It is not worth it for almost anyone. You simply do more damage with iteratives.
The exception is a barbarian using it in cub junction with furious finish.
Or some Druids and their companions - or Rogues with scout-AT!
It's OK if:
1) You have a weapon with big dice (eg enlarged 2H sword or a big bite)
AND
2) You have spare feats and nothing better to do with them
AND
3a) You have to move (or do another MA action) anyway so you won't get iteratives
AND/OR
3b) The enemy has a lot of DR, significant compared to your static bonuses, or a high enough AC so your 2nd attack is likely to miss
But for everyone else, avoid.
@Mudfoot: The Vital Strike ability is even better for instances where one attack is all you ever get, even without moving. Natural Weapons are a prime example. Hence why most people say "Vital Strike is only good for T-Rexs."
@Cryov: Vital Strike in any standard game is hardly good. It gives an extra option, but for the option to maintain any sense of stability, it requires you to be able to spend several feats, of which can be better spent elsewhere and perhaps receiving even more net gain out of the deal.
**EDIT** If you were building Sunder, Vital Strike would've synchronized very well with it, given that RAW, Sunder is an Attack Action. However, there was a FAQ released that stated Sunder works like many other maneuvers, in that it can be substituted with any attack in a given Full Attack Action.
If you are playing a Mythic Game, the Mythic Vital Strike feat is a must-have, since you multiply (nearly) all of your modifiers in accordance to however many sets of weapon damage dice you roll on a successful Vital Strike. In essence, you make a full non-hasted Iterative attack with a single D20, and you either hit all 4 times, or miss all 4 times.
Keep in mind that the roll is made at your highest BAB, so the chances of you missing should be no higher than 5%.
It's a good feat for a fighter when closing distance.
For a fighter it is no problem. Martials often can't full attack and the extra feats for more options are really nothing for a fighter.
Basically, any time your melee damage outpaces your ranged damage by more than double, Vital Strike is nice to have. You can move-and-attack, setting up either a full attack or an opponent being forced to move next turn.
I think you don't value it right, it's amazing.
Take felling smash and vital strike- move - strike - trip- restrike all with full bab.Also - clerics that dont have full bab hit mostly once , so might as well make it cont.
not to mention a Druid hippo - that can 1 bite anything .
Vital Strike has its uses, but they are very limited.
One common instance is being able to Vital Strike when using the Greater Grapple feat. Vital Strike is really only good for a PC when you are limited to a Standard Action for offensive capability, and/or can only make one Attack.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Vital strike isn't worth it. The Vital Strike chain takes 3 feats for something you mostly likely will rarely ever use. I've taken the feat and found I just rarely ever used it. There were the odd time that I did but it rare. Most times I was either charging into to get the +2 to attack or maneuvering so the enemy had to move and attack leaving me to full attack.
Now mabye if the feat just scaled instead costing 3 feats it might be worth it. But at cost of 3 feats it there were just better feats to take.
|
It has helped my Holy Vindicator due to the fact that he doesn't have much of a bonus on his iterative attack, especially when using Furious Focus. Plus the fact that he's usually moving rather than standing still. I'm not sure what feat could replace it and make a noticeable impact to his performance.
|
To the OP, its seems by the posts that its 50/50 as to wheather or not vital strike is useful. So really its up to you to decide. In combat do you get full attacks more then standard attacks? If so then probably not worth it. If you dont get full attacks as often as you'd like then vital strike might be woth it.
If you do a trip build think about what 666bender said.....
Felling smash is a really good option againt tripable opponents if you cant full attack and can be used with vital strike.
With a 2h sword you' get a combo like this...
Vital strike with power attack as standard action, swift action trip from felling smash, AoO from greater trip.
Damage would be 4d6+str+power+misc., trip, 2d6+str+power+misc., all at best attack bonus minus power attack.
Now enlarge or lead blades or impact enchantment
Damage would be 6d6 etc, trip, 3d6 etc.
Now add in lead blades or impact AND enlarge.
Damage would be 8d6 etc, trip, 4d6 etc.
Of course this is just a corner case....:p
|
It has helped my Holy Vindicator due to the fact that he doesn't have much of a bonus on his iterative attack, especially when using Furious Focus. Plus the fact that he's usually moving rather than standing still. I'm not sure what feat could replace it and make a noticeable impact to his performance.
