Stunning Blow

[Treepower]

Is Stunning Blow worth it?

[Myrddinman]

Wow, that's a loaded question

There are so many answers to this...it would help to know what your goals for the character are.

[unbongwah]

Is Stunning Blow worth it?

Like all tactics feats, it's worth it if you can get your DCs high enough to make it worth it. Ofc, w/out knowing anything else about your build, it's impossible to say if you can or not...

[Treepower]

Wow, that's a loaded question

There are so many answers to this...it would help to know what your goals for the character are.

My goal is to find a way to do quick kills, stun->helpless->dead, but i want to know if this feat is good enough for this, doesn't matter what's the build, just if it's good enough

[Dexraven]

Its a good feat, stunned mobs don't talk back and die much faster, i love it on my barb and fighter.

If you don't get high strength and fit in a stunning/dazing (whatever its called) item and get your DC up then it loses its worth.

[Treepower]

[QUOTE=Dexraven;5164999]Its a good feat, stunned mobs don't talk back and die much faster, i love it on my barb and fighter.

If you don't get high strength and fit in a stunning/dazing (whatever its called) item and get your DC up then it loses its worth.[/QUOTE

What's high strength?

[Myrddinman]

As mentioned, Stunning Blow is great if you can get the DC high enough, which is tough to do without a decent investment...
- Super high Strength
- Stunning/Dazing item +10
- Some sort of Tactics boost (Racial, Equipment, Epic Destinies)

If you really want to build a character around Stunning (quite powerful, by the way), a Monk Stunner would be superior, as Stunning Fist (Monk exclusive feat) takes 1/2 your character level when considering the DC. Plus the cooldown for Stunning Fist is much, much shorter, allowing you to stun more often. Add in the increased attack speed that Monks get, and it blows Stunning Blow away. Stunning Fist uses Wisdom, whereas Stunning Fist uses Strength for DC calculations. This being said, having a decent Strength would also be important on a Stunning Fist build, which means you can take Stunning Blow as well (if you have the feat slots for it) so that you can rotate...Stunning Fist--->Stunning Blow--->Stunning Fist

[Myrddinman]

What's high strength?

Well, it will depend on the level of content you are looking to run. If you are aiming to be Stunning in Epic Elite content, then I believe you will need your Stun DC at least 50. And since Stunning Blow DC is calculated as (10 + Strength Modifier + Items + Enhancements), you would need about a 50 Strength (I think) plus Stunning +10 item, along with a Combat Mastery item, in addition to some investment in Tactics Heroic enhancements and Epic Destinies to hit a pretty solid DC.

[Treepower]

As mentioned, Stunning Blow is great if you can get the DC high enough, which is tough to do without a decent investment...
- Super high Strength
- Stunning/Dazing item +10
- Some sort of Tactics boost (Racial, Equipment, Epic Destinies)

If you really want to build a character around Stunning (quite powerful, by the way), a Monk Stunner would be superior, as Stunning Fist (Monk exclusive feat) takes 1/2 your character level when considering the DC. Plus the cooldown for Stunning Fist is much, much shorter, allowing you to stun more often. Add in the increased attack speed that Monks get, and it blows Stunning Blow away. Stunning Fist uses Wisdom, whereas Stunning Fist uses Strength for DC calculations. This being said, having a decent Strength would also be important on a Stunning Fist build, which means you can take Stunning Blow as well (if you have the feat slots for it) so that you can rotate...Stunning Fist--->Stunning Blow--->Stunning Fist

nice info but i still don't know one thing, what's a high str for stunning blow(50, 40, 35)?

[redspecter23]

nice info but i still don't know one thing, what's a high str for stunning blow(50, 40, 35)?

That is at least partly dependant on your build. A barbarian is more likely to get his stun DC from a high strength score, while a fighter is likely to get some from tactics and shorter bursts. It also depends on what difficulty you're aiming for. Your questions don't have answers as simple as you think they are. For example, if you don't plan on running epic elite content, but stick to epic hard, you can get by with a DC much lower and easier to achieve. I'd say a 40 strength (depending on your class breakdown) will work fine. For epic elite, you'll want at least a 50 standing strength score with other burst str buffs to land stuns. This doesn't include the other forms of DC increase like epic destinies, feats, past lives, items, etc. It's not just a high strength you're looking for. You need all the little additional things, especially for epic elite.

[Treepower]

ty for the help, i have what i need