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Wizards, nerfed or not?
- Thread starter Ed_Laprade
- Start date
Remathilis
Legend
I don't know about others, but I have looked at that. Those side effects to damage while useful, contribute less to the success of the party than every other side effect from the other roles.
Ed_Laprade
Adventurer
This is more like the kind of answer I was looking for. As I said, I know that previous edition Wizards were way overpwered at high levels, so they've been nerfed that way. Which I agree is a good thing. What I may not have been so clear about is if they've been nerfed compared to other 4E classes? They still seem easier to kill, but is that offset by other factors? Or do they just not stack up?
As I said, I'm curious. I'm not interested in an edition war.
For me there side benefits are the smallest for two reasons, one not massively impressive, and two very situational. The very situational part bothers me because it means I have to put extra work into my encounters so the wizard can look decent. I don't have to do that for any of the other classes.
To use a WoW example in certain dungeons and raids they would put in a couple encounters where you would fight hordes of comparatively low HP mobs, way too many mobs to burn down one by one. Your healer would run out of mojo before the fight was over and it would be a party wipe. Enter the mage, he can throw his AoE spells left and right and burn down the horde. It basically was a staged encounter so there was a reason to bring the right number of mages to a raid. If mages are underrepresented then you have a unsatisfied group of players.
I basically have to do the same thing for the wizard. I have to create staged tactically bad encounters so the mage can let loose and shine.
I think a player can have fun despite this. The occasional wasn't it awesome moment can overwrite all the more common slightly below average moments.
I've found that the wizard is just fine. His dailies tend to define the encounters in which they're used, much like Lead the Attack, except with more explosions.
We're at level 9. If we go through 4 fights in a day, one fight will be defined by the wizard exploding off ~20% of the enemies' hit points in the first round of combat. Another will be defined by the wizard dividing the battlefield in half with a giant wall of fire, and then everyone spending the entire fight throwing enemies back through it whenever they try to get out. And another will be defined by the wizard driving a ball of flame around the battlefield like a bulldozer.
In general, people who don't like the wizard tend to view his damage as being too low, and complain that he's only worthwhile when you have hordes of weak enemies. I think this is a misconception: area of effect damage is recalibrated in 4e. You're not going to slaughter foes left and right with it, but it does tend to do more damage than regular attacks. For example, an attack that hits 60% of the time deals 1d6+8 damage (level 9 wizard, 20 Int, +2 implement, +1 feat) to two targets has an expected damage of 13.8. In comparison, with similar stats, Reaping Strike with a mordenkrad dealing 2d6+8 damage (5 on a miss) to one target is dealing expected damage of 11.6 (thats with one more feat for the fighter, for the record). The fighter, of course, marks his foe, which has a lot of value. But so does damage.
If you look at total damage instead of damage to an individual enemy, even the spells widely viewed as sub standard are pretty good: Fireball is popularly viewed as a disappointment in 4e. But if you attack 5 enemies with it (very plausible, since you'll hold off on casting it until you can get most or all of your foes in the 7x7 explosion), have a 60% chance of hitting, and deal 3d6+8 damage on a hit, half on a miss, you'll get an expected damage of 70. I'm reasonably sure that's the highest level 5 daily power expected damage available in the game that doesn't involve damage over time. Now, if you're doing that at level 9 like our wizard is, your expected damage versus an individual foe amongst those five is 16. This isn't going to make any of them weep, they probably have 70 to 90 hp. But viewed as a whole, its a lot of progress towards winning the fight.
We're at level 9. If we go through 4 fights in a day, one fight will be defined by the wizard exploding off ~20% of the enemies' hit points in the first round of combat. Another will be defined by the wizard dividing the battlefield in half with a giant wall of fire, and then everyone spending the entire fight throwing enemies back through it whenever they try to get out. And another will be defined by the wizard driving a ball of flame around the battlefield like a bulldozer.
In general, people who don't like the wizard tend to view his damage as being too low, and complain that he's only worthwhile when you have hordes of weak enemies. I think this is a misconception: area of effect damage is recalibrated in 4e. You're not going to slaughter foes left and right with it, but it does tend to do more damage than regular attacks. For example, an attack that hits 60% of the time deals 1d6+8 damage (level 9 wizard, 20 Int, +2 implement, +1 feat) to two targets has an expected damage of 13.8. In comparison, with similar stats, Reaping Strike with a mordenkrad dealing 2d6+8 damage (5 on a miss) to one target is dealing expected damage of 11.6 (thats with one more feat for the fighter, for the record). The fighter, of course, marks his foe, which has a lot of value. But so does damage.
