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Brainstorming a class feature for a wizard that fills the "controller" role:
Wizard may swap damage for slides in his powers,
Wizard may swap damage for slow or immobilized conditions,
Ranged Bursts gain +1 Atk if no ally is adjacent to burst,
Wizard may swap out his Daily power (minor action) if he "uses" his spellbook,
Class Feature Power: a minor action ranged power (encounter) that slides enemies +1/2 Int squares,
Class Feature Power: a minor action close burst 5 power (encounter) that switches two adjacent allies (or self),
Class Feature Power: a minor action ranged power that creates difficult terrain in up to +Int squares,
etc
This ain't hard.
But it is fun!
Wizards area and close attacks get +1 to their size (area burst 2 becomes area burst 3)
Wizards can exclude a certain number of allies (Wis mod?) from an area attack (limit the number of times per encounter?)
Enemies get a -2 penalty on saves against wizard effects that "(save ends)" (like orb mastery, but not as cheese-prone)
Once per round, a wizard can sustain a power with "Sustain Minor" as a free action.
+1 (or +2?) distance on all pushes/pulls/slides
Once per encounter, "upgrade" a status effect on a victim of one of your powers: slowed -> immobilized, immobilized -> restrained, dazed -> stunned, stunned -> dominated, etc.
No, wizard's special something is the spell book, allowing them to choose their power based on what impact they expect it to have. Druids have their flexibility a different way.
The cantrips are just handy bonuses. But you don't need class features to do your job well, if you're a power-based role like a Controller.
Spellbooks are kind of a hold-over from previous editions, and not exclusive to the Wizard or controller role at any rate (see Swordmage). Orb of Imposition and Wand of Accuracy are the closest things to a controller class feature that
Wizards have.
My personal tweaks I made based on the recent controller powers:
Magic Missiles - renamed "Magic Missiles". Range 20, targets one or two creatures no more than 3 squares apart. Int vs. Ref, 1d6+Int damage. At 21st, targets one, two, or three creatures no more than 3 squares apart, 2d4+Int damage. No longer counts as a ranged basic attack. Reasoning: Kinda reminiscent of the 3.5 version of the spell. Divine Lightning still has a better chance of being able to strike maximum number of creatures (since Magic Missile is, more or less, targeting a burst 3 area), but Magic Missile can strike from a longer range. At epic levels, Divine Lightning does more damage, but Magic Missile targets more creatures.
Ray of Frost - On a critical hit, the target is immobilized instead of slowed. Can be used as a Ranged Basic Attack. Reasoning: Difference between being immobilized and slowed is somewhat fairly minor (to a certain extent, anyway), but making it occur only on crits limits the effect it will have. Being able to use it as a Ranged Basic Attacks just seems like a natural choice, especially with the changes I made to Magic Missile.
Scorching Burst - Damage upped to 2d4+Int (4d4+Int at 21st). Reasoning: With dealing Int damage every time the target makes a opportunity attack, it has the potential to deal a lot more damage than Scorching Burst, even with the damage as it now (especially if the Invoker has a high Int). Upping the damage goes with the theme of the current Wizard at-wills supposedly focusing more on damage than control... I might lower (well sort of...) than damage to 1d8... but I like having reasons to use the d4's
Cloud of Daggers - Can be used as a Ranged Basic Attack. I might rewrite this to just target a single creature to avoid any weirdness resulting from that... Reasoning: Don't really have a good reason, just kinda liked the idea.
Illusionary Ambush - On a critical hit, the target grants combat advantage to the next attack made against it before the end of its next turn. Reasoning: There are probably enough ways to get combat advantage that one more that occurs semi-rarely won't affect much. Also kinda meshes nicely with the flavor text.
I also added one new at-will power, based off a power the gnome illusionist in the MM has:
Startling Glamor At-Will * Arcane, Implement, Illusion, Psychic Standard Action Ranged 10 Target: One Creature Attack: Int vs Will Hit: 1d8 + Int psychic damage, slide target 1 square. Special: Can be used as a ranged basic attack. Reasoning: I've had this power in my Wizard house rules for a while now (though the damage was only 1d6+Int... and it wasn't a ranged basic attack), and with the Invoker having a similar (basically the same...) power, I guess it wasn't a bad idea, after all. I'm kinda thinking of removing the damage and making it take a Minor Action to use... even more like the power the Gnome in the MM has...
