Looking for a thrower build.

[Jalpa7]

I'm in the mood for making a dwarven DPSer that uses great Axes up close and throwing axes for ranged.

Are there any links to builds with this idea?

Is it best to go pure fighter or possibly a fighter/barb mix??

[articwarrior]

they're all like that, there are no builds for it, pure barb is always the way to go

[NovaNZ]

Hi Jalpa7 - I have been playing a dwarf version of "Genghis Khan" bard posted by LeslieWest. See under Bard forum.

It has good DPS (THW - Gt axe) and may have potential to push some focus toward throwing axe. There is another DPS bard build with fighter/rogue splash - that may provide a slightly better base Dex score.

I use great axe and returning throwing axe with my 'genghis khan' dwarf bard build - lvl 14 at moment. Would have to fine tune to improve thrown to-hit but is doing mid 20's damage per hit (plain returning +3 throw axe).

I reckon you could easily get reasonable strike rate with mid 30's damage/hit without too much drama.

Hope this is food for thought.
__________________________

Cannith: Novaw: lvl 14 dwarf bard mix

[Rydin_Dirtay]

Get a Dwarven Thrower, it's a pretty nice throwing axe rare item.

[NovaNZ]

Get brutal throw feat - uses STR for BAB missle as well as STR damage to thrown weapons.
For str based melee - this will work nicely especially if u use good trowing axe.

Good luck

[bryanmeerkat]

[QUOTE=NovaNZ;3467231]Get brutal throw feat - uses STR for BAB missle as well as STR damage to thrown weapons.
For str based melee - this will work nicely especially if u use good trowing axe.

Good luck[/QUOT

Cough*waste of feat*cough

There are not enough situations where you will not want to be in the face of the enemy to warrant building for ranged .

Either build for ranged or build for close , then fight the monsters on your own turf .

[NovaNZ]

Hi Bryan
I agree with your concept of building either melee OR ranged. Your valuation of "Cough*waste of feat*cough" is sound with your concept.

Thing is this post is about Jalpa7's concept for his/her character.
If Jalpa7 is looking for a "dwarven DPSer that uses great Axes up close and throwing axes for ranged" .... then the feat "brutal throw" may be of use to his/her build concept.

Besides .... if there are those that hold dwarf throwing competitions in some parts of the world, dwarfs may as well reserve the right to throw things too (? returning axe?)!

Keep throwing I say - especially the tankards of Ail!

[NaturalHazard]

Hi Bryan
I agree with your concept of building either melee OR ranged. Your valuation of "Cough*waste of feat*cough" is sound with your concept.

Thing is this post is about Jalpa7's concept for his/her character.
If Jalpa7 is looking for a "dwarven DPSer that uses great Axes up close and throwing axes for ranged" .... then the feat "brutal throw" may be of use to his/her build concept.

Besides .... if there are those that hold dwarf throwing competitions in some parts of the world, dwarfs may as well reserve the right to throw things too (? returning axe?)!

Keep throwing I say - especially the tankards of Ail!

dwarves throw halflings?

[NovaNZ]

1/2lingz too fast and insufficient mass.
Dwarf throwing 1/2 Ork would be the bomb! Ek = mv2 - man them tusk-face would fly!
Woohoooo!

[andbr22]

Funny thing is that trowing build is able to achive quite nice dmg and not loose much from overall Close range capabilites, unfortunetly I wouldnt try it unless takeing fighter route.
What will you need Brutal trow and Quick draw(usefull even when melee)
rest is optional: point blanck (opens more posibilites), rapid shoot, precise shoot and improved precise (but still those have unnaturally high requierments). improved critical is also usefull but if you only want to use min2 trower than you can pass on it.
You can also go full temprest route but you won't be able to fill it all.

The most unfortunate thing that happens to trowing weapon is lack of something like many shoot. Just imagine sins in your had vorpal returning trowing axe and many shoot on.

[Itachi83]

Afroman, my capped dwarf barb, uses the dwarven thrower in Epic DQ to get the archer agro.

Does about 40-50 damage a hit with it I think, but I didn't put any effort into uping its DPS.

Just the Dwarven Axe enhancements ofc

[wax_on_wax_off]

Well, to clarify for the OP, the feats that can benefit throwing weapons are: rapid shot, brutal throw, quickdraw. If you can fit these into a regular THF fighter build (shouldn't be too hard) then you'll do fine. The concept doesn't work so well for barbarian or bard as there isn't the feats to spare for it.

Not to say that it's a good idea in general but a fighter does have the feats to spare if you want that bit of flavour. It can be quite handy to have some good ranged DPS in a variety of situations. I really love my tempest ranger for her ability to pull out a bow when she needs to (i even took improved critical ranged with my spare human feat).

