Arcanist playtest

[MrMyth]

In all seriousness, please point me out a thread that has ever mentioned that Flaming Sphere was out of control and needed to be changed.

Well, I suppose if interested... here are some that popped up in a quick search. The first few from here on Enworld, some others from elsewhere focused on issues with minions, some on the power of the spell in general, etc.

Toning Down Flaming Sphere "I have noticed, among a significant portion of the 4E players I know, that Flaming Sphere is seen as the only level one daily power for a wizard to take. Based entirely off the supposition that "if one option is reliably taken over any other, then it might be too good" what would you do to Flaming Sphere to make the other dailies more likely choices?"

House-ruled Flaming Sphere "One of my players has an Eladrin Wizard and I feel that Flaming Sphere is a little too powerful. It seems my opinion is shared by many GMs, so modified the text a little to make it a little better."

Flaming Sphere... again "Even if you just run flaming sphere without allowing flanking, OA and such like it is still a hugely powerful spell."

Flaming Sphere seems... overpoweredish? "God damn do I love flaming sphere. Using it, my wizard was able to work together with a fighter to basically carry an entire counter while the rest of the party was disabled."

Is Flaming Sphere too good at killing minions? "Personally, when I first read the "and anyone adjacent takes 1d4+IntMod" I immediately did a doudle-take. I still think they're eventually going to nerf this spell somehow. Auto-damage with no save or attack roll is pretty nasty."

Do I think it was the most important issue in need of being fixed in the game? Of course not. But it was pretty commonly known that Flaming Sphere was very strong, and often a bit too much of an 'automatic choice' compared to other options.

Edit: Ninjad! Serves me right for going to lunch. But sounds like no amount of evidence will convince ForeverSlayer that some folks actually felt this was an issue. Which, again... feel free to disagree with others about what needs balancing, but insisting their views don't even exist just seems uncool.

 

[ForeverSlayer]

Well, I suppose if interested... here are some that popped up in a quick search. The first few from here on Enworld, some others from elsewhere focused on issues with minions, some on the power of the spell in general, etc.

Toning Down Flaming Sphere "I have noticed, among a significant portion of the 4E players I know, that Flaming Sphere is seen as the only level one daily power for a wizard to take. Based entirely off the supposition that "if one option is reliably taken over any other, then it might be too good" what would you do to Flaming Sphere to make the other dailies more likely choices?"

House-ruled Flaming Sphere "One of my players has an Eladrin Wizard and I feel that Flaming Sphere is a little too powerful. It seems my opinion is shared by many GMs, so modified the text a little to make it a little better."

Flaming Sphere... again "Even if you just run flaming sphere without allowing flanking, OA and such like it is still a hugely powerful spell."

Flaming Sphere seems... overpoweredish? "God damn do I love flaming sphere. Using it, my wizard was able to work together with a fighter to basically carry an entire counter while the rest of the party was disabled."

Is Flaming Sphere too good at killing minions? "Personally, when I first read the "and anyone adjacent takes 1d4+IntMod" I immediately did a doudle-take. I still think they're eventually going to nerf this spell somehow. Auto-damage with no save or attack roll is pretty nasty."

Do I think it was the most important issue in need of being fixed in the game? Of course not. But it was pretty commonly known that Flaming Sphere was very strong, and often a bit too much of an 'automatic choice' compared to other options.

Edit: Ninjad! Serves me right for going to lunch. But sounds like no amount of evidence will convince ForeverSlayer that some folks actually felt this was an issue. Which, again... feel free to disagree with others about what needs balancing, but insisting their views don't even exist just seems uncool.

So you really think that what you posted is enough to warrant a change to Flaming Sphere.

There is always someone that feels something different from others, but it looks like it's only a minority.

If you think it's uncool when someone doesn't agree with someone else then you have got a lot to learn.

 

[Raikun]

If you think it's uncool when someone doesn't agree with someone else then you have got a lot to learn.

Strawman there. He's actually said more than once that it's fine to disagree, including the post you just quoted.

 

[MrMyth]

So you really think that what you posted is enough to warrant a change to Flaming Sphere.