These changes are probably a bit more than are needed, but, meh... I think they mesh nicely with the At-Wills the Druid and Invoker are getting... *shrugs*
__________________ The Many sing to us...
Last edited by BarkingDeathSquirrel; 19th December 2008 at 02:52 AM..
I think it'd be nice to replace all the implement mastery effects with something more "controllery." Only Orb of Imposition has a control effect now, and it's very weak at low levels and very broken at high. Also, I'd like the masteries to be in constant use during an encounter, more like the defender's marking and striker's extra damage, rather than just once an encounter.
Something like these:
Staff of Immobility: When you hit with a Wizard power that targets Fortitude, the target takes a penalty to speed equal to your Con mod until the end of your next turn. If their speed is reduced to zero, they are immobilized.
Wand of Accuracy: When you hit with a Wizard power that targets Reflex, the target gets a penalty to AC and Ref Defense equal to your Dex mod until the end of your next turn.
Orb of Imposition: When you hit with a Wizard power that targets Will, the target takes a penalty to all attacks equal to your Wis mod until the end of your next turn.
Once per encounter at the cost of a feat(with possible free skill) vs. every round at the cost of an at-will.
Ah, I see your point. SB is better as an at-will, just not as much better, in your estimation, as the 'cost' of "one of two at-wills" vs "one of upto 16 feats." Of course, there are a /lot/ more feats to choose from than at-wills, too. But that's very much a value judgement, and one that's hard to quantify or argue.
I'll stand by the assertion that a power that's worth having 1/encounter is well worth having on tap every round.
Quote:
Originally Posted by infocynic
Effect: The burst creates a zone of flames. Any creature that ends its turn in the zone or that enters the zone takes additional damage equal to your CON, DEX, or WIS modifier. Overlapping applications of this zone do not stack. The zone persists until the end of your next turn.
Well, it's an upgrade. Kinda stomps all over Cloud of Daggers, though.
Quote:
I mean the whole point of this thread is not that wizards "sucks" in general but more that the at-wills of wizards are crap compared to the at-wills invokers have to the point that you can ask yourself why do wizards have suck bad at wills compared to them?
I suppose you could possit that the design team first over-compensated for casters being too powerful in prior editions by 'nerfing' them a little too hard, including the wiz, then overcompensated in the other direction with the Invoker, when they heard complaints that the wizard wasn't powerful or controllery enough.
Classic 'pendulum' stuff.
Hmmm... Orb is too weak at 1st, too broken at high level, and not controllery enough? How 'bout:
Orb: 1/encounter you can choose 1 enemy who is affected by one of your wizard powers /cast through your orb implement/ that a save can end. That enemy takes a -2 penalties to his saves against that power until that power ends. If you have a wisdom bonus, the number of enemies you can affect this way is increased by your Wisdom bonus. You must have line of effect to each enemy to be affected.
Last edited by Tony Vargas; 19th December 2008 at 07:10 PM..
Reason: fixed quote tags
2d4 isn't that far off from 1d10. And while they can't add that single point here and there from feats, they CAN add it in from items and such.
And 1d6+int is good enough when multi targets DO apply. War wizards take Cloud of Daggers and Scorching Burst, thus giving them single and multi-target capability in their at-wills. Let's face it, Cloud of Daggers is a as damaging a power as Sly Flourish.
Actually let's do more then just face it, let's give actual numbers.
Strangely due to the way cloud of daggers work it will do the most damage with the highest wisdom, not the highest hit. Since "auto hit" damage is worth nearly double normal damage each point of wisdom is worth double each point of int which make the best cloud of dagger wizard someone with 20 wisdom and 14 int. Incidentally as a wizard you will suck even more with those stats.
Lvl 1 wizard with cloud of daggers against a target with 15 def (50% base hit), counting a +1 bonus damage from feat either staff weapon focus or something else:
-20 int, 14 wisdom = 6.875 dpr.
-18 int, 16 wisdom = 6.95 dpr.