[wolfy42]

Yeah pure fighters, or mostly fighter multi-class builds can easily add in thrower feats in the mix. The main problem though is you have to specialize in one or the other (melee or ranged) and while you will add a bit more versatility to your ranged by specializing in it (it's like +8 damage or so), you add WAY more by doing so for melee (especially 2 handed melee).

Throwing damage even when specialized does not approach bow damage (or even close) when using manyshot....and is generally still slightly worse then bow damage even without manyshot (due to AA arrows etc).

The question then becomes....when is throwing damage actually useful, and sadly the answer is.....when enemies can't reach you or you can't reach them.

If that is the case thrown damage isn't worth specializing in. Add in the fact that you really need a fast movement speed to make thrown damage fairly decent....and it becomes a very strange build.

Pure fighter in fact is generally not a great idea as you won't have movement speed boosts, a decent spot skill etc. You could go with ranger though (enough to get improved precise shot) and mix in some fighter with the rest. This would give you some favored enemies, Ram's might (always nice), some self healing abilities and self barkskin along with the ability to have IPS without pumping dex at all.

Half-orc then becomes a viable choice as well. While you lose out on the axe bonuses, you gain both extra strength (+4 all together), Power attack bonuses (+3 damage I believe) and gain the ability to pump your two handed axe damage as well (making specializing in throwing not as painful).

Evasion with a low dex isn't going to get you that far sadly...and you won't get improved evasion but it'll still be of some use, and the ability to heal yourself with wands is always nice.

Of course the question then becomes...if your taking that many ranger levels why are you not going with a AA build instead? I mean it wouldn't be that much of a sacrifice and you could compensate for the extra dex you'd need/want with the feats you would save. Throwers honestly just don't compare to bows...and bows are just not that great unless using manyshot for the most part (and even then are situational).

Half-orcs btw have the advantage of getting a nice bonus to any throwing weapon (including hammers).....which is a nice bonus. For pure damage per hit to one enemy you'd probably want to go mostly kensie.....maybe with some barbarian thrown in (probably 6 levels) to take advantage of the H-orc rage bonus.

Should end up giving you a +8 strength rage with 6 Barb levels (stacks with power surge for +16 all together).

Add in power attack bonuses, weapon specialization bonuses, kensi bonuses, weapon enhancement bonuses, base strength bonus etc....and you should hit pretty hard with your thrown weapon....but you won't have improved precise shot.....which makes it partially a waste.

Barbarian levels will give you the sprint advantage though (And 10% barbarian speed increase) which is very useful. And honestly there is little advantage gain from fighter 12 to fighter 14.....which leaves 2 levels free to take something else if you want (can't be monk but could be rogue for evasion although shrug...don't really need it).

To be honest though.......barbarian adds very little to the table compared to ranger. Ranger even with only 6 levels gets bark skin, rams might (+2 strength and +2 damage), 2 favored enemies with +4 damage, wand usage, better saves, ITWF, rapid shot (no need to take point blank shot at all...which is a saved feat) and even manyshot (so you can whip out a bow if you really want to, just for the quick many shot damage).

Since you get sprint boost with both.....and honestly Ram's might alone is almost like a constant rage bonus damage wise. I think fighter/ranger > Fighter barbarian.

That being said you could always do both.

Fighter 12/Ranger 6/barbarian 2

Gives you a pretty large universal boost that way.

Fighter 12 gives you greater weapon spec + kensie 2 + weapon enhancement + 7 bonus feats + power surge + 2 strength enhancement, haste boost.

Ranger 6 gives you Rapid shot (no dex needed), Rams might (+3 damage), 2 favored enemies (possible +4 damage), Manyshot (nice to use every so often with an off bow), ITWF (not a bad thing to have sometimes!), Bow strength (yeah...goes with your sick strength when using manyshot), and decent sprint boost.

Barbarian 2 gives you a few rages per rest that will boost your strength by 6 (4 base + 2 from H-orc enhancements), few more hp, fast movement (10%), barbarian power attack (Stacks with H-orc bonus) and barbarian con (nice if you end up with an odd number).

Fighter gives the largest damage boost (+12 damage with thrown weapons)

Barbarian gives +3 damage from rage and +1 from power attack.

Ranger gives +3 more damage (universal) and +4 vs favored enemies.

H-orc gives +2 from strength bonuses (+3 when under 50% health), +3 from power attack.

Net bonus to damage would be +24 damage all together (not vs favored enemies) without including normal strength bonus, weapon bonus etc.

With a +5 thrower and a decent normal strength (18 base + 5 levels + 3 tome + 6 item + 2 minos etc) your talking about +40-+50 damage per throw or so....not too shabby....and really great if you had ips (sadly you won't).

