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D&D 4E Are humans balanced in 4e?
- Thread starter Quartz
- Start date
yesnomu
First Post
Exactly. A human wizard or warlock, for example, can grab at-wills to target all defenses. That's serious flexibility right there.
Human druids get four at-wills! How is that not awesome!
Mal Malenkirk
First Post
I have a hard time taking something else than a human. Human fighters (especially with MP!) and wizards are my favorite and, in my opinions, the best at these roles.
You can dislike humans for flavour but mechanically they are very strong.
You can dislike humans for flavour but mechanically they are very strong.
thecasualoblivion
First Post
The usage of the extra At-Will varies.
Some classes like to spam a single At-Will power. For example, Rangers and Twin Strike or Strength based Paladins with Holy Strike. These classes will get little use out of a third at-will, because they are built around using just one.
Some classes get a lot of strategic depth out of a third at will. This is most true of controllers, whose tactics depend more on the current condition of the battlefield than other roles do. Lets take a high-Wisdom Wizard for example:
Magic Missile--attack at extremely long range, possibly boosted by Bracers of the Perfect Shot.
Illusory Ambush--Apply a penalty to a dangerous enemy
Ray of Frost--Slow a melee enemy and prevent it from getting close
Scorching Burst--Damage a pile of enemies at range.
Thunderwave--Push enemies into a place they don't want to be, preferably into a zone like Stinking Cloud or Web or next to the Fighter. Also gets them away from you.
Cloud of Daggers--Probably the best single target damage you have.
While you certainly can spam Magic Missile and Scorching Burst with no thought to tactics and still contribute, a lot of advantage can be gained by choosing three of these to apply when circumstances demand their use.
Some classes like to spam a single At-Will power. For example, Rangers and Twin Strike or Strength based Paladins with Holy Strike. These classes will get little use out of a third at-will, because they are built around using just one.
Some classes get a lot of strategic depth out of a third at will. This is most true of controllers, whose tactics depend more on the current condition of the battlefield than other roles do. Lets take a high-Wisdom Wizard for example:
Magic Missile--attack at extremely long range, possibly boosted by Bracers of the Perfect Shot.
Illusory Ambush--Apply a penalty to a dangerous enemy
Ray of Frost--Slow a melee enemy and prevent it from getting close
Scorching Burst--Damage a pile of enemies at range.
Thunderwave--Push enemies into a place they don't want to be, preferably into a zone like Stinking Cloud or Web or next to the Fighter. Also gets them away from you.
Cloud of Daggers--Probably the best single target damage you have.
While you certainly can spam Magic Missile and Scorching Burst with no thought to tactics and still contribute, a lot of advantage can be gained by choosing three of these to apply when circumstances demand their use.
That is a lot funnier than my mugging. I can't stop laughing.
Elder-Basilisk
First Post
You'd have a point if the default situation were having only one at-will power. But any character of any race already gets the hammer and the screwdriver.
The third at-will is usually like getting a small prybar after you already have a hammer and a flathead screwdriver--yeah, the prybar is better, but the screwdriver gets the job done anyway. At will powers are not so different that one will be perfect and the other useless.
Here's the thing. Your encounter powers will almost always be better than your at-wills. Your daily powers will almost always be better than your at-wills. So, by the time you hit 7th level, that's at least three attacks in every battle that are probably accounted for by your encounter powers and in some battles you will also use a daily. (Theoretically, someone might use a standard action utility power too, but most characters will not have them). If combats are typically 5 rounds, that's only two rounds of at-will powers--or three if this is one of the combats where you spend an action point. If you charge once per combat (which many classes will do, especially with the charge feats and items out there now), it's only one or two at-will power uses per combat. So, what are the odds that any of the one to three situations per combat where you are using an at-will power will be one where neither your best nor your second best at-will power will be useful and you will fall back to the third string power? Pretty low.