-16 int, 18 wisdom = 7.125 dpr.
-14 int, 20 wisdom = 7.4 dpr.
A human battle rager fighter with weapon focus, 20 str, using an execution axe will hit for 9.9 dpr vs a target with 17 def and 11.1 dpr while "Raging".
2-h weapon fighter will do around that too with reaping strike or cleave.
Human Ranger, WF, 2WF, Twin Strike Waraxe: 11.925dpr. (4 feats but still, at least the feats are there to increase damage while the wizard doesn't have any he can take).
Dodger Halfling Rogue, WF + 2WF, Nimble Blade,Piercing strike , Rapier
(5 feats): 14.525 counting sneak attack but not the flanking +2 bonus. With the flanking bonus it's even more disgusting at 16.575 dpr.
Brutal Human Rogue, WF + 2WF, Nimble Blade,Basic Attack Rapier (his defense is very bad though with only 14 dex): 15.475 dpr, 18 dpr with the flanking bonus (remember that range attackers cannot flank).
Those are pretty much the highest dpr that I checked. I don't have any numbers on the barbarians or the warlock, maybe I'll do them when I have more time.
But note the following things. A rogue can easily take 4-5 feats in the heroic tier and they each add something like 0.5 to nearly 1 dpr to a built while the wizard cannot really take more then 1 feat for "damage".
Also the superior weapon feats are huge and add a minimum of 1dpr per "w" at least.
So basically, my retarded wizard with 20 wisdom and his 7.4 dpr with daggers is basically not even in the same league as the strikers in term of damage. Each time a wizard use an at-will to do damage he's basically showing everyone how much he's sucking unless he hit 3 targets with a scorching burst. At 2 targets you can at least mention it but even with 2 targets you are only in the 10 dpr range. 3 targets you fall in the 14.5 dpr range.
Wizards will scale at best like a ranger but again unless you are hitting on average more then 2 targets you are never close.
I think "Controller" was an unfortunate label for the wizard. AoE master would have been a more apt role name. Cloud of Daggers is about as small as they could have an AoE feel for an at-will power. Scorching Burst and Thunderwave are it's kin that do more collateral damage. I think all these powers came from the the "blow 'em up" mage concept.
In this context, the at-will powers don't look so bad. But add in all the new mobility that mixes up the battle field, and all manner of roles that can target multiple opponents from twin strike to dragonborn breath to a variety of magical items, the wizard's role as the AoE master begins to yield diminishing returns as other roles can do their share of AoE's.
From a design stand point, it would have been better to shift the warlocks more toward damage, and wizards more toward debuffs. This would define roles much clearer. Unfortunately, some debuffing abilities would have to be removed from the rogue and warlock as part of the clean up.
Inevitably, as more classes are added on, roles will blur a bit. As it turns out, they started out pretty blurred with clerics, rogues, warlocks, and fighters doing a good bit of battlefield control, and tossing around AoE's. Warlocks, Fighters, and Paladins can do their own sort of healing with temporary hit points, regeneration, and the like. With MP, fighters can become decent pseudo strikers, with PHB2, we will see the striker barbarian playing a pseudo defender role.
There will be more wizard at-will powers in AP, and we won't even remember this conversation at that point, because we'll be drooling over all the new and cool controller stuff that beats the pants of an Invoker or Druid's at-wills.
One more note, currently Humans make very good controllers because of the 3rd at-will. Perhaps with PHB2 there will be another good controller race or two that will spice up the wizard builds.
__________________ Warning: This post may contain sarcasm.
There will be more wizard at-will powers in AP, and we won't even remember this conversation at that point, because we'll be drooling over all the new and cool controller stuff that beats the pants of an Invoker or Druid's at-wills.
Indeed we already saw this with the Class Acts: Wizards article. I don't know if the Illusionist powers are excerpted from AP, power but they ALL impose conditions (slowed, immobilized, prone, penalties to attack rolls) apply ongoing damage, or create zones which hinder enemies' movement & LOS or create flanking opportunities for the party.
Has it been mentioned if we'll see more illusion spells up to level 30 in AP?