To get IPS though you'd need to give up power surge, kensie 2, improved weapon specialization and your fighter weapon enhancement bonuses which I don't think is worth it. Alternatively you could "try" to get a 19 base dex...(start with a 16 and use a +3 tome eventually). That isn't actually too hard to accomplish to be honest even as a HO and just a 32 point build.

You could go with:

Str 18 (cry) 10 points
Dex 16 (sigh) 10 points
Con 16 (mega sigh) 10 points
Int/cha 6 (duh, I'm fugly) 0 points
wis 10 (easily boosted) 2 points.

That would let you get IPS long term without to much trouble (just need a +3 tome first. Does take out some of the advantages to the ranger setup though (and requires you to get the feats PBS, PS and IPS along with everything else).

Not sure if it's worth it to be honest...but you could make it work. And HO's already rock the two handed weapon department when melee is needed. With your power attack bonuses, two handed weapon bonuses, strength bonuses etc...even without the weapon specialization and kensie bonuses you'll be thrashing stuff big time in melee. Not as much as a specialized axe user mind you........but to be honest at that point I doubt the extra 10 points of damage (4 from weapon spec, 4 from kensie 2, 2 from weapon enhancement) would make a huge amount of difference).

Having a decent throw attack speed with +40 damage per throw.....might.

[Sydril]

at level 20 pure barbarians or 18/2 barb fighters and pure fighters will have the best overall dps on thrower builds. pure rangers are close behind.

[wolfy42]

please explain this.

Fighter bonuses work like this:

+4 damage from feats (level 4 and 12)
+2 damage from kensai enhancements (level 6 and 12)
+2 damage from fighter specialization enhancements (level 8 and 16)
and a +3 bonus to strength which in the best case scenario adds +2 to damage.

That's only +10 and that's being liberal with the strength enhancement damage.

You forgot Power Surge which is 4 more damage (+8 strength).

I only factored in +1 damage from strength (from +2 strength) as I figure the last strength point isn't worth the AP.

Sto +4 from feats +2 from kensie + 1 from enhancement +1 from strength + 4 from Psurge = +12

[wolfy42]

at level 20 pure barbarians and pure fighters will have the best overall dps on thrower builds. pure rangers are close behind.

I'm not sure if thats true when you factor in the other attack speed boosts (quick draw/rapid shot, haste, fighter attack boost), the extra damage you can get from other classes (ram's might, favored enemy, rage etc) might add up to a bit more damage on average then a pure fighter.

I mean ranger + barbarian levels add a significant amount of total damage possible (admitingly some is only vs favored enemies).

6 ranger levels is actually +6 damage I believe (with enhancements) vs 2 favored enemies......and +3 damage from rams might as well. Thats a possible +9 damage right there.

And barbarian levels give +6 strength (+3 damage) and +1 from power attack.

Between the two thats a possible + 13 damage you could get. Saying your base damage is around 40 for your throwers...thats about a 33% increase in damage per hit...which is comparable to a 33% increase in attack speed for DPS (better against DR).

The favored enemies are situational though....but even if you take out that 6 damage your still talking about 7 extra damage...which is about 20% more then base......more then the bonus from fighter cap pretty much.

Of course kensi 3 does give an extra crit range...and you would get the second weapon enhancement....so that would probably make it about even over all (+6 damage without factoring in favored enemies...vs +1 crit range and +10% attack speed).

The ranger/barbarian does have quite a few other bonuses though which should be factored in. The faster movement speed alone is golden (10% all the time + sprint boosts), Rangers ability to max out spot is also vital I would say for any ranged build. It would be important to time your ranger levels just to keep spot maxed in my opinion.

Pure fighter would work...but it would have some serious down sides as well. Damage isn't actually better really over all (very comparable) and you lose out on so many other advantages. Spot, faster movement speeds, Manyshot and bow strength (nice to open up combat with that...then switch to your axe when moving and throwing), higher saving throws, healing wand usage etc.

I'd go with the fighter 12/ranger 6/barbarian 2 probably. You really only need 4 ranger levels but 6 gives you bark skin, more sp, another favored enemy, ITWF (could be useful) and Manyshot, another dex point (+2 from enhancements) and a faster sprint boost.

HO's ability to boost max # of action boosts is also very nice in combo with sprint boosts (in my opinion) and the combo would probably still be quite decent with a 2 handed weapon as well (even without specializing in it.....with HO bonuses, power attack and huge strength you'd still freaking thrash stuff in melee.

In the end you have a very high ranged attack character with a decent ability to use manyshot (in fact you could even go AA I believe although it might get a bit hard to balance all the feats...and it seems silly to do that AND specialize in throwing) and then switch quickly to throwing weapons when manyshot is off.

The advantage to a pure bow user is you do not need to boost dex at all...and have a HUGE boost to AR when moving and throwing weapons. So manyshot is used only when stationary (lasts a short time anyway) and then you switch to throwing weapons, hit sprint and circle the enemies while pelting them with your axes etc.