I'm planning to take Vital Strike on my melee Oracle for this same reason. Even with a fighter dip for a few levels, his to-hit is lagging behind, and hitting with an iterative will be unlikely. So hitting for big damage when he does hit is appealing. Combining Vital Strike with Furious Focus and an Elven Curved Blade (soon to be Keen) means 2D10 normal, 4D8 if he's enlarged, and 6D8 if he can find a way to cast Lead Blades (UMD from a wand or a spell storing ioun stone or something. Keen and Impact would be great, but this is in PFS, and it'll be a while before I have an extra 24,000 gold to add Impact). 4D10, 8D8, or 12D8 when he crits. Plus, it gives me the option of casting Grace and moving into a flank while still dealing good damage.
personally, I plan on getting vital strike for my musket master (when i build him) at 7th level, just as a giant middle finger to any casters.
I think you would want to use the dead shot deed for that? It is a ful round action but is almost the same just better. IMOP
Or some Druids and their companions - or Rogues with scout-AT!
Why is it good for the rogue Scout AT?
It works for 2-handed Fighters fairly well, getting close to the equivalent of 2 1h weapon attacks (but no enchantment bonuses or weapon training 2x). And Mythic Vital Strike is just flat-out silly good.
I think the 2 handed dude is already better than the guy with 2 weapons. But i agree in that vital strike is for some one with Big dice weapons and on the move.
If you've got abilities that require a move action, it can be a pretty good choice. We've got a 2-handed sword wielding ranger in the Skull and Shackles game we're playing. He has the freebooter archetype which trades move actions for combat bonuses for the lot of us (and that includes the crew so the abilities are very valuable in a fight against another ship). Because he's getting iterative rates less often, vital strike is a good trade.
And to answer Cap. Darling, the rogue scout archetype gains sneak attack dice if he moves more than 10 feet and attacks. Since that usually precludes getting the iterative attack, vital strike allows him to increase his damage on top of the sneak attack.
...
And to answer Cap. Darling, the rogue scout archetype gains sneak attack dice if he moves more than 10 feet and attacks. Since that usually precludes getting the iterative attack, vital strike allows him to increase his damage on top of the sneak attack.
Thanks i get it now :)
|
|
If you've got abilities that require a move action, it can be a pretty good choice. We've got a 2-handed sword wielding ranger in the Skull and Shackles game we're playing. He has the freebooter archetype which trades move actions for combat bonuses for the lot of us (and that includes the crew so the abilities are very valuable in a fight against another ship). Because he's getting iterative rates less often, vital strike is a good trade.
Which brings up a good question. What other useful things can you do with a move-equivalent action? Preferably that are not tied to a particular class.
Improved Feint, for one.
Take Accelerated Drinker. Round 1: Attack, 5' back draw a potion. Round 2: Drink Potion, 5', Attack. Probably a good chance at some point you'll eat an attack of opportunity doing this, though, since the enemy could always 5' up to you in between.
What else?
I use vital strike on my Cleric of Gorum. Of course I didn't actually take the feat, I use the domain power to get free access to it. He is a big hit build with a spell storing sword (inflict wounds stored in it). As a result hits amazingly hard. Once i have my swift action freed up (2nd round of combat) I add channeled smite. Lots of dice, large bonuses to damage after dice. Usually drops enemies with one hit, no need for full attacks, needs to move more as a result.
Vital strike on a 2d6 weapon is +7 average damage as long as don't full attack. Personally I've found that one shotting or 2 shotting the enemy means you don't get that many full attacks in the first place.
As others have mentioned, moving around a lot is a good reason to take VS. If you're mounted, it especially comes in handy.
I had a barbarian with vital strike and the rage power bestial leaper. It worked really well. Combined with furious focus and a large bastard sword, he could dish out pretty good damage. Our games typically don't go high level so I don't know how long it would be viable. Being able to move in, strike for large damage, then move back out of range; was quite fun.
Spring Attack + Vital Strike? I think its been confirmed these work together. As it by wording says spring attack allows you to move into range, make an attack action and then move again.
|
|
One of these days, I'd like to try a Vital Strike build built around the Brother of the Seal PrC. BotS levels count towards advancement of Unarmed Strike, Stunning Fist, and FoB. You also get Awesome Blow based on your Unarmed Strike damage. Later, Hands of Stone lets you count as one size larger for Unarmed Strike damage while Rapid Slam lets you make an Awesome Blow on, among other things, standard attack actions which lets you combine Vital Strike with Awesome Blow. Cascading Strike lets you Awesome Blow targets into other targets, dealing Unarmed Strike damage against all subsequent targets.