I'll also point out that my S. Burst doesn't completely trump Cloud of Daggers (which is only an OK power anyway)... CoD will still autokill a minion unless the minion somehow slides... but my S. Burst auto-damage is at end of turn, so the minion could move out of the zone.
With no feats to improve damage (but assuming a +1 weapon/implement), assuming an 18 stat, the PHB sburst deals near striker-level damage if you have 2 or more targets, even handicapping the wizard to a 55% chance to hit vs ranger 60% [using longsword, and we know that reflex is roughly equal to AC - 2.5, so we'll give the ranger an edge here] vs rogue 75% (dagger, combat advantage from stealth + deft strike).
I got SBurst at 9.35 for 2 targets, and approximately 14.0 for 3 targets.
Twin Strike with longsword is 9.54 [assuming both swings against your quarry]
Deft Strike 10.875
For comparison, a fighter's melee basic attack (again with a longsword, 60% to hit) is 5.7.
So I'm not nuts about adding damage to SBurst without taking some away, although I have talked to players who say they'd rather have 1d6+int and no control effect and just deal a lot of damage. (Personally I think they just want to be strikers. ) Another comment was that the enemies could easily avoid the extra damge, to which my reply is that you at least force the enemies to move, and if you're lucky/smart/teamwork, you make them take an OA or waste their entire move shifting.
I do think the designers were reluctant to add a lot of controller effects to the initial wizard at-wills. They were still getting use to the design space that 4e provides, and definitely wanted to nerf the wizard.
The at-wills need to be tweaked I think, rather than completely rewritten, with added controller-type flavour.
Personally, I'm ok with magic missile being a single-target basic attack. It's a very iconic wizard attack, and personally, reskinning it to hit a single target works for me. It does need something extra as a single target attack though, not sure exactly what . A one square push may be enough, along with the 2d4 and range 20.
I think ray of frost should also a basic attack.
Thunderwave is perhaps the best controlling of the at-wills, and it keys off Wis, but is difficult to use for softer-skinned wizards. Staff wizards like close spells, but don't get as much benefit from the pushing.
I'll also point out that my S. Burst doesn't completely trump Cloud of Daggers (which is only an OK power anyway)... CoD will still autokill a minion unless the minion somehow slides... but my S. Burst auto-damage is at end of turn, so the minion could move out of the zone.
With no feats to improve damage (but assuming a +1 weapon/implement), assuming an 18 stat, the PHB sburst deals near striker-level damage if you have 2 or more targets, even handicapping the wizard to a 55% chance to hit vs ranger 60% [using longsword, and we know that reflex is roughly equal to AC - 2.5, so we'll give the ranger an edge here] vs rogue 75% (dagger, combat advantage from stealth + deft strike).
I got SBurst at 9.35 for 2 targets, and approximately 14.0 for 3 targets.
Twin Strike with longsword is 9.54 [assuming both swings against your quarry]
Deft Strike 10.875
For comparison, a fighter's melee basic attack (again with a longsword, 60% to hit) is 5.7.
So I'm not nuts about adding damage to SBurst without taking some away, although I have talked to players who say they'd rather have 1d6+int and no control effect and just deal a lot of damage. (Personally I think they just want to be strikers. ) Another comment was that the enemies could easily avoid the extra damge, to which my reply is that you at least force the enemies to move, and if you're lucky/smart/teamwork, you make them take an OA or waste their entire move shifting.
Your calculations seems off.
9.35 is the number you get if you don't take account the critical damage. The number you really are looking for is 9.6dpr.
I could try to check all your numbers but here is the main thing you have to see with this. Wizards have a grand total of 1 feat they can choose in the heroic tier that add damage. Rogues, Rangers, Fighters, etc, all have 3, 4 and 5 feats they can choose. Each of those feat add 0.5 to 1dpr. You do the calculation.
For rangers, just going from using a longsword to a bastard sword is a 1.3 DPR increase with twin shots once you factor everything else.
Hunter quarry to D8 is nearly 0.9 dpr increase with twin shots.
Weapon focus = 1.2 dpr increase with twin shots.
Two Weapon Fighting = 0.6 dpr increase.
The same is true for rogues, etc.
