Why is Firestorm the best 19th level control spell?

[DemonLord57]

People have been talking about striker damage, and been comparing Firestorm to Striker-level damage. Let's see how much damage Strikers can do, eh?
Bugbear Ranger/Pit Fighter,
Using Cruel Cage of Steel (19 daily) w/2 oversized +4 bastard swords. Has Lethal Hunter, WF: Bastard Sword, and Two-Weapon Fighting. 24 Str and 21 Wis
3 attacks at Str+2 vs. AC: 5d12+3*(4+7+5+2+1)+2d8 = 32.5+3*19+9 = 98.5 avg. damage
Also, if any attacks hit, they're dazed, if two, stunned, all three, weakened and stunned, all until the end of your next turn. That's with a daily.

They can do very nice damage just with normal attacks, though. Let's use an encounter power. A low level one, too. Okay, level 7 encounter power: Claws of the Griffon.
3d12+2*19+9 = 66.5. 60ish damage is good? This is a level 7 encounter power...
How about an at-will? Twin Strike, damage = 46. Could be higher if Wis were raised.

Rangers are the damage kings. Once this hits level 21, (and goes Demigod) Claws of the Griffon does 79 damage. Twin Strike does 56.5. Cruel Cage of Steel does 115. I'm not even using Blade Cascade. Iterative attacks are ridiculous when you can get such massive boosts to the damage rolls.

edit: oops, forgot that Twin Strike goes to 2[W] at 21st level. It actually does 69.5 average damage.

 

[Goumindong]

They do more than that, they are criting since the wizard is laying down stunning encounter powers.

 

[Mongolia Jones]

Tell you what Roxlimn, I'll challenge you to a War competition. We'll need some ground rules, the ones that come to mind for me are.

You build a War Wizard, I'll build a "War Wizard" Cleric.

Pick and post all powers 4x daily and 4x encounter, PP and Epic Destinies.

We will add up all the potential damage of all of our bad boy daily and encounter powers we have.

The highest damage dealer takes the "War Wizard" title.

What do you say?


If you agree, some ground rules off the top of my head:
-Two encounters for the day (so we give more weight to them)
-1 action point
-We will assume a 50/50 hit/miss rate
-We only count the damage from AoE powers
-We should put limits on Bolstering Blood as typically a wizard will not use it every time, the damage from it and enemy fire would be too much. If you want to use it, let's say you add a "minor wound" (+d10) for each AoE casting.
-Bolstering Blood will only trigger once in a power, such as Prismatic Spray
-Any powers that have a single full round of effects, can be counted.
-Any powers that have extended damage (either by Minor actions, or by save) should only continue for 3 extra rounds
-All magic items should be of basic sort (i.e. Staff +6, Not Staff of Thunderous Might +6, etc) We are comparing classes, not magic items here.

And any you can think of...

 

[Goumindong]

-We should put limits on Bolstering Blood as typically a wizard will not use it every time, the damage from it and enemy fire would be too much.

What damage from enemy fire? We are going to be stunning them every other round, what are they going to do, drool on the wizard?

Bolstering Blood will only trigger once in a power, such as Prismatic Spray

That is not the way the power works. It triggers each time the effect does damage

-Any powers that have a single full round of effects, can be counted.

What?

-All magic items should be of basic sort (i.e. Staff +6, Not Staff of Thunderous Might +6, etc) We are comparing classes, not magic items here.

While not quite "a man is his what he wears" from 3e, limiting items to basic doesn't really make much sense.

ed: Anyway, as evidenced by my two round combo that lays to waste your 4 round combo(120+80/round, no save end effects that cannot be re-applied) I am going to have to give it to the wizard. You can't top that with a cleric dipping into any abilities.

 

[DemonLord57]

<snip>
-Any powers that have a single full round of effects, can be counted. <snip>

What does "counted" mean? Are you going to assess the effective damage caused by the effect?

edit: ninja'd

 

[Minigiant]

3. you say: Greater Ice Storm +Black Fire -or- Greater Ice Storm +Acid Wave? So a 29th level wizard needs to stack 2 spells to equal the damage output of a single Fire Storm cast from a 19th cleric?
3a. 2 rounds of Fire Storm (round1 +round2) = 59 +18.5 = 77.5 damage.
-vs-
3b. Greater Ice Storm +Black Fire = 36 +39 = 75 damage.
-or vs-
3c. Greater Ice Storm +Acid Wave = 36 +45.5 = 81.5 damage.

