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Bladesinger - a criticism of its design
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<blockquote data-quote="Ovinomancer" data-source="post: 7259639" data-attributes="member: 16814"><p>No, the analysis I did was for the 20I, 18D bladesinger. The difference between a 23 AC (20I) and a 22 AC (18I) is significant, and accounts for, at the 1 in 2 chance, a change from 6 to 8 expected hits. Adding in the loss of initiative round, that's 9 hits on 50% of the days. </p><p></p><p>But, again, the 1 in 2 metric is a poor assumption. Even going to 1:3 days the 18I bladesinger is taking 9 hits, and 1:4 10 hits. That burns out all 3rd slots. AND the fact that double the previous number of hits for 23 AC cannot be shielded at all. If we go for the 1:10 days, the takes 12 hits.</p><p></p><p>I'm not misrepresenting anything -- you've cherry picked an outcome that supports your premise. You cannot claim that you always keep all 3rd level slots when that obtains a bit less than 50% of the time (47% of the time) across the example day.</p><p></p><p></p><p>At the 47% of days mark, sure. Are you really claiming that slightly less than half of all days is the appropriate baseline for assessing bladesinger power?</p><p></p><p>Let's have a bit of fun and go the other way. Let's look at the 2:3 day, the 67% day. The bladesinger uses 1 less 1st slot. At the 3:4 or 75% day, it's 2 less 1st slots. And, at the 9:10 day, or 90%, it's 3 fewer 1st slots. The take on this is that even great days, where the giants can't roll, you pick up some 1st level resources. On bad days, you burn 3rd level resources. Do you not see yet that the 50% mark you've chosen isn't a valid assumption of actual usage?</p><p></p><p></p><p>No, which is why I insisted that if we're going to compare how a bladesinger can tank, it needs to be on a per hit basis, as all the other things that confound, including scenario and actions taken biases, will result is skewed representations. For instance, it's possible to kill the giants effectively without a tank character at all -- in your scenario you're already kiting with 3 characters, so why not kite with all 4 and really get in some advantaged DPR?</p><p></p><p>This is why I completely discount your playtesting as anything but anecdotal.</p><p></p><p></p><p>Because it's a bogus determination. In three fights, three hypnotic patterns shut down the giants (at least 1), dramatically reducing load on the champion and allowing focused fire damage. A fog cloud can allow for separation of the giants, again leading to defeat in detail. Many tactics exist to reduce incoming attacks with wizard spells that it's going to be highly dependent in each test what the dice roll. </p><p></p><p>Heck, a fireball 1st round adds enough damage on average (28) to each giant that they die a round earlier to the champion party, significantly reducing incoming attacks, and that assumes nothing but flame bolts after the first round cast.</p><p></p><p>YOU can't come up with a scenario that defeats a hard encounter with fewer resources than your favored bladesinger.</p><p></p><p></p><p>What offensive battlemaster? An offensive greatsword weilding battlemaster with GWM, defensive style, and plate is AC 18, +8 (+3) to hit, and deals 2d6+15 per hit, with precision to boost hits (which are at 50%). The DPR output over the bladesinger is (assuming round 1 cast by bladesinger and javelins by battlemaster) almost double (110 to 65). The battlemaster accounts for a giant by himself in 4 rounds, even opening with javelins. A scenario where </p><p></p><p></p><p>ONLY in situations where the rest of the party can kite, which, incidentally, limits incoming damage to rocks only. A better tactic for the giants is to leave a single giant holding the bladesinger while the other engages the party. And, I'm assuming you also are using perfect party cohesion where everyone else in the party attacks the giant held by the bladesinger? So, perfectly run party against giants that charge and you're shocked to find out your tactics built for this encounter work pretty well, but when you substitute in other builds and use the same tactics things don't work as well?</p><p></p><p>Come on, man.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Ovinomancer, post: 7259639, member: 16814"] No, the analysis I did was for the 20I, 18D bladesinger. The difference between a 23 AC (20I) and a 22 AC (18I) is significant, and accounts for, at the 1 in 2 chance, a change from 6 to 8 expected hits. Adding in the loss of initiative round, that's 9 hits on 50% of the days. But, again, the 1 in 2 metric is a poor assumption. Even going to 1:3 days the 18I bladesinger is taking 9 hits, and 1:4 10 hits. That burns out all 3rd slots. AND the fact that double the previous number of hits for 23 AC cannot be shielded at all. If we go for the 1:10 days, the takes 12 hits. I'm not misrepresenting anything -- you've cherry picked an outcome that supports your premise. You cannot claim that you always keep all 3rd level slots when that obtains a bit less than 50% of the time (47% of the time) across the example day. At the 47% of days mark, sure. Are you really claiming that slightly less than half of all days is the appropriate baseline for assessing bladesinger power? Let's have a bit of fun and go the other way. Let's look at the 2:3 day, the 67% day. The bladesinger uses 1 less 1st slot. At the 3:4 or 75% day, it's 2 less 1st slots. And, at the 9:10 day, or 90%, it's 3 fewer 1st slots. The take on this is that even great days, where the giants can't roll, you pick up some 1st level resources. On bad days, you burn 3rd level resources. Do you not see yet that the 50% mark you've chosen isn't a valid assumption of actual usage? No, which is why I insisted that if we're going to compare how a bladesinger can tank, it needs to be on a per hit basis, as all the other things that confound, including scenario and actions taken biases, will result is skewed representations. For instance, it's possible to kill the giants effectively without a tank character at all -- in your scenario you're already kiting with 3 characters, so why not kite with all 4 and really get in some advantaged DPR? This is why I completely discount your playtesting as anything but anecdotal. Because it's a bogus determination. In three fights, three hypnotic patterns shut down the giants (at least 1), dramatically reducing load on the champion and allowing focused fire damage. A fog cloud can allow for separation of the giants, again leading to defeat in detail. Many tactics exist to reduce incoming attacks with wizard spells that it's going to be highly dependent in each test what the dice roll. Heck, a fireball 1st round adds enough damage on average (28) to each giant that they die a round earlier to the champion party, significantly reducing incoming attacks, and that assumes nothing but flame bolts after the first round cast. YOU can't come up with a scenario that defeats a hard encounter with fewer resources than your favored bladesinger. What offensive battlemaster? An offensive greatsword weilding battlemaster with GWM, defensive style, and plate is AC 18, +8 (+3) to hit, and deals 2d6+15 per hit, with precision to boost hits (which are at 50%). The DPR output over the bladesinger is (assuming round 1 cast by bladesinger and javelins by battlemaster) almost double (110 to 65). The battlemaster accounts for a giant by himself in 4 rounds, even opening with javelins. A scenario where ONLY in situations where the rest of the party can kite, which, incidentally, limits incoming damage to rocks only. A better tactic for the giants is to leave a single giant holding the bladesinger while the other engages the party. And, I'm assuming you also are using perfect party cohesion where everyone else in the party attacks the giant held by the bladesinger? So, perfectly run party against giants that charge and you're shocked to find out your tactics built for this encounter work pretty well, but when you substitute in other builds and use the same tactics things don't work as well? Come on, man. [/QUOTE]
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