Why is Firestorm the best 19th level control spell?

[Roxlimn]

Um, yeah. I think that IF I can make a power kill Orcus with one class feature and one power application, yes, that makes that power/feature combination unbalanced. One or the other has to go.

Not all Wizard take Bloodmage, but they all have to take something, and I think it's a safe assumption to say that they'll take Paragon Paths that will mesh well with their powers, one way or another. My comparisons work regardless of whether you take Blood Mage or Battle Mage. You want us to take Divine Oracle on Orb Wizard? Yeah - that won't work for supporting damage for very obvious reasons. Basing damage output for Wizard powers on that is like saying that Lead the Attack sucks for a Warlock, so it must not be a good power.

If we want to do damage estimates it's reasonable to look for and use damage boosters that War Wizards will want to take, just as it's reasonable to say that they'll all max Int as much as possible and have a good implement. If you can do the same for Cleric, then by all means do so! If we can max Astral Storm or Firestorm to ridiculous enough levels with common Paragon Path features that a Cleric actually gives the Wizard a sound thumping, then let's have that out.

A War Wizard, as I've shown, does ridiculous amounts of damage on a hit. AND he sweeps the minions as well. A Bloodmage can clear a room of minions automatically just by using his second wind. Bloody a Spellstorm Mage and the same thing happens. And he's thumping the enemies with massive AoE damages.

And they've both still got decent single target options in Disintegrate and Bigby's to name but a few.

 

[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.

Did anyone actually look at this post? You guys are still talking about striker damage, and where exactly it'll be when you get Firestorm. Here you go. Again.

 

[Danceofmasks]

Let it go, DemonLord57 ..

Battlefield manipulation is more complicated, hence some people (casual players who play just for fun especially) will do better with damaging powers than powers such as walls and evard's.
In the hands of a casual player, I would prefer a wizard to be made of blam.

 

[Roxlimn]

That looks fairly depressing, actually. It's not Firestorm low, but it's definitely less than what I was hoping for. And on a Bugbear, too.

 

[DemonLord57]

That looks fairly depressing, actually. It's not Firestorm low, but it's definitely less than what I was hoping for. And on a Bugbear, too.

Almost 100 damage is low? Without crits?

Let it go, DemonLord57 ..

Battlefield manipulation is more complicated, hence some people (casual players who play just for fun especially) will do better with damaging powers than powers such as walls and evard's.
In the hands of a casual player, I would prefer a wizard to be made of blam.

Yeah, you're probably right... I'm going to stop posting here... (I tell myself)

 

[Roxlimn]

DemonLord57:

Yes. It's low. Bear in mind that this is a Daily - a Striker would usually be using this on a Solo or an Elite some time during the day, maybe on a slightly overleveled monster if we don't have Elites or Solos that day (n+2 or something).

What's Standard HP for level 20? About 200. 400 for Elites. After you expend this Daily, what then? Do you have more powers that do this much damage? How many per encounter powers do this much damage?

Frankly, this kind of damage is only barely acceptable for a Striker Daily against Standards and underleveled Standards. Scratch that. It's low. I want more.

Why do I expect more damage on a hit?

A Wizard is an AoE and status effect guy. At level 20, minions aren't even an issue for him. He eliminates them almost just by being there. His stock in trade is doing lots of damage through multitargeting, just as Ranger does lots of damage by multiattacking.

Force Volley is a target-selective level 17 Encounter power. I will assume 18 Int to start, normal implements, Bolstering Blood. No more. No race munchkinning. No special implements. No additional optimization. The Range on this is 20. If you have the targets, you WILL get 3 of them.

It does average 30.5 damage on a hit or about 91.5 damage in all. This is an Encounter power. The Wiz is doing this much damage, barely optimized, as a second thought. If you can catch 3 opponents in a Thunderlance's 5x5 area, it does even more than this, without even using Raging Storm. Blast of Cold will do 40.5 damage each. Disintegrate does nearly 80 damage to a single target using only this much optimization. More on critical, naturally, as always. Prismatic Beams can do about 65 damage each for hits in an 11x11 area with no friendly fire.

And you're excited by 98.5?

I'm thinking something like 150 would be more appropriate.

 

[Puggins]

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.

This is pointless- we're going 'round and 'round because you are getting hung up on a design description. The point isn't "do clerics do more AE damage than wizards do?" The point is "do wizards excel in parties as much as clerics do?" The answer to the former is "yes, very likely." The answer to the latter is not known yet. This reminds me of the "monk is overpowered" threads during early 3.5e days. On paper, the monk looked friggin' awesome. Only when people tried to play it did they realize that advantages on paper sometimes don't translate well into practice.

