Talk:Arcane Tank (4e Optimized Character Build)

4e? I think this is in the wrong section. --Angel Black 09:20, 11 May 2009 (MDT)

Good idea, but it didn't follow through.--Sonar136 11:53, 7 September 2009

Would it...

With some of the magic light armors (agile) it is easy to get over plate mail in armor with the light armors, your shield spells and your staff.

This is ridiculous--where did you get the idea you could be 18-17-16-15-12-10 BEFORE racial bonuses? that is 26 points over a 22 point build...

Suggestions

For a balanced set of base scores, how about 13 Str, 15 Con, 10 Dex, 16 Int, 13 Wis, 8 Cha?

Then just make sure you pick a race with an Int bonus; with 18 Int that's a +2 to-hit bonus after armour penalty. You can squeeze out a 20 Int after bonuses if you drop Wis to 11 and Con to 12, but then you've lost 3 hit points and 1 bonus off each of your kicker stats. And as a tank, perhaps to-hit isn't such a priority.

There are no player races with a bonus to Int and Con unfortunately. Although if your GM allows it, there's the Githyanki from MM1.

There's a slight problem with having a shield feats and staff of defense - the character wouldn't be able to use the Staff of Defense encounter power since the staff needs to be wielded in both hands. Although it appears they'd still get the flat +1 AC.

4e doesn't use ECL or BAB - I think all we need the table for is to show what feats and spells to get at what level?

I agree with the original template poster in that this "isn't much of an optimization" - but this is perhaps a different catagory of "Flavoured Character Builds", for which I'm all for. Marasmusine 15:21, 28 December 2011 (MST)

This build is much more a "terrible wizard AND tank" than "isn't much of an optimization". AC, for example, is not the end all and be all of a tank (defender). It's not so much that the defender wears shiny armor. Actually, the defender gets the enemies to attack him because he's the hardest to hit and he will take a lower proportional amount of damage (because he has a lot of hit points). Thus, a Wizard trying to do that job would not do so by wearing heavy armor and getting a few more HPs at the expense of chance his spells even work! A wizard doing a defender's job will impose attack penalties to make the enemies less likely to hit, they'll give status ailments or temporary effects which cause the enemies to do less damage when they do hit, they'll give their allies higher defenses and temporary hit points or resistances to reduce how much damage they take, and summon monsters, illusions, and what-not for the enemies to waste their attacks on instead of hitting a buddy. That's how a wizard would tank, not by putting on armor he doesn't know how to use, getting in his enemy's grill, and then crossing his fingers his attacks even hit. If you want that, make a hybrid Wizard/Fighter or multiclass Fighter with Wizard and Paragon Path into your Wizardliness... though those are both pretty bad builds too!

If, however, you really want to play a wizard with armor because you just want to, you should at least spend some resources minimizing attack and defense penalties. Gain proficiency with leather armor in heroic tier, because the difference between leather armor with a high Int bonus and heavy armors is minimal in these levels. Maybe even get proficient with Hide to match them. Then, in paragon, become proficient with the heavy armors by retraining the hide proficiency first, then spending new feats to increase armor type as far as you want whenever you get a spare feat. If you really want to get in their grill and tank, you're going to want to get abilities that allow you to mark (pretty rare), especially abilities that allow you to punish things that ignore your mark (I can't think of any off the top of my head that aren't an innate part of a defender class), and you'll probably want to take Melee Training; Intelligence, so that enemies don't run around you entirely unconcerned if they draw an opportunity attack from you. You'll also want to do whatever you can to be able to cast spells up close without drawing opportunity attacks from them. You also need to build your HP pool. Get any and all tempt HP and resistances you can! This is still a mechanically bad build, but I think it'd be more exciting than taking penalties needlessly. Your attacks are usually entirely, but sometimes merely mostly, pointless if they don't hit.

It is a deliberately contrary build. "Tank" is a misnomer, it's meant as "armoured" rather than "defender". Marasmusine (talk) 09:57, 28 September 2013 (MDT)

