Arcanist playtest

[ForeverSlayer]

I'll take one last stab at this, then I'll give up.


Or even purer and simpler:

Before: Initial damage + more damage(monsters turn) + monster can do anything it wants + monster doesn't need to move anywhere.

It does need to move because it knows that it's going to take more damage at the beginning of it's next turn. Sure you are moving the monsters more, but you are actually giving them more actions without the penalty.

Goblin: Owwww singed by big bad hotball, (beginning of next turn), Owwww burned again, I need to move away.

(steps away and then ball follows)

(beginning of next turn) Owwww hotball burn me again

(decides where to go)

Pure and simple: If the ball doesn't move and the goblin doesn't move then it takes damage.

 

[DracoSuave]

Before: Initial damage + more damage(monsters turn) + monster can do anything it wants + monster doesn't need to move anywhere.

After: Initial damage + no damage + monster can do anything it wants + monster must move or receive more damage.

Only one monster? Tut tut, for shame.

One monster can't avoid damage under the old power, but you don't only fight one monster do you? Flaming Sphere forces monsters to spread out lest you set the thing where it's burning two or three of them. The new version, not so much.

 

[Neonchameleon]

It does need to move because it knows that it's going to take more damage at the beginning of it's next turn. Sure you are moving the monsters more, but you are actually giving them more actions without the penalty.

Goblin: Owwww singed by big bad hotball, (beginning of next turn), Owwww burned again, I need to move away.

(steps away and then ball follows)

(beginning of next turn) Owwww hotball burn me again

(decides where to go)

Pure and simple: If the ball doesn't move and the goblin doesn't move then it takes damage.

The fact you are continually ignoring is that after the goblin has moved so does the sphere. There is no point trying to move away from the sphere under the old rules - the sphere will just move after them and they will take the damage whether or not they move.

Pure and simple: If the goblin moves, then the ball moves and the goblin still takes damage. So moving doesn't actually help the goblin.

The only point in moving is to force the wizard to use his own move action on the sphere - and back liners can normally readily afford to waste theirs. When a pre-nerf flaming sphere is in play smart monsters "become nothing but kamikazes", intent on taking out the wizard at all costs because that is the only way they can prevent the sphere burning them to a crisp (unless they either flee or fly).

 

[Raikun]

Pure and simple: If the ball doesn't move and the goblin doesn't move then it takes damage.

Even more pure and simple...the ball will almost always move. Thus the goblin takes the same amount of damage whether it moves or not, so it might as well accept the damage write the ball off as something it can do nothing about.

Nearly 2 years ago, our group assumed beginning of turn was a mistake in the power, and houseruled it to end of turn, and felt it worked better ever since, for that reason.

 

[Zaphling]

Can someone here in this thread make a POLL for the Flaming Sphere to have two choices?: BOT or EOT. Then we will see which side will have more supporters. Supporters must be logical to which controllery EOT or damage and not controllery BOT. somthing like that.

 

[Kinneus]

In my opinion, Flaming Sphere was balanced by the fact that it was party-unfriendly damage. On certain battlefields, it was difficult to deploy a Flaming Sphere without scorching your party, and monsters could seek refuge from the dreaded Sphere by pressing the attack and mixing things up in melee. Start of turn damage was the boon you got in exchange for party-unfriendly "collateral."

Fountain of Flame was the other option. It was end-of-turn damage, which is weaker, but it was a completely party-friendly option. You could lay it down on top of your frontline and never worry about it again. There are other differences between these two powers; Fountain of Flame is stationary, but the Sphere can be maneuvered about. The Fountain sticks around even if you're stunned, but Flaming Sphere is going to be sucking up minors and moves all combat to keep it active.