The wizard got only 1 feat, weapon focus with staff or one of the thing that add to damage with a type of damage and those 2 don't stack anyway.
That feat will add 1.1 dpr with 2 targets, 0.55 dpr with one. But that's it.
I mean let's say we have something like a "GreatStaff of Whatever" that requires 1 feat, that staff is a weapon that increase all spells die by 1 category. D6 become D8, etc. That's 1.2 dpr increase with 2 targets, 0.6 with one, etc.
We could probably create tons of feat to give choices to wizard equivalent to the other classes but somehow the creators of the game decided that in the player's handbook wizard feats should be sparse and far between. Unless they count each individual feat like Raging Storm, Astral Fire, etc, to be "different" but none of them stack anyway.
That's one of the main reason wizards cannot hope to touch striker dpr atm.
You know, it occurs to me that warlocks also lack a die-type boosting feat for thier curse - oh, sure, they do get a feat that boost the pact boon.
But, you /could/, if you wanted to enable some munchkin-pleasing stacking-bonus action, add another set of elemental feats that increase die size "when you use an arcane power with the _____ keyword."
That would give warlocks the 'missing striker feat' and give wizards a way to boost thier damage potential, to a degree very similar to a martial character taking a superior weapon.
Of course, it's not like martial characters have quite the range of power effects that arcane ones do, so it'd only be fair to let walrods start creating something along the lines martial blade barriers, too....
In general, I figure there should be some sort of implement focus / implement mastery that works like weapon focus / weapon mastery ... we'll see what kind of love arcane power gives.
The warlock doesn't need as much help as people think, since a lot of his spells are 1d6+mod+1d6 curse+[1d6+mod (if X happens)]. The trick is making it so that X happens, or making the enemy waste a turn by not letting X happen.
The wizard... well, get your teammates to clump the enemies and let hell break loose.
And yes, my above calculations did omit criticals for simplicity, but in general, this helps the strikers a little more than the wizard, but the wizard has (at level 1-10 anyway) a better chance of critical, for hitting 2-3 targets.
I had never really looked into warlock before but yeah, strangely warlocks have a much much better control spell with Dire Radiance then what wizards have. With a +1 damage feat and 20 consti you would do only 7.2 dpr with it if the target doesn't move toward you but if it does, you would do 13.5 dpr, or 14.59 with prime shot which is more then respectable for a lvl 1-2 striker.
Does the monster know it's cursed? Will it fall into the "trap" most of the time or no?
Does the monster know it's cursed? Will it fall into the "trap" most of the time or no?
The monster does know it's cursed, but it's easy enough to draw most melee monsters toward you. One Tide of Iron push can force the enemy to choose between taking damage the extra dire radiance damage, and attacking.
__________________ Warning: This post may contain sarcasm.
A lot of these pure DPR stats seem non-sense to me.
Pure numbers that don't reflect what I experience on the battle field.
Many flaws exist.
First of all, if you focus on at-will, you can't claim you are comparing the DPR of characters. Just the DPR of some at-will. In practice, most fights last about 5 rounds and typically my 5th level wizard only do at-wills for two or three of these rounds. Only in extremely long sluggathon does the DPR of the at-will approximate the average DPR of the character. For my 5fth level wizard, about 50% of the time my attack isn't an at-will. This will keep increasing.
Last session, first fight, first round I caught 3 guys in a burning hands. Then the opposition spread around us, but who cares, fire shroud caught four of them. Then the rogue used his positioning strike, the fighter used tide of Iron, and what do you know, three more guys with scorching burst. Fight was over by round four. Next fight includes flames shpere so your DPR calculation would need to include that, wouldn't they?
And it's not nearly the record. So far it is hitting 4 guys out of 5 thanks to action surge and inflicted 12D6+20 (thanks to shadowfell glove combined with bruning hand). Actually, one of these was a critical and I hit two more with the scorching burst that same round. Can't rememeber the total damage, but it was quite satisfying for level 3. An hindsight calculation tells me the average would be 90 which seems close enough.
It doesn't alway work, of course, but it's what a wizard strives for. It's what tactics should be geared to set up.
