Da Bleeder - The result is something like this
The idea for this came from an idea I had on the thread of optimizing missing. The class will do insane amounts of damage without worrying about hitting at all. Nice, eh?
It's playable at all levels, but it comes into its own at 16th level, and becomes rather brutal by 30th.
At 16th level:
Da Bleeder, Longtooth Shifter Beastmaster Ranger (multiclass spellscarred)/Ruthless Punisher
Str 22
Dex 11
Con 14
Int 11
Wis 22
Cha 10
Relevant Feats:
1 Multiclass: Spellscar
2 Cruel Cut Style (from Dragon 373 - Art of the Kill)
10 Daily Power Swap (Caging Strike -> Blurring Blade)
11 Bleeding Precision (add +5 ongoing untyped damage to all Ranger daily hits)
Relevant Powers:
Predator's Strike (at-will): Deals ongoing damage equal to Wisdom modifier instead of bonus damage equal to wisdom modifier. (Via Cruel Cut Style).
Spellscar 5 - Blurring Blade (stance; all encounter long, all enemies starting within 1 square take 11 ongoing fire and necrotic damage (save ends))
Ranger 5 - Lacerating Maul (16 ongoing damage on hit or miss)
Ranger 9 - Caging Strike (21 ongoing damage on hit), swapped for Blurring Blade (Spellscar 5)
Ranger 15 - Arterial Strike (ongoing 21 / aftereffect ongoing 16, reliable)
And later on:
Ranger 19 - Growling Assault (ongoing 21 on hit or miss, if target is immobilized)
Ruthless Punisher 20 - Bleed Away (up to ongoing damage 71 if the enemy doesn't want to be moved, but realistically, the enemy will allow itself to be pushed around to avoid taking that much damage)
Ranger 29 - Huntmaster's Bloodbath (ongoing 31 on hit / 21 on miss)
Relevant Items at level 16:
+3 Amulet of Aranea (16 ongoing poison and -2 to saves vs poison all encounter)
+3 Wounding Weapon or +4 Cunning Weapon (-3 to saves vs ongoing damage, and wounding can inflict 16 ongoing untyped damage on a hit as well)
Caustic Whetstone (8 ongoing acid damage with every melee hit)
Optional: +3 Snakefang Armor or Addergrease Armor (16 ongoing poison damage), use after Aranea damage has worn off.
Optional: Salve of Power to recover blurring blade.
Relevant PP Powers:
16th Level Ruthless Punisher: +Wisdom to all ongoing damage, and CA against humanoids taking ongoing damage, which could be all of them.
(It also deals +Wisdom to all melee attacks vs. Humanoids designated as quarry, which can be a nice damage boost.)
A good first round nova:
Minor: Blurring Blade. (11 ongoing fire and necrotic damage to all enemies adjacent (save ends))
Minor: Caustic Whetstone (adds 8 ongoing acid damage (save ends at -3) to every hit)
Standard: Arterial Strike (ongoing 21 damage (save ends at -3), followed by ongoing 16 damage (save ends at -3) aftereffect). Reliable.
Immediate Reaction when attacked: Amulet of Aranea (ongoing 16 poison damage (save ends at -2))
Don't even need an action point, unless you want to move or something.
So at the end of the round, all enemies near you are taking 11 ongoing damage, and one enemy is taking around 40 ongoing damage, 56 ongoing damage if he attacks you, with a serious penalty to a lot of his saves, and an aftereffect on the daily even if he does save. All the different ongoing damage types are different, so they all stack. And even if he does save against the blurring blade, you can always just reapply it (without needing an attack roll).
If you don't care about single target damage, then you can just dance all over the battlefield, applying your 11 ongoing damage to all the foes on the field. If they save, you just wander back over to them, and set them on fire again.
And, again, all of the above can be done by not caring at all about hitting or missing. Worst case scenario, and you can't hit the enemy at all (and Da Bleeder's +attack is going to be as good as anyone's, really), you can just use one of the dailies that applies the ongoing damage on a miss as well. But I prefer the reliable attack - aftereffect 16 ongoing damage (save ends at -3) is just too tasty. If you miss, just try again the next round.
For the combats that you don't care about novaing, you still have all your normal ranger beastmaster tricks and encounter powers, with a high on-class str and wisdom, and good defenses in all categories except reflex.
As the build levels up to 30, the penalty to saves gets worse (up to -6 with Wounding Weapon, or -4 with Cunning Weapon), and the ongoing damage gets higher, so it scales up very nicely. At 30th, it will be 96 ongoing damage, save ends on a 16+. He'll also be immortal, but that's just a nice side benefit of being a beastmaster.
3/21/2010: Pernicious Onslaught changes this to 192 ongoing damage. Nice.
Alternative options:
If you go wizard/ranger, you can orb of imposition the massive ongoing damage you'll get from your spells (you'll have a nice wisdom for it, too) and then just walk away or whatever while the guy bleeds out or burns to death, or whatever.
Ranger/fighter offers Deep Gash for another -2 penalty to save vs. ongoing damage on axe attacks, and a couple nice options for ongoing damage, most notably Reaper's Stance (Daily 25), which is pretty superior to Blurring Blade, except it's untyped damage as well, so doesn't stack with the other ongoing damage. But if I had to play this build at high epic, I'd probably use Reaper's Stance instead of Blurring Blade, for its ongoing 22 damage (save ends at -8), free [W] damage to all adjacent enemies, free improved crit, and +Dex to damage. You'd also need Enduring Wallop at that point.
Update: Cruel Cut style now lets us benefit from this combo on at-will attacks. You'll have to use predator's strike (which isn't the most optimal of at-wills), but it will inflict double your wisdom modifier as ongoing damage as an at-will. That's pretty good. =) (At first level, it's just +wisdom ongoing damage, but it now means the build is interesting across all levels.)
Update #2: The Ebberon Player's Handbook has released a couple new tricks for this build. The Contagion aberrant dragonmark gives a -2 to all saves against ongoing damage (rock on!) the Eberron Shard of Bleeding Wounds increases all ongoing damage by +2. Nice, and very nice!
Update #3: Pernicious Onslaught is a new spellscarred feat that says whenever a monster fails a saving throw against our ongoing damage, an adjacent enemy takes equal damage + 5. This will more or less double the ongoing damage we get to inflict, since we're lighting up a lot of adjacent enemies with ongoing damage, and they can each inflict it to each other. Also, the Tenacity for Living feat gives a -2 penalty to enemy saves vs ongoing fire and necrotic, but it requires a multiclass into a primal class (which means we'd need to move to Windrise Ports along with all the other cool kids.)
