Arcanist playtest

[Gortle]

This heh. A wizard has a lot better things to do with his standard action than to double move a flaming sphere. I've never seen it happen.

I do it once in around a third of the encounters FS comes out. I've even used a granted move action from a Warlord to push the sphere around.

Yes it is a strong spell. But most commentators seem to rate it 3rd or 4th amongst wizard 1st level dailies. It is mostly damage and only minor control. If it really needs to be rebalanced then there are a lot of other powers out there that need work .

 

[FireLance]

Choices regarding zones should be more than just "move to cancel the effect" as in most of the cases the move action doesn't cost the enemy anything (unless they are next to a fighter than can get a free attack on a shift).

That's a fair argument to make, and I think it's great that you're trying to make a positive contribution instead of just spreading negativity.

I do actually think that the revised flaming sphere could use some powering up. I had earlier suggested making the initial and subsequent attacks against all creatures adjacent to the sphere. However, the alternative of an opportunity attack against any creature that leaves a square adjacent to the sphere might also be viable.

 

[Kinneus]

Quoting to lend my support to your side of the argument.

I've been looking at Invokers recently (as my wizard has MC into one and is thinking of picking up a power swap feat).
A lot of invoker zones do something on the enemy leaving the zone as well as the effect for staying in - this is how wizard zones should work.
Take the FS for instance - if you end your turn next to it you get ongoing 5 save ends, if you leave it you take D4+int
Cloud of daggers - if you stay in you grant CA, if you leave or enter you take the damage.

Choices regarding zones should be more than just "move to cancel the effect" as in most of the cases the move action doesn't cost the enemy anything (unless they are next to a fighter than can get a free attack on a shift).

I wanted to give you XP, but I apparently need to spread it around. I'm in complete and total agreement.

The problem with Flaming Sphere, as it is now, is that it's way too easy to evade. If the monster simply takes a move action each round (and who doesn't, if able?), then the Wizard's Daily has no effect, unless he chooses to use all of his actions sustaining it, moving it, and attacking with it again.

Imagine, for a moment, a level 1 Wizard using this power against an encounter full of kobolds. Hardly an uncommon scenario. The kobolds, with their minor-action shifts, would dance around the Flaming Sphere like it was a bonfire on the beach, and the hapless Wizard would be more likely to burn his allies than the enemy. It's not difficult to imagine combats where Flaming Sphere's end-of-turn damage never happens.

I find it hard to swallow that end-of-turn damage is "better" control than start-of-turn damage. But I can perhaps buy an argument that Flaming Sphere was too good, in need of balance. If this is the case, though, then the pendulum has swung too far in the other direction. The power now needs something, anything, to make it a contender. If it was too strong before, then it's definitely too weak now.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Actually the sphere should give ongoing 5 to everyone adjacent to it, who was hit. You may start making saves when you leave. If you end your turn adjacent, you are ignited again.

This way, you have the best of both worlds. the damage is at the beginning of the turn, but at the end of your turn you catch fire!

 

[ForeverSlayer]

Actually the sphere should give ongoing 5 to everyone adjacent to it, who was hit. You may start making saves when you leave. If you end your turn adjacent, you are ignited again.

This way, you have the best of both worlds. the damage is at the beginning of the turn, but at the end of your turn you catch fire!

Now this would be a very good change to the spell.

 

[Raikun]

This way, you have the best of both worlds. the damage is at the beginning of the turn, but at the end of your turn you catch fire!

If it's a very small amount of damage at beginning of turn, with the bulk of it at EoT, I could see that.

But if we're talking current damage amount at beginning of turn PLUS an ongoing fire damage, that would be well beyond absurd IMO.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

You take damage because of ongoing at the beginning of the turn... not in addition to the current BoT damage... that would indeed be beyond absurd... I don´t know how you even got the impression that we could have been talking about that...

(just curious, because I try to improve my English)

 

[Raikun]

hmmh... they move because they were burnt when you hit them on your turn?

You may not forget how turns work: Basically they all happen simultaneously... but they are spread out, because it is very complicated to go through several steps.

So actually end of turn makes more sense, because at the start of their turn, there may not have been a ball of fire at all next to them... complicated? yes! Argumenting with reality fails if you think to hard about the exact timing...

This pretty much nailed it on the head.

When an entire round has gone, and everyone has taken their turn, all of those actions happened at the same time in a 6 second time frame.

This means that at the same time that ball of flame is rolling at the kobold, the kobold is already running away.

It's not perfect, which is one part of why we have defenses to try and adjudicate a person avoiding an axe blow from the barbarian charging at him, etc. But when it comes to auto damage, having it at beginning of the turn simply makes zero sense when it comes to describing the events of that round.

If a round is six seconds, and a FS can move six squares in that six seconds, that's 5 feet per second. If I'm a kobold seeing a FS start rolling toward me at 5 feet per second, I'm NOT going to wait until it's rubbing up against me to start moving. Which is why End of Turn, while still not perfect, makes a lot more sense than Beginning of Turn.

Now, if there was an attack roll at Beginning of Turn, so that the kobold's defenses could come into play to describe him trying to react in time to the FS, I could go for that too.

 

[Essenti]

A creature in the zone takes any action other than a move at the begining of their turn, or ends their turn in the zone, takes x damage.

YAY. We all win.

 

[Raikun]

A creature in the zone takes any action other than a move at the begining of their turn, or ends their turn in the zone, takes x damage.

YAY. We all win.

Hehe nice. When we discussed this ages ago, that was pretty much exactly one of the ideas we'd talked about, but we complicated it too much. Our idea was that instead of just having "Beginning" and "End" of turn, we'd have "After first action", etc, and FS would do damage after first action.

We ended up scrapping the idea because we felt it potentially over-complicated things, but just putting that wording into the power itself would actually be quite simple, and be the best of both worlds.

I'm gonna pitch that to my group and give it a go.