I'm thinking as follows: Drunken Master 4/Unarmed Fighter 1/BotS 9. You'll be an effective Large Monk 13 for Unarmed Strike (3d6 damage). 2 more levels of Monk (or 1 BotS + 1 Monk) plus Monk Robes gets you lvl 20 4d8 damage which, with Improved Vital Strike, becomes 12d8 damage and, if you Awesome Blow with this Vital Strike, each subsequent target in the chain takes 4d8 damage. Drunken Master will provide the Ki points to reliably use it against medium or large targets.
*If your GM lets this fly, congratulations, but he will probably not.
Be ranger, multi-class into barbarian and[maybe] two handed fighter, Vital strike tree + large bastard sword + lead blade + enlarge + impact weapon + furious finish... do the math... ouch.
Using Vital Strike as your primary sausage grinder rarely works out, but it's a fantastic situational feat.
If you're playing more of a Stand Still or ranged warrior or otherwise have some way of ensuring that the thing you want to hit is always within reach, skip Vital Strike. I find my fighters have to move around the field a lot, so Vital Strike is pretty efficient in those cases, and in fact it's better for a two-handed fighter because the dice being doubled tend to be larger.
Note: If you're playing mythic rules, Mythic Vital Strike is sick.
|
|
Warpriests can pick it up 2 levels sooner than when they get their second iterative attack. Combine that with Greater Weapon of the Chosen and you're rolling twice to see if you can hit once. If you can do whatever you can to make yourself hit harder (Power Attack, swift buff spells, enhanced weapons, etc) you're going to be hitting like a truck and not much will be able to withstand the onslaught.
Spring Attack + Vital Strike? I think its been confirmed these work together.Sadly, no.
oddly enough it does work with fly-by attack.
i was going to mention bestial leaper for it too, but you covered that before i remembered.
there's even that ACG feat for bestial leaper that lets you fly for a bit too (though there's no need for fly-by attack in such a case, flight is still super handy to have on a mundane).
tack on the usual weapon size shenanigans (large-sized bastard sword--or dwarven waraxe if you're a dwarf--with the impact enchant), grab the vital strikes (though you'd need at least 5 levels in a full-BAB class to get the last vital strike feat) and you should be golden.
for WP it's a shame you cant get the rage domain for furious finish too (ragathiel sacred servant pally is pretty beast). unless you can.
example:
big-hit paladin of RAGE
str 28 (5+2), dex 18 (2), con 20 (5), int 18 (2) , wis 16 (1-2), cha 28 (5+2)
str/str/cha/cha/wis (level), +6 all (gear), +4 str/cha (book/wish)
traits: magical knack (paladin) / ???
divine bond: +5 LoH/day
LoH: 25/day (w/ bracers of merciful knight)
rage powers:
15 - lesser celestial totem
19 - reckless abandon
feats:
1 - Fey Foundling
3 - Power Attack
5 - Channel Smite
7 - Vital Strike
9 - Greater Mercy
11 - Improved Vital Strike
13 - Furious Finish
15 - Devastating Strike
17 - Greater Vital Strike
19 - Ultimate Mercy
example weapon: +5 furious courageous conductive impact inheritor's light (ISG pg 256, despite the name it's not actually iomedae-specific)
breakdown: impact longsword (2d6) -> GVS (8d6), +7 enhancement, +15 PA, +18 STR, +6 devastating strike, +10d6 conductive (LoH), +10d6 channel smite, +40 smite, +11 destructive smite, +2d6 bane baldric
Pop furious finish to deal 222-277 damage (145 + 22d6 (77 avg, 132 max)) before buffs.
You can then cure your fatigue via swift action LoH (fatigue mercy) on yourself.
the whole combo eats 5 LoH uses each (2 conductive, 2 channel smite, 1 to heal fatigue next turn) though, so this is definitely a 'nova' tactic.
aside from that you can just heal yourself for ~111 (11d6 (avg ~38.5) +20 totem +22 foundling +20 FCB +11 weapon) hp.
as a swift action--or an immediate action with heroic defiance if an enemy somehow slogs through all that healing.
every round for 25 rounds straight if need be.
hilariously tough to kill, can move and fight without issue.
Vital Strike can be really good if you have some way of massively increasing your damage dice. I used it quite a bit in a game where we were using the Dreamscarred Press Psionic rules, since I was running a half-giant (so swinging a large weapon) who could increase his size by two categories, and then swing an Impact weapon on top of that. The end result being an 8d6 greatsword. Full attacks were still doing better damage, but it was way too much fun to roll 32 dice when I was doing a level 16+ vital strike.