knight%27s_Training)

Battle Axe's critical threat range is increased by 1. The bonus is doubled by Improved Critical: Slashing (crit profile 17-20/x3, same as long sword).
Heavy Maces, Morningstars & War Hammers critical threat range is increased by 1. The bonus is unaffected by Improved Critical: Bludgeoning (final crit profile 18-20/x3).


The base crit range for a Battle Axe is 20/x3. The bonus from Knight's Training increases the crit range of a Battle Axe by 1 making it 19-20/x3. Imp Crit: Slash increases the crit range of a Battle Axe by 1 making it 19-20/x3. Together that would be 18-20/x3, but the bonus from Knight's Training is doubled by Imp Crit: Slash making the crit range 17-20/x3 if you take both feats.

The base crit range for a Heavy Mace is 20/x2. Knight's Training increases that by 1 (19-20/x2), and Imp Crit: Bludgeon increases that by 1 (19-20/x2), but unlike for a Battle Axe Imp Crit: Bludgeon doesn't double the bonus from Knight's Training for bludgeoning weapons so the final crit range is 18-20/x2.

[Khalibano]

The base crit range for a Heavy Mace is 20/x2. Knight's Training increases that by 1 (19-20/x2), and Imp Crit: Bludgeon increases that by 1 (19-20/x2), but unlike for a Battle Axe Imp Crit: Bludgeon doesn't double the bonus from Knight's Training for bludgeoning weapons so the final crit range is 18-20/x2.

Great explanation, I finally understand how it works now. Thank you very much for that, +1 rep to you :)