So the cleric does more damage in AE than the wizard- I'll certainly grant that as a very strong possibility. The question now becomes whether that particular advantage is so important that the wizard becomes superfluous. If you are intellectually honest, you'll admit that you have no clue, since high level play simply hasn't been observed enough to draw a conclusion. You currently claim that high AE damage will trump everything else that the wizard brings to the table, making a cleric the equivalent of a leader+controller. The same situation exists in strikers, you know- the ranger certainly does far more damage than a rogue on a consistant basis. Does that make the rogue obsolete? I'd hope not, but who in the nine hells knows?

 

[Goumindong]

For a few feats, the Cleric can multiclass to Wizard and get a Wizard Paragon Path (say, Bloodmage) and the Archmage Epic Destiny. He can heal, he can use the best spells from both Wizard and Cleric, Bolster them, and repeat them thanks to Archmage, all while wearing heavy armor.

1. No he cannot, if he uses a paragon path he is limited to one daily, one utility, and one encounter. That is hardly "All the best spells". He can indeed use archmage, and Bloodmage, but only on those powers(and he is missing out on thunderwave, the quintessential wizard at will). If he wants more spells he has to paragon multiclass and while he then does get thunderwave, he loses the paragon path features(but does end up with 2 dailies, 2 utilities, and 2 encounters)

2. A wizard can do all of that in heavy armor by spending two feats, Leather Proficiency and Chainmail Proficiency(and scale if he wants). And he still has two more feats advanced over the Cleric. Feats he could use for Scale Proficiency and Scale Specialization. This gives him better armor than the cleric wih no movement penalty. Alternately he could pick up chain spec if he didn't want the extra move(or was a dwarf) and lightning reflexes/great fort/iron will. Or toughness to make up for the hit point differential.[Alternately, he could pick up leather, hide, shield, heavy shield]

3. Now the cleric is suffering from a slight MAD, MID, can only use his multi-classed abilities half the time, and has less defense than the wizard.

I feel bad for the poor cleric if all his healing powers heal Wis less compared to the Warlord because the cleric has healing lore. Except, they don't seem to. I'm sure there was some way that tied into 'Wizard AoE deals less damage' though.

Because clerics are the healing leaders and warlords are the useful leaders.

Because wizards don't actually do less AoE damage, do more useful AoE effects, and do it more often.

DemonLord57:

Yes. It's low. Bear in mind that this is a Daily - a Striker would usually be using this on a Solo or an Elite some time during the day, maybe on a slightly overleveled monster if we don't have Elites or Solos that day (n+2 or something).

90 damage to a single target is ~twice as strong than 90 damage spread amongst three targets.

Proof.

3 enemies have 400 hit points, 90 damage to single target/round
Round 1: 400,400,310
Round 2: 400,400,220
Round 3: 400,400,130
Round 4: 400,400,040
Round 5: 400,400,dead
Round 6: 400,310
Round 7: 400,220
Round 8: 400,130
Round 9: 400,040
Round 10: 400,Dead
Round 15: dead

Total Enemy Actions taken: 30, This is sub-optimal for the party assuming that they were tossing multiple attacks out they would take them down 2 rounds earlier, which is 13 rounds and 26 Enemy Actions.

3 Enemies have 400 hit points, 30 damage to each target/round
Round 1: 370,370,370
Round 10: 100,100,100
Round 14: Dead, Dead, Dead

Total Enemy Actions Taken: 42

You need to be doing a lot better than 1/3 damage or have a lot more enemies to make AoE valuable. Once the minions are cleared unless you can get everyone AND reduce enemy actions taken its just not valuable over taking enemies out of the fight.

 

[Mongolia Jones]

Did anyone actually look at this post? You guys are still talking about striker damage, and where exactly it'll be when you get Firestorm. Here you go. Again.

You mean this one below? I will paraphrase...

Bugbear Ranger/Pit Fighter, w/2 oversized +4 bastard swords. Has Lethal Hunter, WF: Bastard Sword, and Two-Weapon Fighting. 24 Str and 21 Wis

Using Cruel Cage of Steel = 98.5 avg. damage
Claws of the Griffon = 66.5 avg. damage
Twin Strike, damage = 46 avg. damage

Rangers are the damage kings

Yep, I did.

What I wanted to do was to establish what the average damage you could depend on from a striker in a typical battle. What's the damage i can expect, round to round, if I had a typical 19th level striker in a party. Can I expect 98 damage/round? ...80? ...70?

What is striker damage? It's the average damage that I can expect from him/her over time.

