Herores of the Fallen Lands - Are Slayers underpowered?

[Herschel]

At the end of the day, the amount of potential damage, etc. really has to take a back seat to player strategy are party cohesion. As an example, in my Tuesday Night game (two high-damage strikers) the Bard got a really lucky role and dispelled the enemy's magical base camp building. He was kind of excited until they saw they had triggered the final three encounters simultaneously and proceeded not to focus fire. The baddy's attack bonus were low enough that had they played smart, they had a decent chance of winning the fight.

One character actually lived to run away but they only killed two enemies in the whole fight.

In a group I play in, we don't always have a striker (and none are damage opt) and so long as we play together and focus fire we've never had an issue even when we get in to very dangerous situations.

Back to the original point, Slayers are durable strikers, Avengers are accurate strikers, Rogues and Rangers are glass cannon strikers, Barbarians are gambler strikers, Warlocks are fiddly strikers with lots of secondary versatility. None are better or worse as a class because all are equally good when played well in a group that complements them.

 

[Nemesis Destiny]

That's what makes the concept of Strikers having to do something to get large damage cool in my book. When they do massive damage after they or others take great risk to allow them to do it. A slayer just standing there making basic attacks and dishing out tons of damage per round isn't all that fun, imo. In the fight with the wizard above, a slayer archer could simply hit the wizard with two basic attacks and kill the wizard. He probably wouldn't even have to move...

I understand where you're coming from, and I might agree to an extent, for my part.

That said, I'm glad that the option is there. Some players don't have that desire to do much more than "Stand & Deliver" their damage, but still enjoy playing a striker. In fact, I have one such player in my group.

This player likes dealing damage, but doesn't go in for tactics much, or teamwork, or anything else really that doesn't involve unloading buckets of damage into the enemy with little risk.

He usually plays a fighter, since he likes the image of a big tough guy in heavy armour and big weapons. Unfortunately for him, fighters were a bit of "false advertising" for lack of a better term. He didn't really like the Defender role, and didn't understand why his fighter wasn't a damage monster.

Slayer, and a few of the other striker types (like the Twin Striking archer) are right up his alley. He seems to enjoy things more now (even if you or I wouldn't), so I don't mind having the option of a no-brainer striker.

Sometimes, ya just wanna kill things.

 

[Uller]

Sometimes, ya just wanna kill things.

Haha...I was a tanker in the Army...There is something to be said for dishing out Death and Hell...I can definitely relate. Death before dismount and all that....

Like I said in the beginning...I don't think it is "broken". My slayer player is having a good time and the others seem to enjoy keeping him and the rogue alive through healing him, controlling the enemies and absorbing damage...The trick for the DM is to make sure everyone has a job to do and gets a chance to do it and has to face some risk in order to succeed. This was true in OD&D and is still true now.

 

[Nemesis Destiny]

The trick for the DM is to make sure everyone has a job to do and gets a chance to do it and has to face some risk in order to succeed. This was true in OD&D and is still true now.

I couldn't agree more, especially about the risk vs reward of the game.

That said, I have never heard anything as pathetic as the player in question. He is playing a 10th level knight, and has something like 89 hit points, 10 more stat points than anyone else (this char is from 2nd ed, and he didn't want to take a hit to conform to 4e point buy, so we let him in as-is), and every time he gets hit or a negative status, he gripes and whines.

Last game he took 17 damage the one time the whole fight that the baddies managed to get through his AC, and you should have heard the whining! You'd think the DM broke his bottle of Crown Royal from the way he reacted. I mean, come on, dude, you're 40 years old for crying out loud, get a hold of yourself!

Digression and whiny players aside, I see both sides of the coin where it concerns how much work one has to do as a striker to get ones licks in. Sometimes, I enjoy an added level of complexity, and other times, I've found it can be fun to play a straight-ahead damage dealer that doesn't put too much thought into his actions, in character, or out.

Thankfully, this wonderful game accounts for that!

