Visions of Avarice trivializes melee encounters?

[DracoSuave]

A great power, and actually not hard to thwart for a DM either.

Step 1) Get a monster beside the wizard.

Step 2) No really, that's about it.

The wizard has to spend two actions to use it, one of which triggers an OA from the monster. The third action either has to get the wizard away from the monster, or is an attack, which also is a time OA can be used.

Two monsters adjacent to the wizard will pretty much guarantee that he'll have some hard choices to make if he wants to play Illusion Greedmaster today.

Sure, the monsters might have to -work- to get there to do it, but that's what controllers are about, and that is how it should be.

 

[Trevelyan]

Nah, it's cool. Just compare to Web, which is the same level and does almost the same thing and...

Wait, why are you laughing?

Web has some advantages. Visions takes a minnor action to sustain and a minor action to repeat the attack while Web is a fire and forget daily. PLus Web produces difficult terrain.

Whic is not to say that I wouldn't usually still rather have Visions, only that there are certain situations, most obviously when you have something else to sustain, when Web is a better bet.

A great power, and actually not hard to thwart for a DM either.

Step 1) Get a monster beside the wizard.

Step 2) No really, that's about it.

The wizard has to spend two actions to use it, one of which triggers an OA from the monster. The third action either has to get the wizard away from the monster, or is an attack, which also is a time OA can be used.

Hardly, once you've cast the spell the minor to sustain doesn't trigger anything, and the attack is a close burst so doesn't provoke an OA.

I can play the experience card here having used Visions of Averice for the first time earlier this week. I'd say that there are a lot of variables involved, including the following:

Mix of monsters - melee vs ranged: Against ranged monsters the power is initially of limited use, but imobilising artillary allows you own melee types to get in close and pin them down without having to worry about the monsters shifting back and continuing to attack using ranged powers. Against melee monsters the situation is largely reversed in that you can initially take them out of the fight but sooner or later you are going to have to wade in and fight them. Flanking is much easier against an imobile foe, of course.

Mix of party - following on from a monster mix, the party mix is also significant. A mele heavy party won't gain any major advantage against melee monsters other than slightly better flanking potential, but could close down troublesome ranged monsters. Conversely, a ranged heavy party with find melee monsters easy to manage but gain nothing against artillary.

Overall, assuming a balanced party with a mix of melee and range and a similar mix of monsters, what Visions is really going to achieve is to let the party send the most effective members against the best choice of monsters (melee pinning aartillary and ranged attacking melee monsters) with greater ease. It's useful but not always major, especially given the luck of the dice.

Terrain is the other major factor. Dumping Visions in the middle of dangerous terrain can result in a lot of extra damage. Casting the spell on a fighter who is using Rain of Steel is also quite amusing. I'm also sure it's not entirely a coincidence that Visions essentially takes two minor actions to keep a bunch of monsters pinned in a burst 1 radius while still leaving the wizard, often with a burst 1 at-will attack with a standard action to use that attack.

In the whole, though, I think that Stinking Clound is likely to be more effective in at least as many situations.

 

[FunkBGR]

Hey, here's some suggestions for "fixing" this spell:
Remove the immobilize effect
Change the immobilize to dazed (end of monster's turn)
Have it affect creatures instead of enemies.

Honestly, I find it weird that the two 5th level dailies that are some of the only examples of Wizard's targetting enemies-only are more powerful than most other spells of that level.

Is Wizards' perhaps trying to bump up the controller-y goodness of the Wizard? How do they stack up with other controllers' lvl 5 dailies?

(I play PHB only, so I honestly don't know!)

 

[DracoSuave]

Hardly, once you've cast the spell the minor to sustain doesn't trigger anything, and the attack is a close burst so doesn't provoke an OA.

Are you -certain- Visions of Avarice is a Close power? I don't have Arcane on me right now, but I remember it being an Area power when I last looked at it. And 'repeating the attack' doesn't make the attack a Close attack, cause otherwise the power'd be 'Pull a lot of monsters onto the wizard' which would be, well, a much shorter discussion on its effectiveness.

 

[KarinsDad]

Are you -certain- Visions of Avarice is a Close power? I don't have Arcane on me right now, but I remember it being an Area power when I last looked at it. And 'repeating the attack' doesn't make the attack a Close attack, cause otherwise the power'd be 'Pull a lot of monsters onto the wizard' which would be, well, a much shorter discussion on its effectiveness.

He's sure.