To use my example from earlier, you might expect it to come up with my inspiring warlord if it is going to come up for any non-wizard. After all, wolf-pack tactics, while great, is situational, and brash assault requires DM cooperation which may prove difficult if you are using it to exploit short term bonuses you grant. (A gelatinous cube may just take you up on the attack trade when it is under Inspired belligerence and marked by the adjacent fighter who has a +5 power bonus to hit from the second warlord, but anything smart enough to talk will probably see that for a sucker's bet). Therefore, unlike most third at-will powers, Commander's strike has a definite and obvious role in the character's strategies that synergizes with the character's encounter and utility powers. (The character is also low level and has had only one or two encounter attack powers which means that at-wills will see more use than for higher level characters, giving the third at-will power more play time which should mean more opportunities for usefulness). And yet, over six LFR mods (most of which my character has been playing up and all of which have featured appropriate allies for commander's strike), there has been exactly one situation where I Commander's Strike would have been my best move... and in that game, the DM had been biting on every brash assault, so I used it again and he traded his weak melee basic for a melee basic from the minotaur barbarian who was benefiting from Inspired Belligerence.
The bottom line is this: everyone picks the best at-will for their build. And they will usually pick the second-best as well.
(The following percentages are pretty arbitrary, but I think they are being pretty generous to second and third rank at-will powers). If the best at-will is best in 50% of the circumstances where you use an at-will power and the second best at-will is best in, 30% of the circumstances where you use an at-will power, a third at-will power will only have 20% of the circumstances where you will use at-will power to even have a shot at being your best choice. Since there are a couple of other powers that might occasionally be useful, you're probably looking at 10-15% of the situations where the third best at-will would be your choice and another 5-10% where the fourth best at-will would have been the best option (but you don't have it so you have to make do and option 1 or 2 will usually be the second best option). If I'm right and there are typically only one or two times per combat when you will use an at-will power, then your third best at-will power is only going to have the situations where it is useful come up every five to ten combats. (Which is more often than it came up in my experience with a character who stacked every bit of the deck in favor of the third at-will being useful). Compare that to other racial encounter powers which are useful in nearly every combat (elven accuracy, dragon breath, second chance, darkfire/darkness) or every other combat (dwarven resilience, fey step) and I think it becomes clear that having a third at-will in place of an encounter power is generally a bad deal.
And with regard to the wizard and the hypothetical +Int/+Wis race, remember, you're not trading the third at-will for +2 Wis; you also get a racial encounter power in the deal.
The third at-will is usually like getting a small prybar after you already have a hammer and a flathead screwdriver--yeah, the prybar is better, but the screwdriver gets the job done anyway. At will powers are not so different that one will be perfect and the other useless.
Here's the thing. Your encounter powers will almost always be better than your at-wills. Your daily powers will almost always be better than your at-wills. So, by the time you hit 7th level, that's at least three attacks in every battle that are probably accounted for by your encounter powers and in some battles you will also use a daily. (Theoretically, someone might use a standard action utility power too, but most characters will not have them). If combats are typically 5 rounds, that's only two rounds of at-will powers--or three if this is one of the combats where you spend an action point. If you charge once per combat (which many classes will do, especially with the charge feats and items out there now), it's only one or two at-will power uses per combat. So, what are the odds that any of the one to three situations per combat where you are using an at-will power will be one where neither your best nor your second best at-will power will be useful and you will fall back to the third string power? Pretty low.
To use my example from earlier, you might expect it to come up with my inspiring warlord if it is going to come up for any non-wizard. After all, wolf-pack tactics, while great, is situational, and brash assault requires DM cooperation which may prove difficult if you are using it to exploit short term bonuses you grant. (A gelatinous cube may just take you up on the attack trade when it is under Inspired belligerence and marked by the adjacent fighter who has a +5 power bonus to hit from the second warlord, but anything smart enough to talk will probably see that for a sucker's bet). Therefore, unlike most third at-will powers, Commander's strike has a definite and obvious role in the character's strategies that synergizes with the character's encounter and utility powers. (The character is also low level and has had only one or two encounter attack powers which means that at-wills will see more use than for higher level characters, giving the third at-will power more play time which should mean more opportunities for usefulness). And yet, over six LFR mods (most of which my character has been playing up and all of which have featured appropriate allies for commander's strike), there has been exactly one situation where I Commander's Strike would have been my best move... and in that game, the DM had been biting on every brash assault, so I used it again and he traded his weak melee basic for a melee basic from the minotaur barbarian who was benefiting from Inspired Belligerence.
