Dwarven Defender Iniative

[tomaan]

Jun 2, 2016 12:52:52 GMT Paradoom said:

The dual wielding of dwd axes is nice , but with howler very badly to realise. U do not have room to pick up the lbh feats and your ac is quite low. On top you get no imms like a barb from a shield and you have a significant lower damage output. In addition you have to craft and collect twice as many weapons. I have one such dwd but I went with kolyarut and pushed the ab problem with splashing wm. The physical imms are just about what a barb has and I need top randomised gear to make it work. Not to mention it cannot pick up even a single lbh feat. Originally I planed to go with perfect health and a strength artefact but especially with the recent changes this is out of the question. Plus getting con high enough is next to impossible anyway.

Agreed. I've abandoned all dual wield DwD builds. The only time I've ever used dual wield axes is on fighters (and one of those struggled a bit until demi)

[clangeddin]

I may be only a lowly level 30, but so far my only problem with the Dwarven Defender is the following:
Defensive Weave does not work if your high AC is too high and the enemies can't hit you.
I was against the final Bog Hag in the Blood Coven yesterday and, to defeat her, I had to remove equipment and lower my AC, so she could hit me and strike her back with the Defensive Weave.
Isn't it silly that one of your maneuvers becomes stronger as you remove equipment? And it becomes worse if you combine it with another of your class ability? (Defensive Stance)
The dwarven defender also gets innate bonuses to shield and natural AC via CON and STR, this sends contradicting a message: Is the dwarven defender supposes to have high AC or not?
My suggestion would be to decide what is it gonna be:
1) Is the Dwarven Defender a low AC class? If yes, then rework the STR and CON AC bonuses into resistances and immunities, elemental as well, since just physical wouldn't cut it in the long run.
2) Is the Dwarven Defender a high AC class? If yes, then rework Defensive Weave to make sure it works regardless of your AC.
That's all I can think of right now, my two cents. Then I'm sure that at the higher levels there could be other issues, but this is what I observed so far.

[desocupado]

Well, since AC and resistance are cumulative defenses - I see little point in not using a shield along with Taunt aura. If you are alive and taunting the party is happier.

On my howler build I've gotten all 4 Legendary Battle Hardening (+5% phy imm each - require Con 25) allowing me to reach over 100% phy without good randomization (and get a buffer for layer penalties). My point is if you don't use that Con+6 there is little point on using howler over koly.

One issue with the axe's AC is the modifier for medium dual wield weapons (-4AB) - tough the +12 AC makes it more than twice as good as expertise - the problem being dual wielding comparatively terrible over two handed wielding.


I think the Paragon Battlehardening would be better as a class feature - And it could stop physical vulnerability infliction altogether instead. The other ideas seem pretty spot on.

[tomaan]

Just had another thought. Since tanks' biggest problem is gear dependence, why not make battle hardening replace some of that? For example:

Battle Hardening/Paragon Battle Hardening:
DwD lvl 40: physical + elemental immunity
DwD lvl 45: physical + elemental + exotic immunity
DwD lvl 50: physical + elemental + exotic + 1 unique resistance

"unique" resistances could be: reduce hostile environment penalties, kb/bleed immunity/reduction, save swap (apply Fort save to either Will OR Reflex - have to pick one!), "absolute" poison immunity (even effects normally bypass poison immunity), natural FOM, FOM during Stoneguard, etc.

And since dwarves are naturally resistant to spells, you could also throw in spell level immunity: 1 lvl/8 Dwd lvls + 1 at DwD lvl 50 (i.e. 7th level spells are lower)

That would take care of a lot of gear needs without making them over-powered - might even make them more useful/approachable for newbs?

[simpetar]

Dec 17, 2016 9:28:12 GMT clangeddin said:

I may be only a lowly level 30, but so far my only problem with the Dwarven Defender is the following:
Defensive Weave does not work if your high AC is too high and the enemies can't hit you.
I was against the final Bog Hag in the Blood Coven yesterday and, to defeat her, I had to remove equipment and lower my AC, so she could hit me and strike her back with the Defensive Weave.
Isn't it silly that one of your maneuvers becomes stronger as you remove equipment? And it becomes worse if you combine it with another of your class ability? (Defensive Stance)
The dwarven defender also gets innate bonuses to shield and natural AC via CON and STR, this sends contradicting a message: Is the dwarven defender supposes to have high AC or not?
My suggestion would be to decide what is it gonna be:
1) Is the Dwarven Defender a low AC class? If yes, then rework the STR and CON AC bonuses into resistances and immunities, elemental as well, since just physical wouldn't cut it in the long run.
2) Is the Dwarven Defender a high AC class? If yes, then rework Defensive Weave to make sure it works regardless of your AC.
That's all I can think of right now, my two cents. Then I'm sure that at the higher levels there could be other issues, but this is what I observed so far.

Defensive Weave stops to be an effective tool for dealing damage as you gain levels and move to harder areas. The reason is that monsters will begin to resist it (eventually to the point when you see bunch of single digit numbers and then plain 0s) and the damage you deal with Defensive Weave will be way too costly - in general you do NOT want to get hit (you will probably see why when you first encounter cpt. Angus Materi in Zhentarim Outpost who can easily hit for over 400 damage and he swings fast). At later stages DwDs tend to forego Defensive Weave and Defensive Stance and focus only on Draw Foes that can help the party.

DwDs are typically mid-high AC tanks with loads of immunities. It is fairly easy to get near or even over 100% to physical + 3-4 key elemental types and decent enough immunities in the rest. Depending on gear ofc.

1) It is possible to go with low AC depending on resistances and immunities, but not advisable. Sooner or later you will be facing mobs that inflict vulnerabilities with each hit (or without). Your soaking abilities will protect you for a short time before you need a restoration and you need to be constantly on your toes.

2) High AC is the prefered way to go. Especially with extensive use of Draw Foes it comes in handy. Defensive Weave as I wrote above will be of little use - but that is the issue of nearly every damage shield there is out there. It causes far more trouble than it's worth.