Could work fairly well....and is fairly versatile, able to self heal decently and would have a good spot (Which I consider vital for any build that intends on using ranged attacks fairly often).

[wolfy42]

For the above build I've been thinking of leveling order and stuff.

Having ranger at lvl 1 is hard to pass up for the bonus skill points and once you take a ranger level it becomes hard to take anything else till you have ram's might at 4.

With Vet status I'd suggest just going pure ranger for the first 4 levels. That allows you to carefully space out your ranger levels after that to keep a decent spot (4 skill points per ranger level and .5 point in spot per level means you need another ranger level every 8 levels to keep it maxed.....which works perfectly.

Leveling order would be something like this then:

Level 1-4 ranger
Level 5 Barbarian (rage and 10% speed boost)
lvl 6-11 fighter
lvl 12 ranger
lvl 13 barbarian (could hold off on this till 19...but with HO rage enhancements it's nice to get the level 2 bonus rage...and the +1 con will be nice by now as well)
lvl 14-19 fighter
lvl 20 ranger.

Should end up with a maxed out spot, decent base jump (and ability to pump it easily if need be with spells), fairly decent balance (Boost it with initial ranger levels) and a few points in tumble (with bonus from dex you'll end up with a positive tumble even in mith full plate).

For the none IPS version you have at lvl 4:

20 base strength + 1 orc enhancement + 1 from lvl 4 = 22 base strength
+2 strength from ram's might = 24 base strength
+4 from bulls (clickies/potions) = 28 base strength

Not include short term rage boosts from rings/potions for now...although that would give you a 30 base. Not using tomes either.

total bonus damage from strength = +9

Additional bonus damage of +2 from ram's and +4 from power attack.

And +2 from the returning throwing axe.

Total bonus to damage would be +17

Not too shabby for a brand new starting character. Can pump that to +18 with rage potions/clickies.

At lvl 5 barbarian level lets you pump that 2 more from normal rage and 2 more for a very short term with barbarian damage boost. Add in 1 more from power attack and max bonus at 5 would be +23.

Level 6 would be a fighter level with 2 bonus feats, but no way to really boost your damage bonus at this point (do get haste boost though!!). Level 7 gives you +1 strength and by god you should have at least a +1 tome munched by now....add in +3 weapon at this level for +25.

Lvl 8 gives you +1 orc strength enhancement and +1 strength for level...along with +4 returning for +27 base damage.

Level 9 gives you weapon spec for +2 more damage......with a nice +29 damage bonus with thrown weapons. It goes up slowly from there (kensi bonus at 11, weapon enhancements and more strength bonuses etc, but doesn't really jump until lvl 17 when you get power surge.

At 17 you'd have power surge, orcish rage 2 (+6 strength from your 2 rages), greater weapon specialization, 1 weapon damage enhancement, kensie 1 and 2, Ram's might, +2 strength from orc, +2 strength from fighter, +3 strength from levels, orc power attack II, barbarian power attack 1.

I think that covers everything.

Thats 20+4+8+6+2+2+3+1+2+2= 50 strength (base + bulls + psurge + rage+ orc enhance + fighter enhance + level + minos. 52 if you use rage potions/rings.

50 strength = +20 damage

Then 5 base power attack +1 barbarian + 2 half orc = 8 bonus damage

2 bonus damage from rams might

4 bonus damage from weapon spec

1 bonus from weapon enhancement

5 bonus damage from base weapon (+5 throwing)

+2 bonus damage from Kensi

Think thats everything. So 20+8+2+4+6+2= +42 damage per hit base by level 17.

I guess if you go with a +6 strength item you could hit 43 and you could pump it up a bit more with equipment....but yeah, low to mid 40's is probably where your damage bonus will end.

Not too shabby though, with a decent attack speed, very fast movement speed and quite high damage in melee with THF in a pinch.

[Ttip]

I love the flavor of it myself and have a Dwarf Paladin that uses a Great Axe and throwing axes and a Dwarf Rogue 1/Monk 1/Tempest Trapmonk that dual weilds dwarven axes and uses throwing axes while manyshot is recovering. Both are a blast and the damage is satisfying to see (even at lower levels). Bow damage is nice but I prefer the feel of a good axe in my fist. Fire a manyshot, throw axes until the mobs close, then whip out the twin Daxes to finish any off that make it to you.

Neither are Epic or Endgame maximizer builds but they both play great in an RP environment.

[unbongwah]

I see this is an old thread, but I posted Angus Axethrower last summer. It's a silly build and certainly not minmaxed, but it amused me to invent it.

[Ttip]

I like Angus and her Halfling counterpart both...lol. All they need are Boots of Kiting and they are set for the run and gun.