Now that Flaming Sphere is end-of-turn damage, but remains party unfriendly, it is (in my opinion, at least) the strictly inferior option. I know I'll personally be retraining FS for Fountain of Flame as soon as possible. Flaming Sphere is not, and never was, the perfect level 1 Daily. Sure, with good positionining, or versus a solo, it added up to encounter-long auto-damage, which is nice. But there were just so many ways around it... simplest involving stunnning or dazing the caster. Now, I think the fact that it's still ally-unfriendly damage will really hurt it. It'll be way too easy for monsters to use that to their advantage, shifting adjacent to a bunch of your allies and forcing you to choose between moving the FS next to your friends and endangering everybody, or just letting it go.

Anyway, I once considered Flaming Sphere and Fountain of Flame to be neck-and-neck, with different things going for each of them. Now, though, Fountain of Flame has pulled pretty firmly into the lead, at least in my opinion.

 

[mneme]

Kinneus: Fountain of flame does a lot less damage, at least for a character that's optimized for it. A Genasi blaster does 1d4+Int+Implement+Str damage -- 9.5 damage at first level, 13.5 at at 5th level with a +2 implement (or more with stuff like Gauntlets of blood), and it only goes up from there. And that's on top of it upgrading your at will damage to 2d6+Int -- an amazing buff when you're best off playing single-target striker for a while. Even a non-genasi starts out doing 7.5 damage with FS.

I do think that EOT is, any way you slice it, a big nerf. But it's not unlikely that Flaming Sphere is good enough that it's still the best Wizard first level spell -after- the nerf (and, yes, more controllery-but unarguably weaker).

 

[MrMyth]

You can't enlarge dailies - it only works on encounters and at wills.

Yeah, this happened before that restriction was added in the errata. Which certainly helped, though there are other ways out there to increase the size of bursts. And even without them, some of those spells can easily shut down encounters on their own.

 

[MrMyth]

Since when did the Wizard's daily powers need balancing? It seems to me that the only time anyone talks about inbalance is when the designers change something and people try and justify those changes. There were no balance issues with daily powers.

Do you really think the designers are just making changes abritrarily, without any sort of feedback from the community? From the very beginning, the wizard has been considered to have some of the most powerful dailies. Many folks have seen, firsthand, the ability for wizards to shut down encounters on their own - something most classes can't do, no matter how many dailies they bust out.

And often it wasn't just the wizard's dailies being unbalanced compared to other classes. It was that one or two choices would just be better than other options.

Look, you feel that it was balanced as it was, and that you prefer the previous version. I can understand that. But stop with insisting this was just 'change for the sake of change' - we have numerous folks in this thread reporting on their own experiences with these powers being unbalanced, or with having characters criticized for the lack of these choices. That means it was an issue.

It is perfectly ok to disagree that it needed fixing, but dismissing the opposing viewpoint entirely, and insisting that their opinions either didn't exist or shouldn't matter to WotC... sorry, but that's just not cool.

So what's wrong with an enemy taking damage and then deciding if it wants to take more or move?

I think what you are missing is that the wizard can move these zones. If the enemy leaves the zone, the wizard just moves it back on top of him. Thus, there is no real reason for the enemy to react at all - all the power does is damage, and a good amount of it.

If the damage happens at the end of the opponent's turn, then they actually have to make a choice. Stay in the zone and take damage, or get out of it. Getting out of it might involve provoking, it might involve being unable to flank, it might even prevent them from attacking at all depending on position. That's control.

Automatic damage that they can't avoid? Is not.

 

[Kinneus]

Kinneus: Fountain of flame does a lot less damage,

Indeed, that's one of its selling points. It does a bit less damage than the Sphere in Heroic (I admit, this gulf gets higher in Paragon, but why are you still using level 1 Dailies in Paragon?) to enemies, but it does much less damage to allies (that is to say, 0 damage), which is where the balance is.

In other words, sure, Flaming Sphere does more damage... but to who?

Targetting enemies only is a big boon. I'm of the (personal, private, subjective) opinion that this places Fountain of Flame ahead of the (current, End of Turn) Flaming Sphere.