Word of Wizards - Excerpts: Arcane Hunter

Arcane Power Excerpts: Arcane Hunter

Another excerpt from Arcane Power came in yesterday and this time we are taking a look at a paragon path for the Swordmage; the Arcane Hunter. As an additional prerequisite, the swordmage must also have the Aegis of Ensnarement class feature which is a new aegis that will be in the book.

The Arcane Hunter learns how to refine their magical strikes to exploit the weaknesses and overcome any resistances that the enemy may have. By using special magical techniques when engaging an enemy, the hunter can easily sense a way to defeat even the toughest opponent that may seem impenetrable to magical attacks.

Once they have discovered an enemy's weakness, they can use a Knowing Strike (11th level path feature) that allows their attack to ignore all resistances and the insubstantial quality when they spend an action point to make that attack.

If a hunter scores a critical, they have landed a Perfect Strike (11th level path feature) which deals an extra damage equal to the target's highest vulnerability.

An experienced hunter has an Exploitive Eye (16th level path feature) that allows him to reduce the resistance of an enemy by 10 (to a minimum of 0) if they have any.

Arcane Hunters learn to Exploit Weakness (Level 11, Encounter) that deals 3[W]+Int and an extra damage equal to the highest vulnerability of an enemy.

They can also maintain an Elemental Stance (Level 12, Daily) which gives any enemy that the hunter hits a vulnerable 5 towards an element of the hunter's choice when he uses this power as long as he is in the stance.

The most dangerous of Arcane Hunters have a Flaw Seeking Strike (Level 20, Daily) which deals 3[W]+Int and ongoing 5 damage of any damage type that is one of the target's vulnerabilities (save ends). If the target does not have any vulnerabilities, they take 10 ongoing damage of acid, cold, fire, lightning or thunder (save ends). On a miss, the target takes half damage and ongoing 5 damage with a damage type of the hunter's choice (save ends).

Overall, I find this class not so great as it really depends on what type of enemies that the party is fighting. DMs would have to pay attention to anyone who is taking this paragon path to make it worthwhile for them and even then it only pays off by 16th level.