When originally cast, the power is Area 1. That provokes.

The minor action is Close Burst 5. That does not provoke.

The minor action has a different Attack Type than the standard action does.

 

[DracoSuave]

K. Just being sure about it.

Still. There are ways to stop a wizard using this for his once per day breakfast.

 

[bebarce]

I'm a human wizard and I absolutely love this spell. I combine it with an action point flaming sphere +3 (although you lose 1 spot since sphere occupies a square) to attack with my action surge on drop.

I also have the option to hold off on the flaming sphere to a second round, and use my action point for a minor in case I miss a pull (also get a +3 on each pull this way).

I also drop it next to or if possible in between main baddy + other. With this and my flaming sphere, I just hold everyone in one spot while continually doing damage to them.

I use my immediate reactions (staff of defense, shield, wizards escape) in case someone is able to possibly not only break through my group, and break my defenses. Each round 3 minors go off.

Yesterday even without the use of flaming sphere, a loose straggler tried to hit me which allowed me to teleport (wizards escape) close enough to Flame Shroud, allowing ongoing damage. I used my remaining action to either move or cast other spells. I was able to control 8 mobs and the only damage to the party was done when hyenas exploded near my melee fighters.

Wizards rock!

 

[Sebby]

Play experience with Visions of Avarice

In our game (now 11th level), it's been used 3 times.

There is no doubt, it is a very effective power. Simply put, it allows an encounter to be dealt with in smaller chunks. It's a divide and conquer power. You don't have to catch everyone for it to be effective. In fact, it hardly matters at all, as long as you catch about 50% in the initial attack, you're golden.

One use was in a 14th level encounter while we were 9th level. This was an encounter with a large number of n and n+1 level creatures, not with few but super-strong monsters. It made the encounter as easy as a same-level fight, but I must say that it is mostly because the spell caught almost every melee enemy in a nice cluster after they tried to overwhelm the ranger, who had made himself a very tempting target by going in first, ahead of the defender screen.

Edit: Another time we got lucky: we (unknowingly) cast it over an iced river that the enemies were just crossing to reach the wizard and ranger, and had no intention of staying on for good reason: everytime a creature took damage while on the ice, an undead corpse of some kind would break the ice, emerge and attack it. It was a slaughter.

We have a party that's also very good at taking advantage of it (although, this is unintended): many forced movement/teleport effects allow us to herd the enemies near the illusion so they can be attacked by it. Our striker is an archer ranger, making dealing with immobilized melee monsters a breeze.

Everytime, it was cast in a wide open space, giving the enemies plenty of room to avoid it or escape it if they saved. I think it would be absolutely brutal if it was cast in a restricted space or a strategic chokepoint.

Everytime, it also was very effective at "keeping in" the monsters initially affected. Very few escaped once caught. I can thus say that, at least in our small sample, KD's theoretical numbers do work out. Once, two rather large trolls escaped and immediately went for the wizard. He took a severe beating, true, but he answered by Thunder Waving both of them... back within 4sq of the zone where they promptly re-forgot about the wizard and went all "oh shiny!", again (to DM Mike's complete dismay, I might add).

In practice, countering the spell is possible, but hard for the DM, even with the proper "tools". When this effect is on the board, we know it's important. We'll have at least one of the defenders blocking for the wizard and we have ways to grant him out-of-sequence saves in case he gets stunned/dazed. We can even teleport him out of trouble if need be (both our defenders are swordmages). Plus, he's not so bad himself at evading trouble.

It is strong. Game breaking though? I don't think so. Up till now, we haven't used it on a group of monsters that was good at dealing with it, so it's hard to say. And our DM, admitedly, could be a better tactician.

 

[Goumindong]

For most smart DM's this is not going to immobilize many creatures. Remember, it has a cap of 9 and the pull rules will often mean that you are unable to get a target you want to that area. Give your melee enemies some backup ranged attacks and your artillery some effects that imposing the dazing condition and you don't have much to fear.

The dazing power isn't that good either [ranged enemies don't much care, melee enemies just charge, and the cloud does much more damage as well as stopping attacks and allowing the party to make stealth checks]

 

[Stalker0]

For most smart DM's this is not going to immobilize many creatures. Remember, it has a cap of 9 and the pull rules will often mean that you are unable to get a target you want to that area.

Considering most fights have 5 monsters...and often less with elites, then the cap to me doesn't come up that often (I'm not going to blow a daily to round up 9 minions when I can just scorching burst them).