 

[KarinsDad]

That said, I have never heard anything as pathetic as the player in question. He is playing a 10th level knight, and has something like 89 hit points, 10 more stat points than anyone else (this char is from 2nd ed, and he didn't want to take a hit to conform to 4e point buy, so we let him in as-is), and every time he gets hit or a negative status, he gripes and whines.

Last game he took 17 damage the one time the whole fight that the baddies managed to get through his AC, and you should have heard the whining! You'd think the DM broke his bottle of Crown Royal from the way he reacted. I mean, come on, dude, you're 40 years old for crying out loud, get a hold of yourself!

I'd never let a player have 2E stats in 4E. Big DMing mistake to concede to unreasonable player demands.

The solution to this problem is for the Wizard in the group to hit him and the enemies he is fighting with a Burning Hands. And then the Wizard says: "You don't take your fair share of damage for our group. I decided to even that out some. You can thank me later."

Do it often enough and he'll need to bring in a 4E PC.

 

[Nemesis Destiny]

I'd never let a player have 2E stats in 4E. Big DMing mistake to concede to unreasonable player demands.

The solution to this problem is for the Wizard in the group to hit him and the enemies he is fighting with a Burning Hands. And then the Wizard says: "You don't take your fair share of damage for our group. I decided to even that out some. You can thank me later."

Do it often enough and he'll need to bring in a 4E PC.

Well, fortunately for you, this guy isn't in your gaming group. And I agree totally. Too bad I'm not the DM in this case.

Besides that, letting this guy keep his old stats is the least of our worries - he doesn't do anything with them anyway. So if doing so allows us to avoid listening to his malcontent with the new rules, so much the better.

The whining will never stop though, no matter how much giving in we do. I think we'd all be happier if this guy would just quit, but none of us actually want to give him the boot. Sometimes he seems to not be interested at all, and I think he only shows up because he literally has nothing better to do. I've been friends with him a long time though, so it's not as cut and dry as all that.

It's not like I'm new to the game (nor is the group's current DM), and we've all dealt with our fair share of problem players, for better or worse. There are many solutions. I think if we killed him off, as you suggest, he would just whine more. Maybe we'd be lucky and he'd quit.

What he really needs is a life, then he'll have "something better to do" and we won't have to listen to the pissing and moaning.

 

[MrMyth]

While it is true that core strikers were sometimes already at double damage over implement non-strikers, they tended to not quite make double damage over weapon non-strikers. Warlocks do not average twice as much damage as Clerics.

Warlock, at launch, was considered a pretty sub-par striker. They've fixed many of the problems with it, but even now it relies on a number of tricks to present its full usefullness more than pure damage.

As it is, many strikers in 4E games, at launch, were dealing double the damage of non-strikers, and dealing damage comparable with Essentials strikers.

Out of respect for Nemesis Destiny (and because, as noted, all the math in the world often won't change someone's mind anyway), I'll avoid breaking down all the numbers again, but I simply do not think either the math or my experience supports your claims about the superiority of Essentials strikers. Nor do I think it reasonable to dismiss either Encounter/Daily powers or nova potential - dropping dangerous enemies quickly can make a very big difference in many fights.

 

[Herschel]

Warlock, at launch, was considered a pretty sub-par striker. They've fixed many of the problems with it, but even now it relies on a number of tricks to present its full usefullness more than pure damage.

It's pretty nice when the striker can dole out temporary HP and de-buffs, especially when the levels get higher and daze/stun/dominate can wreak havoc with the defender's off-turn actions. Often times than can keep a (especially melee) leader from going down and keeping the whole party operating at a higher level.

Well-played warlocks are cool.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

You do have a point, but I think it's worth some elaboration. I would add the following considerations:

1. Many creatures have significant advantages once bloodied -- regeneration, recharging of powers, etc. If you can take them straight from unbloodied to dead in a single attack, bypassing all of those advantages, that is a big win.

