The most damaging 4th edition attack by Class?

*shrugs* No one here is twisting your arm into allowing said interpretation of the rules in your game in the first place, so I don't really see the need to get all defensive. I was simply pointing out that the blood mage combo could be a contender in this comparison according to cust-serv's ruling.

I was agreeing with you that it was indeed ridiculous while stating that even the most restrictive changes are still pretty reasonable.

The way we play/will play Blood Pulse in our groups (3 games, 3 DMs) is that it only damages the target when the target moves during it's own turn. Pulling/pushing don't cause damage.

How reasonable is that change?

We've pretty much incorporated this change with all the wall spells too. For example, no creature will take damage in a wall of fire if pushed into the zone. A creature will ONLY take damage if it starts it's turn in the zone or if it moves into the zone sometime during it's turn.

This has helped to make all the sustained powers uniform in when they cause damage, either on the caster's turn and/or the target's turn only. It works well to cut out all the cheese.

Those changes are ridiculous.

It may work from a balance POV (I cannot be sure, since I haven't had a chance to playtest those powers yet), but it sure does not make sense. Why wouldn't I take damage from being pushed into a wall of fire?

Runestar said:

It may work from a balance POV (I cannot be sure, since I haven't had a chance to playtest those powers yet), but it sure does not make sense. Why wouldn't I take damage from being pushed into a wall of fire?

Click to expand...

Well, consider. Under his house rule, if you get pushed into a Wall of Fire, you take no immediate damage, but at the start of your turn, you take damage for being in the Wall. If you get pushed into a Wall of Fire, but before your turn you are removed from the Wall (either someone slides you, or you're granted an out-of-turn move), you take no damage (or, at worst, adjacent damage).

Now forget the house rule, and use the Wall as written. Suppose you are standing around minding your own business, and someone casts Wall of Fire so that it intersects your square. You take no immediate damage, but at the start of your turn, you take damage for being in the Wall. If, however, before your turn you are removed from the wall (either someone slides you, or you're granted an out-of-turn move), you take no damage (or, at worst, adjacent damage).

So you might well say, given the RAW Wall of Fire, "It sure does not make sense. Why wouldn't I take damage from a wall of fire appearing around me?"

-Hyp.

Closing Spell.

8d10+Int damage to a gigantic 121-square area (169 squares if you have the Resounding Thunder feat!), WHICH HITS ONLY ENEMIES, does half damage on a miss, AND you get to choose at time of casting whether it does cold, fire, lightning, or thunder damage, so you have a much better chance of hitting vulnerabilities or avoiding resistances if you know what you're fighting.

Blows every other Wizard attack spell away, including the level 29 dailies, and you get it at a ludicrous level 20.

They really weren't kidding when they called the path "Battle Mage".



But even that pales in comparison to the possibilities of the level 15 Ranger daily Blade Cascade.

Long and short of it is, you get to keep attacking infinitely until you miss. With a bit of set up from the rest of the team, stacking every possible buff to your attack rolls and debuff to the enemy's armor class for the round (and there are plenty of untyped to hit/AC modifiers available), you could very easily get into a "can only miss on a natural 1" situation with basically any monster. Throw in one or two (or five or six, if you're an Elf Kensai Deadly Trickster...) of the various "free reroll" abilities for when you DO get those 1s, and statistically, you're hitting some scary thing a hell of a lot of times in one action.

I haven't looked into all of the synergies and such that you'd want to make it optimal, or crunched any numbers, but it's obvious that it has potentially more power than anything else the Ranger can do, or anyone for that matter.

Eh, it does a great deal less damage if it's not your very last daily power.
That includes utility powers.

Are you only considering "Burst" damage or also damage over time? If the latter you might have to consider the damage potential of any ongoing damage effects or the "Kill over time" effect of Seal of Binding.

Oops, double posted. Also, I just noticed that you'd already mentioned Blade Cascade in the original post. Silly me.