Conclusion: I'd rather use a single Fire Storm & a single action rather than two powers & two actions for the same damage, wouldn't you? And be 10 levels lower to boot

4. Are we reading the same message boards?
4a. Wizards suck against Solos
4b. Wizards marginally suck against Elites
4c. Wizards are good with playing footsie against Normals
4d. Wizards are great against 1hp Minions

I think you missing my point.

You don't use AOE damage attack for pure damage like you'd use a Single target damage spell.

AOE damage powers are used to :

1) Damage a large group of enemies
2) Keep a group of enemies together so you can do (1) and have your allies ignore them.

Wizards can also:

3) Push and put enemies into groups.

So a wizard could use a 3 power, then unload a couple of 2s, and finish with a 1. I call this the Control Combo Chain. War wizard focus on 1 and 3 powers (the beginning and end). Control wizards focus on 2s (the middle).

Low level chains are like

Thunderwave(3), Force Orb(1)
Thunderwave(3), Icy Terrain(2), Scorching Burst(1)
Web(3), Icy Terrain(2), Icy rays(2), Scorching Burst(1)
Sleep(3), Icy Terrain(2), Ray of frost twice (2), Fireball (1)

During this time, the creatures caught are damaged and (if not artillery or controllers) unable to deal decent damage. Enemies not caught are ganged up on by the wizard's allies.

Clerics don't have many 3 powers (if any), almost no 2s, and a few 1s.
Clerics can only unload a 1 power and hope someone else holds them still for another 1. That's why they need their powers to ignore allies.

Pure damage AOE are the end of the control combo chain. Clerics only have the end.

 

[Roxlimn]

Mongolia Jones:

Sure. Allow me to make amendments:

2 Encounters. 1 Daily Each, all Encounter powers; cannot be the same Daily unless the class features provide for it. Nondamaging Dailies can be used between Encounters

50% miss rate
Damage only, status effects not in evidence
Bolstering Blood used max but only 4 times an encounter (compromise)
Bolstering Blood works as written, triggering once for each instance of damage
Round effects counted, damage only
Extended damage counted for 3 rounds, +20% for Wizard Spell Focus
Minor action extension must be accounted for, can be done until all powers expended (but cannot artificially prolong rounds to increase damage)
Basic Items only.


In truth, I'm already ceding a lot here, but let's run with this. You sure about this, though? These are the rules as they are, but they heavily favor Wizard damage to the tune of 1 Orcus, nearly.

 

[Zurai]

You are quoting a technical definition that matters not at all during game play. That's like claiming that fighters were the masters of 3.5e melee because the PHB said so.

No. "Masters of melee combat" was descriptive fluff that had no real design intent behind it. "Controllers excel at these things:" is a definition. Like it or not, in 4E, Area of Effect damage is one of the primary jobs of the Controller archetype. It doesn't matter whether you want to call it Control or Fluffy Bunnies - it's still the Wizard's job. The point in this thread is that classes that do not have AoE damage as part of their archetype definition are unarguably better at AoE damage than the class that does.

 

[Goumindong]

No. "Masters of melee combat" was descriptive fluff that had no real design intent behind it. "Controllers excel at these things:" is a definition. Like it or not, in 4E, Area of Effect damage is one of the primary jobs of the Controller archetype. It doesn't matter whether you want to call it Control or Fluffy Bunnies - it's still the Wizard's job. The point in this thread is that classes that do not have AoE damage as part of their archetype definition are unarguably better at AoE damage than the class that does.

Does "excelling at AoE" damage mean you do a lot of it, or you can do it consistently? Because as we have already mentioned, lots of AoE damage is not all that valuable so long as you do 1 damage.

 

[Zurai]

There seems to be this misconception that AoE damage only hurts minions. I frankly don't understand it. Especially when you're talking about no-friendly-fire AoE, it adds up to a significant portion of all the damage dealt in an encounter unless you're fighting a very small group of enemies.