The bottom line is this: everyone picks the best at-will for their build. And they will usually pick the second-best as well.
(The following percentages are pretty arbitrary, but I think they are being pretty generous to second and third rank at-will powers). If the best at-will is best in 50% of the circumstances where you use an at-will power and the second best at-will is best in, 30% of the circumstances where you use an at-will power, a third at-will power will only have 20% of the circumstances where you will use at-will power to even have a shot at being your best choice. Since there are a couple of other powers that might occasionally be useful, you're probably looking at 10-15% of the situations where the third best at-will would be your choice and another 5-10% where the fourth best at-will would have been the best option (but you don't have it so you have to make do and option 1 or 2 will usually be the second best option). If I'm right and there are typically only one or two times per combat when you will use an at-will power, then your third best at-will power is only going to have the situations where it is useful come up every five to ten combats. (Which is more often than it came up in my experience with a character who stacked every bit of the deck in favor of the third at-will being useful). Compare that to other racial encounter powers which are useful in nearly every combat (elven accuracy, dragon breath, second chance, darkfire/darkness) or every other combat (dwarven resilience, fey step) and I think it becomes clear that having a third at-will in place of an encounter power is generally a bad deal.
And with regard to the wizard and the hypothetical +Int/+Wis race, remember, you're not trading the third at-will for +2 Wis; you also get a racial encounter power in the deal.
DracoSuave
First Post
The above argument hinges on the idea that there IS a 'best' at-will. For classes like Ranger, this is true. But for classes like Wizard or even Paladin, it's not as cut and dry like that. For a Paladin, as an example, there's a time to use Holy Strike, but there's a time to use Valiant Strike (high AC monsters like soldiers) and there's a time to use Enfeebling (brutes, monsters that hit hard), no at-will shines above the rest in his situation. Wizards more so, where they need to have at-wills that accomplish two completely different tasks. Humans, for these classes, are a good fit because that basic level of flexibility is an asset to them, as now they are more optimized to take on a wider array of challenges.
As well, Humans' extra feat and extra point of NAD is very handy to have compared to other races. This, coupled with their +2 to a single attribute, makes them the only race that gets +2 to one defense and +1 to the other two, when most races get by with +2 to two defenses.
As well, Humans' extra feat and extra point of NAD is very handy to have compared to other races. This, coupled with their +2 to a single attribute, makes them the only race that gets +2 to one defense and +1 to the other two, when most races get by with +2 to two defenses.
Well, I don't know about anybody else, but I don't have any human characters simply because I play LFR and have chosen to treat character creation for that campaign with all the seriousness it deserves. Dragonmen as PC! And monsters! And more monsters! And giant freakin' robots! Yeah. This isn't remotely a serious campaign (which is almost inevitable, since this isn't a serious game system), so why should I bother with creating characters that fit into the world? The whole world doesn't fit into the world.
DracoSuave
First Post
BUT HE'S STILL TROGDOOOORRRRR!
TROGDOOOORRRRR!!!!
BURNINATING THE COUNTRYSIDE!
BURNINATING THE PEASANTS!
BURNINATING ALL THE PEOPLES... in their thatched roof COTTAGES!!!!
Some are, some aren't. Interestingly, the classes where there ARE at wills that are so different that they each fit into different situations are the classes where Humans are good choices. Funny that.
I don't know what else to do except bring up the Barbarian again, since its such a great example.
Want to charge? Howling Strike.
Want temporary hit points? Recuperating Strike
Want to maneuver while in melee reach, possibly to line up a powerful close burst attack, or to escape after having used one? Pressing Strike.
Fighters can create similar setups. So can Wizards. You get the idea.
Each one of these example powers provides you with all you need to accomplish a particular important task, all the time, as much as you want. Which of course creates a ripple effect throughout your character, as you can dedicate your encounter and daily powers to other matters.
I understand your logic about how your extra at will is inevitably your third best choice, but of course that's the point- humans are good choices for classes where even the third best choice is still worthwhile.
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