2. Many control powers have an extended duration. As such, it is often better to focus on killing the creatures that are not currently being controlled, while you mostly ignore the controlled creatures and let them make their attacks at -6 to hit, or half damage because weakened, etc. You then quickly finish them off when their allies are all dead.

3. Many combat encounters feature a dependency between creatures, for example a BBEG with minions who might surrender, run or die when the BBEG falls. Taking the BBEG down quickly could be critical.

However, there is a downside to a focus on Nova potential -- it requires a knowledge of the enemy's capabilities, current status, organization, etc., or at least a good instinctive hunch. For example, expending a Nova power to take down an illusionary copy of the BBEG might turn out to be a poor choice. Piling on extra damage to knock the bloodied foe from 50 HP down below 0 doesn't work so well when it turns out that he regenerated and has 60 HP after all, or only had 10 for some other reason.

I think UngeheuerLich may be going too far in dismissing DPR outright, but it's definitely true that DPR itself is only one measure of effectiveness.

I totally agree with this post. Especially because point number 1 stresses what I was saying.

A thief in the hands of an inexperienced player performs better than a standard rogue. DPR helps a lot here, i don´t disagree.

I however disagree with karin´s dad. Chances that you nova on a monster that has 3 hp remaining should not happen.

1. Most novas are not one instance of damage but at least 2 (daily, AP, daily) Sometimes 3 or more at paragon.

2. If you observed how long it took a monster to get from full to bloodied should allow you to guess that a monster should be down to a low number of hp.
I fully expect people playing D&D to be able to count to 100. And i expect from experienced players to use that ability.

I am impressed by posts that calculate DPR to 2 or 3 digits after the point, but forget to ac the human ability to calculate and make rough estimates. (We have seen a lot of that when the auto hitting MM was discussed.)

 

[KarinsDad]

Warlock, at launch, was considered a pretty sub-par striker. They've fixed many of the problems with it, but even now it relies on a number of tricks to present its full usefullness more than pure damage.

As it is, many strikers in 4E games, at launch, were dealing double the damage of non-strikers, and dealing damage comparable with Essentials strikers.

Out of respect for Nemesis Destiny (and because, as noted, all the math in the world often won't change someone's mind anyway), I'll avoid breaking down all the numbers again, but I simply do not think either the math or my experience supports your claims about the superiority of Essentials strikers. Nor do I think it reasonable to dismiss either Encounter/Daily powers or nova potential - dropping dangerous enemies quickly can make a very big difference in many fights.

Nova damage makes no difference to your claim that "many strikers in 4E games, at launch, were dealing double the damage of non-strikers, and dealing damage comparable with Essentials strikers". If you include nova damage, you must also consider DPR instead of just "what happens if an attack is successful". You cannot consider one without the other, or you are skewing your data.

And double damage by 4E Strikers might be true of implement Leaders targeting single foes, but it is not true of Controllers or any role targeting multiple foes, nor is it true of most Defenders targeting single foes. 2D12+D6 (if both hit) or 1d6+2D8+4 (if CA achieved) is not twice as great as 1D8+5 or 1D10+4.

Yes, it is true for a critical, but not for an average successful attack.

Nor is 2D12+D6 (if both hit) or 1d6+2D8+4 (if CA achieved) comparable to 1d6+2D8+6 (almost all of the time). It's less both straight up, and because the special conditions that must be met of 4E are more restrictive then those of Essentials. The Essentials Striker that is doing more damage almost every single round is doing more overall damage than the 4E Striker that is more often missing.

Sorry, but your claim doesn't match even simple analysis. Anecdotal evidence and stories are merely that: anecdotal. I have a ton of anecdotal stories of the Thief in our group dropping an undamaged foe in round one at low level. It happened at least a dozen times in the first 3 levels. When it happens, that's just as effective as a Nova power against that foe. It doesn't mean that this example is anything other than anecdotal. One needs to look at the math to see the real variances.