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Leaving aside subjective disagreements about ranking, there are some things you have written about feats that seem to be a bit off about what the function of the feats is.
Snagging Strike - you talk about it being a way to make a target flat-footed to a 3rd attack, but this isn't a Press.
Assisting Shot is clearly referring to the pre-errata version. The basic mechanic of the feat isn't what you rated, anymore.
Mauler Dedication - one of the main purposes of this for a fighter is to make using TWF feats with sword and board actually work properly from levels 5-18, by giving you full proficiency on anything with a 2H trait.
Thanks for doing this. It is always good to see different views.
You really like your Certain Strike feat. Interesting that is never a feat that appealed to me. I tend to maximise reactions instead. Yes I imagine it can be good in the right game if you have some good damage types.
Very interesting! I disagree on some points, however. Firstly, the DPR table, while still useful, is built on a flawed assumption that Fighter should spend all three actions in combat attacking. This does happen, but it's generally a recipe for failure - PF2 is a deeply tactical game, and making a Strike at -10 is, generally, way worse than repositioning, Demoralizing, or Aiding an ally (you also Aid without any MAP, as the roll occurs on another turn, making it very easy to crit against DC 20). Even with Exacting Strike (which is a mediocre feat due to the fact that it requires three consecutive Strikes to be useful and even then only allows you to make one Strike out of three at -5 instead of -10 around two thirds of the time - and Strike at -5 is worse than it sounds, because with their inherent attack bonus Fighter often crits on 16-18+, an advantage that is wasted on iterative attacks), situations where you are better off mindlessly attacking instead of doing literally anything else are rather rare. And, as I already mentioned, Fighters usually have attack bonus high enough to crit on 18-19+ even against boss monsters. Average attack bonus of a 10th level Fighter is 23; average AC of a 10th level creature is 29. Fighter crits on a 16. Having a Bard in your party only serves to widen the gap.
That's also the reason why Fatal is generally good on Fighters. Against most opponents, Pick + Light Pick Double Slice Fighter is the most damaging build in the game by virtue of making two extremely accurate Strikes that deal obscene damage on crits. And you crit a lot with this build.
Sudden Charge is good just because it often saves an action. It's really powerful even if done only once per combat, mostly because most combats are very short, and the first round is the one that matters most. Tools to cheat action economy are few and far between, and Sudden Charge is both extremely cheap as a 1st level feat and extremely consistent. The difference between opening a combat with two Strides and a Strike, and Sudden Charge with another action, be it Demoralize, Aid, or another Strike, is staggering.
Knockdown is better than Trip + Exacting Strike against opponents with low AC. Not getting to Trip on a miss is less of a concern when you hit on 6+, and making a second "attack" without MAP is very good. Besides, it's absolutely invaluable if you use a two-handed weapon without Trip trait, because you literally can't Trip an enemy otherwise without needing to spend an Interact action to re-grip your weapon afterwards.
Advanced Weapon Training is a waste of a feat. Just take a Red Mantis Assassin dedication.
Savage Critical is not that good too, because it very often does nothing on your first (and sometimes second) attack, and because Doubling Rings exist. Thus, you spend an 18th level feat for a 5% damage increase on your follow-up attacks, and you generally want to avoid the third one anyway. A damage increase is a damage increase, but that's rather pathetic - just take a lower level feat instead.
Archer archetype has a secondary bebefit of making you as accurate with bows as with finesse weapons, so Archer Fighter becomes a competent switch-hitter. Rather good with occasional Felling Strike taken with Combat Flexibility when flying enemies inevitably show up. Blessed One is an incredible option for out-of-combat healing, giving Lay on Hands at the cost of a 2nd level feat - a focus spell that blows Treat Wounds out of the water. Marshal is immensely good with other martials in the party, especially if you don't have a Bard.
PF2 is a deeply tactical game, and making a Strike at -10 is, generally, way worse than ...
Yeah but I think that is where he is going with Certain Strike. If you have some static damage adds, it is OK damage on those low odds attacks on your primary target.
For a level 10 Fighter that is probably 8+ damage just from Strength and weapon specialization on a normal failure.
Which makes it a reasonable alternative to all those other third actions.
Yeah but I think that is where he is going with Certain Strike.
Which is a feat you only get access to at the 10th level, which is half the game away - and groups generally play on lower levels more than on higher ones. I concede that once you get Certain Strike, striking thrice is acceptable, but not before.
