why are orbs good again?

[small pumpkin man]

A normal monster saves on a roll of 10. A 30th level Dwarven Wizard with 28 wis, Orb of Imposition and Spell focus gives this monster -11 on saves, and since a 20 is not a natural success on a saving throw, this means when you cast sleep on them, if it hits, they will never, ever wake up.

Not as usefull against Solos, they have a 25% chance of getting up every round, but still, a SoD that doesn't instakill bosses is a still a SoD, and it's the only PC SoD in the game.

(What is this "for one round" people are talking about?)

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

The At-Wills Effect is really not that great, but the -Will is great.

Actually, I think even this might be under appreciated. You will "fire" your At-Wills very often. If an average combat is, say... 10 rounds, you have 3-4 rounds you can just fire encounter powers, and maybe one round for a daily. The remaining 5 rounds are only spent with at-wills. Sustaining their effect for longer will have a significant effect.

 

[Shabe]

Please explain/link to how this is possible. I honestly cannot come up with a way to do it, with the single exception of making a wizard with a starting 18+ Wis, putting every stat gain into Wis, and taking spell focus. Then, at level 24 or 28, you'll have a -10 to one save for one creature, and as long as it isn't elite or solo it will auto-fail against sleeping for one round. But all this is at the expense of every other thing you could do without putting a lot of points into Wis, and it only works once per encounter for one round.

You can increase two stats every 4 levels so your int is improving as well, what other stats would a wizard need?
The penalty from the orb seems to last until the creature saves against an effect, it doesn't even say it has to save from the effect that the orbs penalty was placed with.

And again: this is epic-tier, at least how I can see it. Why not take a staff at level 1 and then retrain at level 24 to orb (and pick up sleep then)?

You can't retrain class abilities. You can retrain powers, feats and skills.

 

[evilbob]

(What is this "for one round" people are talking about?)

That's what I am talking about - sorry if I have read it wrong. Does anyone have a snippet of that part of the orb's wording, just to show me that I read that wrong?

 

[Baumi]

Actually, I think even this might be under appreciated. You will "fire" your At-Wills very often. If an average combat is, say... 10 rounds, you have 3-4 rounds you can just fire encounter powers, and maybe one round for a daily. The remaining 5 rounds are only spent with at-wills. Sustaining their effect for longer will have a significant effect.

But using the Orb is an ENCOUNTER Power so you have to choose to use the -WIS OR the At-Will Advantage and you can only use it ONCE.

 

[Switchback]

Please explain/link to how this is possible. I honestly cannot come up with a way to do it, with the single exception of making a wizard with a starting 18+ Wis, putting every stat gain into Wis, and taking spell focus. Then, at level 24 or 28, you'll have a -10 to one save for one creature, and as long as it isn't elite or solo it will auto-fail against sleeping for one round. But all this is at the expense of every other thing you could do without putting a lot of points into Wis, and it only works once per encounter for one round.

And again: this is epic-tier, at least how I can see it. Why not take a staff at level 1 and then retrain at level 24 to orb (and pick up sleep then)?

This is the way I look at it as well. When I see a lot of these arguments for the Orb, it seems everyone is intent that building for a eventual level 30 payoff against a few uber baddies that exist in the game is all any one cares about. By that time, shouldn't your group have acquired any number of powerful ways to deal with such endgame encounters? Such that if you haven't spent 30 levels building a orb master, your group is not going to fall on its face and perish?

Having an on/off kind of group as it relates to the game, I have no idea if my new wizard is even going to make it past level 20. And even if he were to, I don't like sacrificing every other choice along the way to build the ultimate orb wizard at the end of the line.

People might call Wizards underpowered without this one trick pony like effect, but I simply don't like how it locks down your choices and versatility at the earlier tiers, especially heroic.

As more and more books are released with new powers, feats, paragon paths, etc, I think the one track build toward a orb master will start to become even more of a straight jacket, as putting stats into other abilities will become paramount to get other great builds.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

But using the Orb is an ENCOUNTER Power so you have to choose to use the -WIS OR the At-Will Advantage and you can only use it ONCE.

oops, err...

Look, over there - a divine steak! *run*

 

[Brother Richard]

The Orb

One of the reason the orb is so good, even if you ignore the fact that at higher levels its abilities are more powerful, is that it is one of the stats that increases a defense not keyed to intelligence. Therefore, a wizard is going to want some wisdom/charisma anyway. Due to this, the wand is a suboptimal choice because it doesn't increase your reflex defense. The staff does also give a stat that will increase your fort defense but its effect, although good, does not help the wizard in his job as a controller, it only protects the wizard from harm.

 

[KarinsDad]

A normal monster saves on a roll of 10. A 30th level Dwarven Wizard with 28 wis, Orb of Imposition and Spell focus gives this monster -11 on saves, and since a 20 is not a natural success on a saving throw, this means when you cast sleep on them, if it hits, they will never, ever wake up.

For Sleep, this may or may not be true.

The Sleep spell has two saves: one slow, one unconscious.

Depending on interpretation, the slow save might be considered a different save than the unconscious save and hence, the Wizard may only be allowed to apply the huge modifier to one type of save or the other.

I suspect that WotC will need to clarify this in the future.

 

[keterys]

The orb option is good enough that there are people who believe that not only should you keep Sleep from levels 1-30, there are even those who think you should have a higher Wis than Int.

I'm not one of those people, but it is an extremely powerful effect... and really, the only other choice is to invest in Con. You do get 2 points at every stat bump.

At low levels, keeping cloud of daggers going an extra round each encounter can easily be worthwhile, especially if you have a tide of iron fighter or positioning strike rogue. You can really play ping pong with those two and thunderwave...

That said, I'm not big on either the sleep spell or the tactic, but there is a valid reason people like it.

It is the only control class feature outside his powers the wizard gets, and all