Why arn't Controllers Sexy

[KarinsDad]

No, no it isn't. It is burst 3 (minimum burst 2, for a smart Wizard). Tell me you can reasonably guarantee you will hit no allies but every single enemy with a burst 2 (5x5). You can't.

Not according to the Compendium:

Winged Horde

At-Will Arcane, Implement, Psychic
Standard Action Area burst 1 within 10

Target: Each enemy in burst

Attack: Intelligence vs. Will

Hit: 1d6 psychic damage, and the target cannot take opportunity actions until the end of your next turn.
Level 21: 2d6 psychic damage.

So yeah, if you are going to house rule the area of effect, it will be even better.

And Staff of Ruin+ anything else (Weapon Focus) makes Winged Horde pull ahead. I didn't even have to add any other feats/PPs/EDs or anything (results the same, just happens sooner). Yes my +50 is highly optimized because he he is basically a striker. And? That is basically equivalent to a Sorcs bonus damage. What are they? Oh, yeah, AE strikers.

Still waiting for your mega-list of static modifiers.

There has to be quite a few of them to make it better damage-wise cause the ultimate control is damage, not taking away OAs.

But the bottom line is that not all Wizards have Staff of Ruin. Not all Wizards have Dual Implement. The fact remains that one has to make specific Wizard builds for Winged Horde to be consistently better, just like one has to make specific Wizard builds for Scorching Burst (e.g. White Lotus Riposte) to be consistently better, just like one has to make specific Wizard builds for Thunderwave to be consistently better.

And we never said it was always better. We said "If damage is what you are going for, given the tools available to a Wizard to increase his static mods and enlarge his spells, an enemies only AE will hit more targets, and therefore have higher average damage, by early Paragon. Plus, Winged Horde actually has a controlling element, which wouldn't be a terrible thing to pick up while playing a controller." All of which is undeniably true.

I didn't say that you said it was always better. firesnakearies said that Winged Horde is always better, but you didn't. So, I guess the collective "we" that you are referring to did state that.

 

[Aulirophile]

Again, for a Wizard, it is Burst 2-3, depending on build. Enlarge Spell and etc. It isn't a houserule. And, again, an enemies only 5x5 to 7x7 burst will hit a lot more enemies without hitting any allies. For instance if the fighter just used Come and Get It. Or any other ability of that type (there are dozens, Wizards can group up enemies around allies all by their lonesome).

And we established it has to be +13 without int. Staff of Ruin+Weapon Focus. Done. Every additional point just makes Winged Horde even better. You also can't reasonably make the argument that "damage is the best control" and say that a Wizard will not get an SoR, since it is the highest damage option. That is nonsensical.

 

[KarinsDad]

Again, for a Wizard, it is Burst 2-3, depending on build. Enlarge Spell and etc. It isn't a houserule. And, again, an enemies only 5x5 to 7x7 burst will hit a lot more enemies without hitting any allies. For instance if the fighter just used Come and Get It. Or any other ability of that type (there are dozens, Wizards can group up enemies around allies all by their lonesome).

Oh, the feat that drops -2 to damage that you did not put into your math, but did put into your assumptions.

Got it.

6 vs 16 +1 implement
9 vs 18 +2 implement
9 vs 20 level 8 ability score
12 vs 22 +3 implement
12 vs 24 level 14 ability score
15 vs 26 +4 implement
21 vs 38 level 21 ability score plus Epic class bonus plus second d6
24 vs 40 +5 implement
24 vs 42 level 27 ability score
28 vs 44 +6 implement

With the 5x5 feat on the Winged Horde side and no feats on the Scorching Burst side.

And we established it has to be +13 without int. Staff of Ruin+Weapon Focus. Done. Every additional point just makes Winged Horde even better. You also can't reasonably make the argument that "damage is the best control" and say that a Wizard will not get an SoR, since it is the highest damage option. That is nonsensical.

Yup. Already said it can easily be better at late Paragon and Epic.

Yup. Already said it can easily be better if the DM hands out things like Staff of Ruin.

 

[keterys]

With the 5x5 feat on the Winged Horde side and no feats on the Scorching Burst side.

So, you gave WH a -2 damage, and didn't change the number of targets it's hitting? I think you're gravely underestimating Enlarge Spell.

Yup. Already said it can easily be better if the DM hands out things like Staff of Ruin.

Or, being a wizard, he crafts one.

 

[mneme]

I'm afraid there's not a lot of disagreement left. (Although--all wizards(except maybe feat-starved orbizards) take Enlarged spell by paragon, and you only actually use it when it increases your overall effect -- And its worth quantitizing the crit damage -- which is going to be something like 3+d6-d10 per plus/10 [1/10 of hits are crits, give or take] (and thus hit, if you're using an implement with a d10 crit, >+1 with a +2 implement, nearly +2 with a +3, and go up from there).

Scorching Burst does better damage at low levels -- particularly if you get a benefit from the Fire keyword (Tiefling, Genasi, at the very least), and thus is well worth taking.

Winged Horde starts off giving better control but worse damage, but is still worth taking if you're not keyword-centric at low levels for the control, however it can, with a little work, get enough static modifiers to exceed SB's average damage by low paragon to high paragon (or even high heroic, in some cases). Not all wizards will want to bother with this work, but many will.

Unlike before WH lost a statmod, a goodly number of wizards will start with Scorching Burst -- whereas previously pretty much only Tiefling and Genasi wizards bothered with Scorching Burst if WH was available.

 

[KarinsDad]

So, you gave WH a -2 damage, and didn't change the number of targets it's hitting? I think you're gravely underestimating Enlarge Spell.

Fair enough. 4 foes on the WH side, 2 foes on the SB side. Assuming more than 4 foes as an average is not very reasonable.