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Another flaw in typical DPR analysis is that a lot of theses characters used for comparisons are monkeys. Take the DPR output of a 4th level ranger with 20 STR who is using two waraxes with weapon focus, improved quarry and two weapon fighting focus. Does his impressive DPR includes the fact that he's gonna get KILLED?
All offense and no defense means johnny will get slaughtered.
When I am DM I have no qualm in ganging on the frontline warrior with top damage and low defense.
Typically, a real TWF ranger, one who sees action in a campaign where the DM doesn't play favorite or fudge extensively, will do a few of the following;
Sacrifice a more extreme STR to get a good DEX
Sacrifice some offense to get a weapon that has defensive bonus
Sacrifice some offensive feats to get feats that improves defense (Armor feat if he has low dex, TWD etc.).
I don't care about the DPR of the monkey TWF ranger that exists only to prove a point and is never seen on the battlefield...
That was an extreme case, of course, but most of the DPR kings presented for analysis are more fragile than their standard counterpart. You should duck them a 10% to 20% penalty to DPR on the basis that they will almost never be the last man standing in tough fights. High offense and middling defense is a bad mix; it makes them targets. You can expect to waste more rounds making death saving throw than most other builds. DPR is nice, but DPF (Damage per fight) is much better. Real DPR would be the total damage dealt in the fight divided by the number of rounds. If you systematically computed real fight value, I bet you'd be surprised of the result. Getting knocked out or forced to withdraw really hurts your numbers.
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In practice, most rogues will forego a sneak attack rather than put themselves in an untenable position that will see them be torn apart in just one round. Most DM not affraid to hurt a players feeling will routinely have monsters grabbing the archer. Most defenders that opted for the executioner axe instead of a shield will drop below zero much more often than their shield and board counterpart over their career etc. Typical DPR analysis do not reflect the reality of the combat.
Same is true for wizard, of course. My wizard gets attacked a lot in my campaign due to his love of close blast and burst. He just happens to be built to take it. He doesn't have 20 int, he doesn't even have (or can qualify) for the fire damage spell feat but hey, he has never dropped below 0 and his defenses are the best in the team overall. The rogue can't say as much.
Last edited by Mal Malenkirk; 20th December 2008 at 12:44 AM..
That was a good post Mal. Pays to remember context rather than simplifying things to easy math. I think the assumption that wizards were deliberately "nerfed" is wrong.
I remember the preview implements article where they stated different implements would really change a wizards abilities. Only orbs really ended up doing this in the end. I believe the wizards powers were changed the most leading up to publication, so they erred on the side of caution knowing that things could be patched easily later in AP or even with equipment.
I mean seriously, the wand of accuracy power smells heavily of something that was depowered last minute.
I expect to see optional implement mastery features in AP that can be taken instead of those in the PHB which have been designed carefully over the last few months. This is a far safer approach than cranking existing at-will powers due to multiclassing complications. New at-will powers better than the existing ones have the danger of increasing at-will power levels without offering a big range of equal options, because people would only pick the new powers.
Ah, I see your point. SB is better as an at-will, just not as much better, in your estimation, as the 'cost' of "one of two at-wills" vs "one of upto 16 feats." Of course, there are a /lot/ more feats to choose from than at-wills, too. But that's very much a value judgement, and one that's hard to quantify or argue.
I'll stand by the assertion that a power that's worth having 1/encounter is well worth having on tap every round.
Sure. But you don't need SB as an at-will to accomplish that. What does SB actually do? It does low damage in a burst. You don't need to do damage in a burst, it isn't even an option. You need to do damage in a burst, odds are that there are better choices due to encounter/daily powers.
There are situations where Thunderwave or Cloud of Daggers might be your best choice even if you have similar encounter powers - a close blast to shove your opponents together for an AP burst could rate more highly than a close blast with a strong effect. Ditto for Cloud of Daggers and swarms or when you want to create a choke point to block off minions.
The only reason to use Scorching Burst in that kind of situation is that your other burst powers are too good and you don't want to risk wasting them for some reason. Having a Scorching Burst once per encounter would be useful. Having more than one is icing on the cake, but cake without icing is still cake...
I'm kinda thinking of removing the damage and making it take a Minor Action to use... even more like the power the Gnome in the MM has...
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