With all the support its gotten recently its really begun to shine as a build defining feat. There are a bunch of ways you can use it from the classic barbarians furious finish, all the way to the warpriests cleaving smash being a martial fireball if you have reach.
What are your favorite ways to use vital strike? What fits in to a vital strike build nicely? Has there been any vital strike combo you feel has been overlooked?
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I have a musket-wielding character who uses the mysterious stranger archetype. Because of this, he can never reload his musket faster than a move action, meaning he can basically never make multiple attacks. For him, Vital Strike is awesome, as it lets him get a little closer to two shot's worth of damage with each attack, while sacrificing nothing other than the feat.
what kind of suport has it gotten? outside of making your greatsword colossal sized for damage dice how is it useful in anyway?
Bunches of feats, Cleaving smash from weapon masters handbook being a standout. It let's you get one step lower vital strikes on your cleave targets, which with a dwarf cleaver can get pretty insane, i.e. martial fireball.
As an example, my current warpriest of Gorum will eventually be able to attack everyone within 25 feet of him for 8d6+18 while hitting his original target for 11d6+18.
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MageHunting.
Readied Vital Strikes with a bow to interrupt spellcasting. Can completely shut down an unprepared spellcaster.
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There's only two cases that I consider Vital Strike to be a good feat. One is combined with mythic Vital Strike, but mythic pretty rare so that barely counts. Second is Barbarian 1/ Druid x wilshaping into a large damage die form and performing Vital Strikes with Furious Finish. Extra points if you go cave druid and wildshape into a carnivorous crystal form. Other than that, it's seems fairly mediocre, even after several feats. Not that it's useless, or bad in all cases, but like TOZ points out, there's usually better feats to be had.
I made an elf barbarian that took the Raging Leaper rage power (or whatever it's called) that is essentially Spring Attack, but the kind of Spring Attack that works with Vital Strike, and combined it with an Elven Curveblade. The elf favored class bonus gave me a speed of 47 (45) feet at 7th level.
Thanks! I think Raging Leaper is the prerequisite, which is fine, since I like to jump around the battle mat like a crazy person.
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MageHunting.
Readied Vital Strikes with a bow to interrupt spellcasting. Can completely shut down an unprepared spellcaster.
So can a normal bow shot, except you don't need to spend 3 Feats on it that are practically worthless at any other time. 1d8+12 or more is still a pretty hefty Concentration check to pass.
Even better, you can then spend those 3 Feats on something that does work on a prepared spellcaster, so you can send a flurry of arrows downrange to get rid of those Mirror Images, or ignore their Blur or Displacement. And then when they're dead, they can't cast any more.
Wind Wall and its ilk screw you either way, of course, but again you haven't wasted 3-4 extra Feats now.
Hmm I got it ill get a cart and carry a cannon around At most ill only get to shoot once every other round but vital strike should pump up the damage on that by quite a bit.
I always felt if you just house ruled it to be able to be used on a charge it works fine if your using a two hander. I don't compare all my builds to the top tier builds however.
The Heritor Knight PrC from Paths of the Righteous can apply the Vital Strike chain to any standard action attack at level 6, and gets a number of standard-action special attacks built in. Should enable Vital Strike to combine with many other standard action special attacks as well as a mounted charge under certain circumstances.
On topic, though, I like Vital Strike for my character's wolf animal companion. Having only one attack is a bit of a drag, but I don't like wandering around Ustalav with a tiger, and Vital Strike adds a much-needed damage boost in between polymorph spells and charges.
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"I'm bleeding! That makes me the victor!"
I like vital strike on characters with 3/4 bab. If you're using power attack, that second hit is probably not going to connect anyways, so get the most out of your one swing and save your move action.
My Holy Vindicator took it for just that reason. Furious Focus pairs nicely, as he tends to move and attack more often than full attack.
The Vigilante option for it is nice too- Vital Strike on AoO makes the Mesmerist's Command spell or your successful trip a lot nastier.
The Vigilante option for it is nice too- Vital Strike on AoO makes the Mesmerist's Command spell or your successful trip a lot nastier.
Vital strike on AOO's hu? What's it called and how deep into vigilante do you have to go to get it?
The Vigilante option for it is nice too- Vital Strike on AoO makes the Mesmerist's Command spell or your successful trip a lot nastier.Vital strike on AOO's hu? What's it called and how deep into vigilante do you have to go to get it?
Just one AoO per round, not all of them. Vital Punishment requires Vigilante 6, but you ignore the BAB requirement. If you take the rest of the Vital Strike line, that also applies on the AoO.