Then there's still the problem of why somebody would purposefully make their spells less likely to even function in exchange for a higher AC. I'm not about to try to convince anyone not to put armor on their Wizard, just, if you do it, why not take the armor feats? The -2 to attack is simply not worth it. Anything you do to mitigate the penalty is a resource you could use to eliminate it with armor proficiency feats or to get a regular bonus not meant to compensate for a needless penalty. If you're really invested in the idea of an armored mage, you could make a human with two armor proficiency feats giving him chainmail at level one, and he'd not have a -2 penalty to attacks. Sure, his AC wouldn't be 20, but he'd still be an effective Wizard, and it's only level one. By level 4 he could have platemail if he invested enough in his Str and Con. The best ACs without penalties are only 3 or 4 feats away, is my point. Perhaps you could have spent a few of these feats mitigating the penalty to attack rolls, but now you can use those same feats a bit later to instead just get a bonus on top of your un-penalized attacks, and there's really no reason to go all the way to plate-mail, either. Save yourself points so your other stats don't take a hit, put 13 in Str and go scale mail. It's good enough for fighters. At any rate, an exchange of +2 to AC for -2 to attacks makes any powers you might use to control the battlefield to keep monsters from attacking you or your buddies (you're a controller, after all) less likely to work, and so you'll be getting attacked more often anyhow. It's better to get a relative +2 to your attacks and -2 to your AC (Or -1 with what I just did with Scale) to make your AC less important in the first place. I mean, this is supposed to be an optimized build... so let's optimize it!

• I just built a level 4 wizard with Scale mail proficiency and Hafted Defense, with AC 21, Fort 15, Refl 18, and Will 16, and +7 on attack rolls without any magic items.
• Or with chain; with AC 20, Fort 15, Refl 18, and Will 16, and +8 on attack rolls without any magic items.
• Or with plate; with AC 21 (but without hafted defense, which you can take next feat), Fort 15, Refl 18, and Will 16, and +7 on attack rolls without any magic items.
• Compare to your build; AC 22, Fort 16, Refl 18, Will 16, and +5 on attack rolls without any magic items.

I'm not going to go into the specific details and compare every number of each build. Yes, your build is beefier sooner, but at the expense of hitting with your spells, which is the meat and potatoes of being a Wizard. The differences between the builds becomes smaller with each level, but if your spells don't hit you're not being effective, period. If the point is an armored Wizard, don't just ignore the Wizard part. Wizards don't NEED a high AC or a bunch of HPs. You're increasing something they don't need at the expense of things they do (attack bonus most patently). Most importantly, the only reason you'd be doing this is because you want the flavor of an armored mage. You can have that flavor without your defenses maxed out, and your allies that your spells are supposed to be helping won't suffer for it.

• Also, you can tell your DM that he's a jerk for not allowing Swordmages, who are already what you're trying to do here without wasting resources.

Seriously, it's not a build that's intended to be used. It's just a daft exercise in maximizing statistics that aren't important to this class. I also wanted to see what spells didn't rely on attack rolls. So I guess your issue is with the two core ideas I ran with (although I'll note that the article isn't originally mine, I just rewrote it). Hey, I made a half-orc rogue with Dex 10 once, she was quite fun. Marasmusine (talk) 02:38, 29 September 2013 (MDT)

It's not presented that way. It's presented as a build intended for use. I've also played characters who were far less than optimal, and they were fun, too. Notice I never commented about how fun the character might be to play. On the other hand, any and every character can be fun to play. There's no reason to make a character who's purposefully bad at the thing they're supposed to be doing and thus making your friends pick up your slack, though. Especially when it's supposedly an "optimized" build. It's AC is optimized, sure, that's fair, but in optimizing AC you're weakening the character in what it's designed to actually be doing. Which is fine. Not every character has to be the best at what they do. They should, though, be competent enough that the other characters aren't constantly picking up their slack, is all. So any penalty to what they do they can avoid... avoid it.

Sure, you tried to get some spells that don't require attack rolls, but those are at-wills. You're still going to wind up with more spells you need to attack with than not, and they need to work in order to, well, work. There's nothing wrong with relying on at-wills, either. The problem is that At-Wills don't scale very well if you don't build to improve the effects of your at-wills with feats, which this build is spending it's resources on defenses. Sure, Storm pillar is great for control in enclosed spaces, but being in enclosed spaces depends almost entirely on your DM. It's almost useless in the open, making your most reliable attack magic missile... which sucks. It does low damage and zero control, though it can get decent once per day if you take Wizard's Fury. While causing difficult terrain here or there may be helpful, it's not reliable enough on it's own. Again, if someone wants to play this build, go ahead. Have fun. Just keep in mind that you'll probably have more fun if you're attack bonus isn't *needlessly* penalized. If the penalty is necessary, whatever, but it's not.

Rewrite

Okay, I'm going ahead and rewriting this. The ability scores are illegal, the shield use stops you from using the Staff of Defense encounter power. Hafted Defense feat will give you a shield bonus instead. Marasmusine 08:00, 12 March 2012 (MDT)