8 vs 16 +1 implement
12 vs 18 +2 implement
12 vs 20 level 8 ability score
16 vs 22 +3 implement
16 vs 24 level 14 ability score
20 vs 26 +4 implement
28 vs 38 level 21 ability score plus Epic class bonus plus second d6
32 vs 40 +5 implement
32 vs 42 level 27 ability score
35 vs 44 +6 implement

Or, being a wizard, he crafts one.

Assuming a DM allows that item in the game, it will still be a very expensive item. He gives up 5 same level items just to craft the staff.

And half or more of his levels, he will have a -1 to hit and damage with it cause the magic staff the DM handed out is better.

This concept of "every PC gets whatever item they want to optimize their build" doesn't quite work out in practice in many campaigns. Many DMs are not that gullible.

 

[Aulirophile]

Assuming a DM allows that item in the game, it will still be a very expensive item. He gives up 5 same level items just to craft the staff.

And half or more of his levels, he will have a -1 to hit and damage with it cause the magic staff the DM handed out is better.

This concept of "every PC gets whatever item they want to optimize their build" doesn't quite work out in practice in many campaigns. Many DMs are not that gullible.

It does if your DM follows the directions in the DMG about wishlists and generally trying to make the game fun for the players... instead of not. Also works in LFR, since you often just get "parcel level x" and you pick your item. So yeah, I'm going to go ahead and call that a reasonable assumption, since it is actually an assumption built-in to 4e that players get what they want in terms of magic items. The whole magic item economy breaks down if that is not the case. I like how following the advice in the DMG for 4e because that is how the system works makes them "gullible." Uh-huh.

For the record, I would never play with a DM who did "random" treasure with no other modifications. Screw that.

Still didn't include Weapon Focus, makes WH pull ahead mid-paragon with no other benefits according to your math.

 

[keterys]

Assuming a DM allows that item in the game, it will still be a very expensive item. He gives up 5 same level items just to craft the staff.

It's in the Adventurer's Vault, one of the first books - if the DM allows Winged Horde, I bet he allows Staff of Ruin.

In many cases he's just giving up the opportunity to buy something else of a similar level, rather than 5 same level items. For example, in one game I'm playing in (that wouldn't allow Winged Horde, cause it's only the first few books allowed), one character almost made a +4 Staff of Ruin cause she'd been using a +3 magic staff (generic) for 7 levels without finding a good replacement. Thankfully the session before she was going to make it, she found a +5 Fiery Staff. Shame she has no fire powers, at all, but hey, +5 Fiery > +3 Magic, or +3 Ruin, or +4 Ruin

And half or more of his levels, he will have a -1 to hit and damage with it cause the magic staff the DM handed out is better.

Sometimes - though we are talking about a character who is presumably very high level (still not sure on that +50 damage... Genasi with +str as well, to go with admixture thunder, I assume, for another +8 or +9, hmmm), and dual implementing. So worst case, it's -1 attack while he wields the +6 in his off hand and the +5 ruin in his primary.

This concept of "every PC gets whatever item they want to optimize their build" doesn't quite work out in practice in many campaigns. Many DMs are not that gullible.

I agree that it doesn't work out in practice, but I suspect there are probably better words you can use than "gullible" there. For starters, the DM and players shouldn't be antagonistic, and really there's no reason to insult other DMs who play differently from you at all. Especially when we're talking about a single item. I've been in a few games where we've gotten things like "The archmage will craft you a level 18 item of your choice." Just last Saturday the DM gave my wife a level 19 item of her choice from a dragon's hoard, cause it was her birthday (and I suspect he was feeling too lazy to pick an item)

Now, how many games allow dragonshards? I bet that's a very, very different metric from staff of ruin.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I haven't used anything from Eberron or FR particularly. Not to say dragonshards are unequivocally banned, but that kind of stuff isn't a major theme. The wizard in our game DOES have a Staff of Ruin, and its the most powerful item the party has (maybe even more so than the demon slaying artifact axe the dwarf has, lol). OTOH the player is new and has NO at-will AoE, lol. Taught her the unwisdom of THAT the other day. The proper way to build a wizard just doesn't jump out at people. Its still really an advanced class.

 

[KarinsDad]

It does if your DM follows the directions in the DMG about wishlists and generally trying to make the game fun for the players... instead of not. Also works in LFR, since you often just get "parcel level x" and you pick your item. So yeah, I'm going to go ahead and call that a reasonable assumption, since it is actually an assumption built-in to 4e that players get what they want in terms of magic items.

Reasonable?

So, the game is not fun if the player isn't entitled to exactly what items that he wanted when he went to Character Builder and at first level, designed his entire PC all of the way up to 30th level?

The DMG actually states that the DM should tailor the items. It also states that "one great way" to do that is with wish lists, but this is not "directions in the DMG". It's one suggestion. That suggestion also has the DM pick from three to five items, not give the player exactly what items he wants.


Sorry, but the game is still fun if the DM picks reasonable items without kowtowing to a player's specific optimization ideas.

Stating that not using wish lists as not fun is just plain in error. Many games are a lot of fun without using wish lists.

Still didn't include Weapon Focus, makes WH pull ahead mid-paragon with no other benefits according to your math.

Not quite. 4 foes with Enlarged WH with Weapon Focus vs. 2 foes with SC with Weapon Focus:

12 vs 18 +1 implement
16 vs 20 +2 implement
16 vs 22 level 8 ability score
20 vs 24 +3 implement
24 vs 28 level 14 ability score
28 vs 30 +4 implement
48 vs 44 level 21 ability score plus Epic class bonus plus second d6
52 vs 48 +5 implement
52 vs 48 level 27 ability score
56 vs 50 +6 implement

And of course, the WH Wizard is using an extra feat that the SC Wizard is not.