Powers that weren't as good as you thought or were better.

[Keenath]

Effects which knock an enemy prone seemed way better than they turned out to be.

I don't agree. Knockdown effects are awesome for helping lock the enemy in place; they have to spend a move to get up, which works very much like a Daze -- they have to now choose to either attack OR move, but not both. (Well, they still have a minor action left, but you see what I mean.)

If the guy was going to just stand there and slug it out anyway, no, prone isn't that good. But if he's a skirmisher or artillery and you knock him down, you've put him in a nasty spot. Doubly so for a fighter, because the attack also marks the target, and he can't move away without eating greataxe.


In my group, which just hit 2nd level, the warlock (with my special permission) switched from hellpact to feypact. The infernal boon (gain some temporary HP when your cursed target dies) turned out not to be as good as he'd though -- because it didn't strike him that getting the most out of that power meant he needed to be taking damage every couple of turns. As his warlock is a bit of a coward and much prefers to stand WAY back and lob blasts, that's not likely.

It's not that the Infernal boon is bad -- it's just that it wasn't anywhere near as good as he expected for his play style.

 

[Danceofmasks]

Ooh, speaking of rangers, that reminds me of disruptive strike.
I knew it'd be awesome for a melee ranger, but since I was likely never going to play a 2WF ranger, I wasn't impressed.

Then I saw it being used by an archer.
Arrow to the face 'cos you can't OA me on your turn!
It was made of awesome.

 

[Arbitrary]

Disruptive Strike is nearly in the "amazing" category. Nothing makes me quite so sad as barely hitting someone with an attack only to have the Ranger with 20 Dex pop and say "I'll use Disruptive Strike!"

Bah!

 

[Scarface6174]

Sure strike for the fighter was VERY disappointing. Not even doing the math, a +2 just never made a difference to me. I either rolled well above AC or well below it.

Expeditious Retreat for the wizard seems meh. Mabye it's cause I play a close combat wizard that Shield is much more usefull. Heck, it's an ENCOUNTER power to get a +4 AC & dex.

Better than what I thought it would be at first is Thunderwave. Once I saw it in action during D&D day, I knew that it would always be a part of my wizard arsenal.

 

[Cadfan]

Sure Strike does improve as you advance in level and your strength bonus becomes less and less of a percentage of your overall damage.

I still wouldn't pick it except as a human's bonus at will, though.

 

[Stalker0]

Expeditious Retreat for the wizard seems meh. Mabye it's cause I play a close combat wizard that Shield is much more usefull. Heck, it's an ENCOUNTER power to get a +4 AC & dex.

I think that's the trick. Its not that e. retreat is that bad, its that shield is that good.

 

[Mistwell]

Ooh, speaking of rangers, that reminds me of disruptive strike.
I knew it'd be awesome for a melee ranger, but since I was likely never going to play a 2WF ranger, I wasn't impressed.

Then I saw it being used by an archer.
Arrow to the face 'cos you can't OA me on your turn!
It was made of awesome.

Oh man, I never thought of that. So an opponent can attack you, you interrupt the attack with your own Dex vs. AC attack doing 1[W]+Dex damage, they cannot opportunity attack you for using a bow in melee because it's their turn, and then they take a penalty of 3+Wis to the triggering attack if your attack hits? So for an 18 Dex 18 Wis Elf Ranger (not atypical), you are applying a -7 to their attack? BRUTAL!

 

[bganon]

My fighter was pretty disappointed with Passing Attack (almost never hit with both, and if you miss the first attack you don't even get to shift) and retrained to Covering Attack. The ranger was getting so little use out of Fox's Cunning that she switched to Two-Fanged Strike; she has Yield Ground if she really needs it but has yet to use it.

The ranger also multi'd to rogue, but has hardly ever actually used a sneak attack. But in that case, the multiclassing was as much for Thievery as anything else, so the SA is just a freebie.

The warlock is multi'd to Wizard and has been disappointed with how Scorching Burst has worked so far, but I think much of that is due to not being able to use her +1 pact dagger to get an implement bonus. Now that she's been able to trade it for a +1 wand I think she'll be much happier.

Things that turned out to be even more awesome than expected: a Tiefling star-pact warlock can get Prime Shot, Bloodhunt, and the Star Pact boon (and maybe Infernal Wrath, too, I can't remember), and they ALL STACK.

Less awesome than expected: Elven Accuracy, actually. It's nice when it works, but it's far from a guarantee as often the reroll turns out to be crap.

I have to disagree with someone above though: my fighter healed 15 hp from Boundless Endurance in a single fight, and that's a pretty big deal.

 

[burntgerbil]

I was unsure at first what to choose for a infernal warlock daily - flames of phelegethos or armor or agathys. I went with flames for the first two levels. They sucked. Even with a 20 Con, I missed nearly every time. I swapped to the armor of agathys - combined with hellish rebuke on nearby enemies, I have fared much better. I only wish there were more front-line powers to choose from now.

 

[keterys]

Chip me in for knockdown powers and slow powers.