One is combined with mythic Vital Strike, but mythic pretty rare so that barely counts.
good luck getting a GM to allow it as written - although in the 1 PFS scenario with mythic you could do it - it's pretty ridiculous dmg as written - say you've got a 3d6 wep (large greatsword for example), with improved vital strike + Mythic vital strike and get +15 as a dmg mod, you'd get 9d6+135 - and those are pretty low numbers for the point which you'd have those feats (lvl 11)
Wait, what happened?
Vital strike has been on my radar for a long time. Now I'm trying to decide between a living monolith beatstick that invests 100% in it or a 2H Shadowdancer that uses the single feat boost to help with a little extra damage.
I could see a two handed weapon or ranged weapon slayer making good use of Vital Strike to free up movement actions for studied target, sneak attack positioning, and moving to stay hidden while sniping.
In a normal, run of the mill, non-mythic campaign going from level 1 to 12, what build makes the best use of Vital Strike though? Does anyone have a really compelling Vital Strike build?
It just seems to me that freeing up movement is nice, but the cost in feats is high, and every time you don't use it you're basically playing at a feat handicap.
Pretty good on warpriests
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Warpriest will always have the next vital strike feat available before the next iterative. Vital Strike works with greater weapon of the chosen to allow you to roll twice, greatly increasing your accuracy and your chances of a critical hit. If you worship gorum, you can vital strike on a charge, which also allows vital strike on an aoo.
Vital Strike needs some investment, true. On the other hand, it saves you from some investment, if you focus on it:
a) It's relatively easy to hit with a natural 2 or better, so you can skip pure attack boosters like Weapon Focus.
b) Criticals are much less relevant, because your big dice weapon usually has no impressive range / high multiplier, you attack only once per round and damage from Vital Strike feats is not subject to crits anyway. Confirming a crit is no issue either, see a). So you can save yourself some crit feats etc..
c) You don't have to make full-attacks work as often as possible. Pounce and related abilities come at a high price, after all. This includes workarounds like Outslug Sprint.
I enjoy using Vital Strike with crossbow builds. I haven't actually played it, but I've always liked the idea of a Ranger with Gravity Bow using a Heavy Crossbow and Grasping Strike.
I mean, no crossbow build is going to be winning DPR contests (other than maybe the Bolt Ace), but sometimes you just want to use a big crossbow and make one attack per round that does a fair amount of damage. For that, Vital Strike wins IMO.
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In a normal, run of the mill, non-mythic campaign going from level 1 to 12, what build makes the best use of Vital Strike though? Does anyone have a really compelling Vital Strike build?
For many martials combat has three phases:
1) Close with the enemy.2) Full attack each other until someone dies.
3) Close with another enemy.
Many combat monsters I've seen excel in phase 2 (often running out of targets before running out of attacks) but struggle in phase 1 and 3. The idea is to trade out a few feats to increase the phase 1 and 3 effectiveness at the cost of phase 2 effectiveness. There are many other ways to do this (Lunge, Pounce, friends with Dimension Door, Letting the enemy charge you) but this is just another option.
Taking a small hit to something your character excels at (full attack) to improve something they are worse at (move and attack).
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I will say that as a GM I've often had monsters take advantage of Vital Strike for pretty much the same reasons mentioned above -- it lets them move and attack much more effectively.
It also combos very nicely with Flyby Attack.
It also combos very nicely with Flyby Attack.
I was pretty bummed when I was building a character with Spring Attack and it turns out that you can't Vital Strike with Spring Attack anymore, like you could back in 2010 when I last checked.
There should totally be a Swashbuckler specific option to combine the two...
RPG Superstar 2011 Top 32
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I also like VS, but one should recognize it for what it is: a consolation prize when you can't full attack. It makes single attack actions better, and is in fact a better damage boost on one attack than most feats - compare even a d4 weapon (average 2.5) to Weapon Specialization. Very few feats can give you +2-12 damage on an attack. But it really doesn't replace full attacking. I take it on martials, and I use it when I have to move and attack, or when staggered, or otherwise when my situation doesn't allow full attacking. Used for that purpose it's a perfectly cromulent feat.
There's also Strike True, which allows you to spend your move action for +4 to hit. Shame about the Combat Expertise pre-req, though.
Human cleric of Gorum, negative energy channeling. Level 1 start with channel smite and guided hand. Destruction and Strength (Ferocity) domains. Power Attack, Furious Focus, Vital Strike.
Get your greatsword plus channel energy plus double smite plus vital strike plus wisdom plus power attack all in one attack.