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I like the analysis of weapon traits based on comparison to weapons with no traits and whether a given trait is worth it or not.
I think the Investigator MC is good for critfishing in addition to out of combat utility. And having a free recall Knowledge or several can bring great value to your party too.
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There's a lot of interesting analysis in this guide, but I would agree that it's better to take 2 actions available for attacking as your point of evaluation. Almost every round you need to take some action to...
- Deal with a skill challenge gimmick in the encounter
- Move out of being flanked
- Move to set up a flank
- Move to block enemy paths to fragile PCs
- Move to harass fragile enemies
- Move to close in on the next enemy
- Raise a shield or take other defensive action
When you're taking 2 Strikes more than 3, also the value of Press feats goes down a bunch.
Thank you for this! I love reading people's opinions and analysis on all the options in this game.
I noticed something in your analysis for Certain Strike though:
For example, with a cold iron weapon against a Balor, a higher level fighter could easily end up dealing close to 70 damage per round, even while rolling all 1’s.
I may misunderstand the math but in case you don't have such a powerful bonus that a nat 1 is still 10 above a balor's AC it would be a critical failure which doesn't gain any benefit from Certain Strike the way I read it.
Thanks for making this ^_^
Looks great, glad you comment on the great combo that is assimar + certain strike
For more damage calculations or making graphs you can use the tools I made here
For first level feats exacting strike seems over rated, it's like a 5% increase in expected damage, and I'm curious why reactive shield is not blue. Reactive shield and double slice are feats you need to take to enable those builds and should never be avoided.
I noticed something in your analysis for Certain Strike though:For example, with a cold iron weapon against a Balor, a higher level fighter could easily end up dealing close to 70 damage per round, even while rolling all 1’s.I may misunderstand the math but in case you don't have such a powerful bonus that a nat 1 is still 10 above a balor's AC it would be a critical failure which doesn't gain any benefit from Certain Strike the way I read it.
Indeed, you need to fail, not crit fail. But Certain strike is nice indeed. You could even consider, if hasted, to do Strike (haste) - CS - CS - CS if your chances of hitting are low. But it seems very highly valued in the guide.
On the guide: I think Sawtooth saber and Unconventional weaponry do combine, as you need to be trained in SS to become a RMA. So in Mediogalti Island the SS is probably common enough, otherwise you'd never have RMAs.
I'll add it to my resources site if you don't mind.
"If a feat, magic item, spell, or other effect does not list a critical success or critical failure, treat it as an ordinary success or failure instead"
You learn something new everyday, thanks!
The Press trait has a specific phrasing saying that their Failure effects are not activated on Critical Failures (overriding the general rule).
I think of Exacting Strike as an indicator of a bad build.
There should be better things one plans to do with one's third action before factoring in that the Fighter needs to miss on their 2nd action w/ this specific Press rather than a better Press (which one should have by the time Haste becomes a regular factor).
And it doesn't jive well with several combat styles, especially shield users. It only seems to help with a two-handed non-Reach weapon wielder who does not skirmish (which they often must do), yet can reach opponents in one move (to beat Sudden Charge).
Then again, this might hinge on "better" since many of your arguments seems based around damage when tactics and defense matter much more in PF2 than 3.X/PF1.
Thinking in terms of a 2-action round works best IMO because so often the enemies are forcing your 3rd action via their hampering abilities or stepping away.
Certain Strike seems the realm of small-die weapon users, otherwise Combat Reflexes or some other way to get an extra attack seems better (or an attack when you usually couldn't like via Sudden Leap or Disruptive Stance).
I agree with the most part of your answer, particularly about Red Mantis Assassin - yes, AWT is good for avoiding roleplay obligations - but...
Knockdown at best situational against low-AC
Knockdown is still very good for two-handed weapon users whose weapons dont have Trip trait. There are no d12 weapons with this trait, Guisarme is often thought of as overpowered due to the combination of Reach and Trip, and Scythe is still inferior on damage for most of the game. If you're using Maul or Greatsword, Knockdown becomes your only tool to Trip your enemies while retaining action economy.
In my opinion, by building for Dexterity, you will take a damage decrease on what you are good at (melee combat) in exchange for better performance with something that is only useful situationally (Archery).