So what is that damage? What can a 19th level striker deliver realistically over time? Let's say a battle that lasts 10 rounds.

I think you said:

Claws of the Griffon. 3d12+2*19+9 = 66.5. 60ish damage is good? This is a level 7 encounter power...

Well the average damage output of a Fire Storm, for the 1st round, over a group of opponents, lets say 8, (considering a 50% hit rate, and the 100% auto-hit rate on the opponents turn), is 392 damage or 49 average. Half take 39 damage, the other half take 59.

So you could say that I feel 50ish damage is good... actually I know it's great...

I assume by your above comment you feel that 60ish damage is sub par for a striker at 19th? You even gave an example of two powers, one doing about 98 points and the other doing 66, averaging them out thats 82 damage.

Interesting how all attacks hit, btw...

Can your uber-oversized-bastard sword wielding-bugbear damage king deliver 82 points of damage per round for 10 rounds? Heck, can he even deliver 60ish?

I think not... no, in fact... I KNOW he can't...

My gut is telling me that my estimation is a good one. Your striker will be LUCKY to do 60ish damage a round for 10 rounds.

I gave your striker a decent number... 60... don't make me go crunch some numbers, revealing even a lower damage level, thereby depressing your bugbear into giving up his profession.

There's not enough bugbears in important positions as it is...

 

[Goumindong]

Did you even bother to read the post above the one you just let off? 50 damage AoEs are not spectacular, 11 average damage/round to a bunch of enemies is not spectacular as a daily.

A 20st lvl ranger will be doing about 27.5 average damage with twin strike assuming it has a 50% hit rate and 35.5 with a 100% hit rate(which is easier to get due to proficiency (+3) and the ability to get combat advantage against enemies(unlikely for the cleric using an AoE for another +2). That is after he has expended all his encounters and not including any interrupts, opportunity attacks, or anything else.

So, lets assume he gets an average of 1 opportunity attack every round(sometimes more, sometimes less, but it can be up to 8 opportunity attacks/round if conditions are right), hits 65% of the time(proficiency+combat advantage-power attack), and has heavy blade opportunity.

That is 18.5 damage/round before attacks are made.

He burns 4 encounters and a Daily[as you are burning a daily] and is level 20 and we will ignore AoE powers for the purpose of this discussion since it inflates real damage values. But he uses no action points. That is 5 rounds of Regular Twin Strike and 5 rounds of daily/encounters. Twin strike does 18.75 damage with an average of 8.6 damage for the hunters quarry(It only needs to hit one of the attacks and one attack will land 95% of the time each round* and change assuming no opportunity attacks are made, so this is a slight advantage to you). Which is 27.25 damage. So for rounds 5-10 he is averaging 45.4 damage with the opportunity attack(which probably came earlier in the fight which is why we aren't giving it the hunters quarry advantage).

Now we have to figure the 4 encounters and 1 daily.

For our daily we will use Slashers Mark(we are not going to use Stormwarden, because the extra 10 damage/round to all adjacent targets is unfair, as well is Blade Cascade when used with effects that add + to hit). Anyway, this gives us a single attack and then a secondary attack each round until the end of the encounter. Our secondary attack is made at 65% and 2d10+6+1+4+4+2 which adds another 18.2 damage/round.

Now our total for rounds 6-10 is 63.6.

Slashers Mark averages 27.3 damage so for round 1 we do 72.25 damage.
Round Two We Twin Strike and Wrong Step(immediate interrupt) and slashers mark secondary 78.225 damage.(well, we can jsut assume a wrong step will happen at some point.
Round three we two weapon eviscerate for 73.92
Round four we nimble defense or Pinning Strike for 73.3
Round five we claw of the griffin for 73.3 damage
Round 6-10 is standard.

Average is 68.89 damage/round(688.9 damage total) in a more efficient manner(its all on single targets which reduces incoming damage faster), produces status effects on many of them, and is probably sub-optimal anyway because I used power attack.

Clerics aren't competing with strikers.

*3 attacks at 65% chance to hit/round due to slashers mark.

ed: Forgot to figure criticals.

Criticals happen 1/20 attacks, and this ranger has made 50 attacks during this time. So he will have, on average, 2.5 criticals. Criticals roughly double the damage a power gets +4d12 damage. But because of the way that hunters quarry works, it also is will almost always increase the hunters quarry damage. So 2.5 criticals is 10d12 extra damage, 17.5 extra hunters quarry damage and on average another(assuming all crits were 1[w] attacks]) 11.25 damage for a total of 93.75 damage.

That brings our average to 78.26 per round for the lvl 20 ranger. 782.6 damage total.