If you look at total damage instead of damage to an individual enemy, even the spells widely viewed as sub standard are pretty good: Fireball is popularly viewed as a disappointment in 4e. But if you attack 5 enemies with it (very plausible, since you'll hold off on casting it until you can get most or all of your foes in the 7x7 explosion), have a 60% chance of hitting, and deal 3d6+8 damage on a hit, half on a miss, you'll get an expected damage of 70. I'm reasonably sure that's the highest level 5 daily power expected damage available in the game that doesn't involve damage over time. Now, if you're doing that at level 9 like our wizard is, your expected damage versus an individual foe amongst those five is 16. This isn't going to make any of them weep, they probably have 70 to 90 hp. But viewed as a whole, its a lot of progress towards winning the fight.
Plane Sailing
Astral Admin - Mwahahaha!
Our 5th level wizard has used fireball three times now. In each case it has been laughably useless, typically doing about 12 damage to each of 4 foes. It was hardly worth doing in the grand scheme of things. As an encounter power it would have been OK, but a daily? The benefit of doing small damage to a large number of foes is over-rated in my experience.
Cheers
Random comments with poor organization:
So, 48 damage then. Presumably that's a low roll, as you should be dealing around 3d6+5, but its within the bounds of reason, or even more within the bounds of a weighted averaged based on accuracy and doing half on a miss. Versus level 5 foes... a quick survey of the compendium puts their hit points at about 50 to 60 depending on the monster type.
We both know that a power that eliminates ~20% of the hit points of the entire enemy force in a given fight isn't balanced for use as an encounter power, because you get three of those.
3d6+Int is mathematically equivalent to 2[W]+Str for [W] values of 1d8. This puts it at equivalent in damage to a melee character power that deals 2[W]+Str four times, or three with a two handed weapon (technically even a mordenkrad doesn't match up with 3 attacks, but it overshoots with 4). Nobody even questions those.
I know everyone hates it, but I can prove on an abacus that its too good to be an encounter power and better than a lot of other daily powers from other classes.
The level 7 pseudo fireball is a better example of what's balanced for an encounter power. I also think that its ok reputation illustrates what's going on psychologically. It does 3d6+Int damage, just like Fireball. But it doesn't deal Miss: Half, and its radius is smaller by 1. I think that, for a lot of people, it "feels" just as good as a regular Fireball. But its performance level just isn't up to Fireball's standards, because Burst 3 is much, much better than Burst 2, and Miss: Half is a significant increaser of expected damage.
Both classes which are still in playtest and not released yet.
Currently there is only one controller class.
Plane Sailing
Astral Admin - Mwahahaha!
It is possible that my anecdotes might go the other way if the wizard was anything other than total rubbish at rolling fireball damage
Of the three he has thrown so far he has rolled a 4, a 4 and a 6 on his 3d6!Burst 3 would be better in open terrain with large armies, no doubt about that, but in dungeon scenarios burst 2 would have been big enough to catch all the enemies without much trouble. Even against large armies a fireball doesn't hurt minions on a miss. If it killed minions on a miss, then I'd be a little happier with it.
Miss:Half is psychologically pretty poor ("Hey, I did 8 damage to each of the gnolls! They are all down 10% of their hp!").
The area of fireball is more often a drawback rather than a benefit unless the wizard manages to go first in a combat, and if the wizard is going first then Slow is often a better opener than Fireball from a tactical point of view.
In terms of killing minions and doing more damage to other targets then Stinking Cloud seems much better a lot of the time. By round 2 you've done more damage than a fireball, you've been guaranteed a kill against minions and you can still keep it going as a minor while doing other stuff too. For a wizard with +8 damage and a combat that lasts 8 rounds (all the combats I ran last Sunday lasted 12-15 rounds FWIW) he could do a fireball for 3d6+8 in burst 3, or he could do a stinking cloud which would do 8d10+64 in burst 2 over the course of the combat. Unless you're fighting something immune to poison, stinking cloud seems much, much better. It is on that basis that I particularly find fireball lacking.
Cheers!
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