Finesse weapons have an added benefit of skyrocketing your Reflex saves late in the game and making you way less vulnerable in case of an ambush. That's a trade of offense for defense - not a very fair one, but a trade nonetheless. Besides, one-handed Fighter can do rather well with a Shortsword. Agile weapons don't go beyond d6 anyway - at this point, can as well do Dex. On a side note, Archer Fighter with Ranger multiclass deals more damage than Flurry Archer Ranger in majority of situations. With Fighter you get +2/-3/-8 to-hit, with Ranger - +0/-3/-6, thus trading a much better first attack for better third one and occasional fourth or fifth one. And Ranger doesn't get Certain Strike, and has to spend a minimum of two action a turn to attack effectively (Hunt Prey + Hunted Shot), while Fighter can get by with only one. Fighter is generally superior at everything with bows.
Savage Critical is not a 5% damage boost.
However, Samage Critical is worse if you're using Certain Strike. I agree with the fact that it's still slightly more than 5% damage increase, but, if Certain Strike dealt rougly half the damage of the Strike, then, in your example, you also have 45% chance of doing half the damage, adding 5% to 77.5% of the damage and increasing it to 82.5% - around 6.4% increase. In situation where you only hit on 20, this shifts to 27.5% expected damage increasing to 32.5% - 18% increase (and I was making my point assuming that Certain Strike applied even on critical failure, which worsened the increase considerably). Which isn't nothing, but still only applies in the very worst-case scenario where you decide to make an attack that can whiff half the time even with Certain Strike, and when you roll exactly 19 on the die, which happens 5% of the time. Bit too unreliable a feat to depend on it strongly enough to spend an 18th level feat slot for it.
Press Trait has two problems:
a) You already have to be suffering a Multiple Attack Penalty which means you normal to hit chance for this power you have paid a feat for is much lower. Like 50% or so. So why are you doing this? Are there better options?
b) Things that trigger on failures don't trigger on critical failures. I guess I assumed that anyway. But it does make more of a difference when you are into heavy MAP penalty region.
So yes I don't like these powers straight of the bat. My goto plan is to maximise my no penalty attacks, via things like Double Slice or Swipe (yes its spreading damage which is a problem), or out of turn Reaction attacks (especially riposte from Swashbuckler).
But Fighters get an extra +2 to hit which realy helps.
If you are using Agile weapons, that reduces the penalty. Then you can do things like Agile Grace as you say. So while you might be failing to hit a fair bit, you aren't doing that many critical failures as you still have some sort of to hit chance. So Certain Strike works pretty well here.
Then you get an extra action because in a lot of parties you are going to get hasted in important fights. Which is gravy for this build, but everyone else is looking at what else they can do instead. The Certain Strike build is focusing on doing more damage to the primary target. It's hard to argue other than, that is going to often be the right call.
The build fundamentally stacks up and is good. Thank you very much for championing it.
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People really need to stop underestimating third strikes. They are not wasted actions.
And the whole point of exacting strike is that you aren't making a strike a -10 map, but at -5 map, so that argument doesn't apply at all…
Outside of getting lots of reaction attacks (with opportune backstab, Paladin's reaction, and attack of opportunity) certain strike builds have the best expected damage by far.
People really need to stop underestimating third strikes. They are not wasted actions.
And the whole point of exacting strike is that you aren't making a strike a -10 map, but at -5 map, so that argument doesn't apply at all…
Outside of getting lots of reaction attacks (with opportune backstab, Paladin's reaction, and attack of opportunity) certain strike builds have the best expected damage by far.
Well a normal attack that hits on a 10, is worth 12 chances out of 20, With a MAP of 5 it is 7 and a MAP of 10 it is 2.
So a ratio of values of your hits are 12:7:2.
Obviously moves around a fair bit on different hit numbers, but that is typical. So your third stike is not no value, just typically about one sixth the expected value of your fist strike.
With Exacting Strike the third stike has a chance of only being at -5 not -10 so that gives a ratio of your hits numbers 12:7:5.6
Quite useful but only if you are doing attack attack attack.
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People really need to stop underestimating third strikes. They are not wasted actions.
And the whole point of exacting strike is that you aren't making a strike a -10 map, but at -5 map, so that argument doesn't apply at all…
Outside of getting lots of reaction attacks (with opportune backstab, Paladin's reaction, and attack of opportunity) certain strike builds have the best expected damage by far.
Well a normal attack that hits on a 10, is worth 12 chances out of 20, With a MAP of 5 it is 7 and a MAP of 10 it is 2.
So a ratio of values of your hits are 12:7:2.
Obviously moves around a fair bit on different hit numbers, but that is typical. So your third stike is not no value, just typically about one sixth the expected value of your fist strike.With Exacting Strike the third stike has a chance of only being at -5 not -10 so that gives a ratio of your hits numbers 12:7:5.6
Quite useful but only if you are doing attack attack attack.
Well hitting on a 10 is the worst situation for using a third attack. Luckily a fighter normally hits on a 6. Also flat-footed and lots of other debuffs make third attacks better. This is a team game, so when you have a party member casting synthesethia you need someone attacking to actually do the damage, and third attacks have a huge value in that situation.
The average damage for a fighter attacking 3 times is actually higher than moving to flank and attacking twice against equal level opponents. You'd think people didn't know that with how they talk about attacking three times.
Now for exacting strike the cool thing is you don't have to decide to make a third strike until you know if you have the bonus, so it can be 12:7:7 or 12:7 do something else
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One thing I like about Sudden Charge is it is a big quality of life improvement. Without you often need to count squares, figure out if the second move is worth the flank, and weigh if the enemy might have AoO. With Sudden Charge you rarely have to sweat any of that.
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Sudden Charge would certainly come in handy when circling around to a new opponent to go for the best/flanking position because you got speed to spare now.
Too bad it's an Open though, so you can't use it as a second move after your first attack finishes off a current opponent. That would have made it really good.
Well hitting on a 10 is the worst situation for using a third attack. Luckily a fighter normally hits on a 6.
There are a lot of assumptions in that statement.
Worse numbers are possible and do happen. Are you fighting an opponent above your level that has a buff up? Do you have some other penalty? Hitting on an 11 means your natural 20 on attack at minus 10 is not a critical at all, just a regular hit.
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Well hitting on a 10 is the worst situation for using a third attack. Luckily a fighter normally hits on a 6.There are a lot of assumptions in that statement.
Worse numbers are possible and do happen. Are you fighting an opponent above your level that has a buff up? Do you have some other penalty? Hitting on an 11 means your natural 20 on attack at minus 10 is not a critical at all, just a regular hit.
You of course need to take the specific situation into account to decide if it’s worth it to make a third attack or not. For a fighter to need an 11 to hit, it’s either a creature with an extreme AC, or you’re fighting a level+3 single boss with High AC or the fighter is suffering some penalty. If you’ve reasoned out that you only hit on an 11, the rest of your party is only hitting on a 13, so yeah, you’re going to be better off trying to improve everyone’s chances.
But there will also be many, many situations when you are not fighting such a creature, or where the creature already has some kind of condition imposed on it lowering its AC. If you’re fighting an at level High AC creature, a fighter should be hitting on about a 7. If you’re fighting level-1, it’s even better. If you’ve got a 20-30% chance to hit with a third attack, it’s worth taking in a lot of situations, because if you kill the thing with that attack, it loses all of its actions.
In a situation where you can move into a flank, you’re generally better off moving into a flank, and there are many other times you’ll need to do things like move just to be able to attack at all. So I agree that a 2 attack routine is probably more common. But people write off third attacks as fishing for 20s. If your party is coordinating like the game expects you to, and with a fighter’s accuracy, it’s going to be far more common for a fighter to hit on better than a 20 on a third attack than people make it seem.
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Is this including feats like certain strike or exacting strike? I came up with the flank -> 2 attack doing slightly more damage vs 3 attack with a spot check at level 10 vs an opponent with 30 AC without those feats. Maybe a calculation error, but if the damage is somewhat close that seems like a clear win for the moving to flank option given that someone on the team will probably benefit a little from that as well, plus the fighter gets slightly more overall crit chance per round which can have useful riders. I have the calculation below to look over.
I made a graph so everyone can easily see how 3 strikes compares to moving to flank
I really don't think moving to flank is an easy choice to help your party. You really have to think of the overall positions of everyone, maybe it's better to protect the party with Attack of Opportunity and not move behind to flank. Sometimes it is best to move behind to flank.
Also I think using two strikes is good for setting a baseline, but 3 strike info is important for fighters too.