The fact that a few minutes of searching turned up multiple threads on the topic, several of which involves folks mentioning it as a known issue in the community?

I don't think that is reason for WotC to make the change - input from the community is just one piece of information, not a mandate. But I think it is enough for them to examine the power to see if change is warranted. Which they apparently did, and came to the conclusion that it was.

Which I approve of - not because of community discussion of it, but because of my own experiences with the power and its clear need to be balanced with other wizard powers of that level.

There is always someone that feels something different from others, but it looks like it's only a minority.

If you think it's uncool when someone doesn't agree with someone else then you have got a lot to learn.

Just to be clear, again, I don't think that disagreeing is an issue at all! It's the comments about "it's only a minority" that feels this way (or, previously, no one at all), insisting that no one had ever commented or discussed issues with the power before, that all of this is the result of poor playtesting (rather than a response to community feedback), etc.

Anyway, I don't want to start dragging this off into tangents, so if you feel otherwise, fair enough. I just wanted to clarify my point and encourage you to at least acknowledge the existence of these opinions, even if you disagree with them.

 

[MrBeens]

The fact that a few minutes of searching turned up multiple threads on the topic, several of which involves folks mentioning it as a known issue in the community?

I don't think that is reason for WotC to make the change - input from the community is just one piece of information, not a mandate. But I think it is enough for them to examine the power to see if change is warranted. Which they apparently did, and came to the conclusion that it was.

Which I approve of - not because of community discussion of it, but because of my own experiences with the power and its clear need to be balanced with other wizard powers of that level.



Just to be clear, again, I don't think that disagreeing is an issue at all! It's the comments about "it's only a minority" that feels this way (or, previously, no one at all), insisting that no one had ever commented or discussed issues with the power before, that all of this is the result of poor playtesting (rather than a response to community feedback), etc.

Anyway, I don't want to start dragging this off into tangents, so if you feel otherwise, fair enough. I just wanted to clarify my point and encourage you to at least acknowledge the existence of these opinions, even if you disagree with them.

The thread search results don't really prove anything one way or another, as people who have no problem with the spell are not going to start threads saying that they think it is fine.

Most of us in this thread agree that the current play test version needs tweaking. Personally I like it the way it was originally, but if they change it to something more reasonable then I will be fine.
The main problem is consistency - for instance wall of fire still does start of turn damage, before the FS change, FS was sort of a single square mobile Wall of fire (and cloud of daggers is similar). Fighters have recently been through the Rules Compendium review, and Reign of Steel was left intact as start of turn.

I have sent my feedback to WoTC about the changes (not just about FS), hopefully everyone else has too. Will be interesting to see what comes out at the end

 

[MrMyth]

The main problem is consistency - for instance wall of fire still does start of turn damage, before the FS change, FS was sort of a single square mobile Wall of fire (and cloud of daggers is similar). Fighters have recently been through the Rules Compendium review, and Reign of Steel was left intact as start of turn.

Yeah, I think the biggest deal was the combination of start of turn and ability to move the sphere - that is what made it inescapable. Rain of Steel is much the same (in that the Fighter can move himself), though monsters can interfere a bit more in that.

 

[Gortle]

Yeah, I think the biggest deal was the combination of start of turn and ability to move the sphere - that is what made it inescapable. Rain of Steel is much the same (in that the Fighter can move himself), though monsters can interfere a bit more in that.

Yes I agree. The existing Flaming Sphere, Stinking Cloud and Rain of Steel can do a lot of damage - they are all in effect movable zones that do a die + static damage mods.

If they need to be rebalanced then go ahead. But don't kill the power.

The problem is that the mechanic for Flaming Sphere is very different from these and the other zones that are being errated to end of turn.

FS goes from doing a large amount of damage to doing no damage with the zone because it is now 90% avoidable and not combinable with forced movement tactics. Plus the damage of an average at wizard at will. But it is worse in that it has a sustain for a cost of a minor action as well as a standard action cost to use.

In compensation it supposedly gains a control effect that will encourage monsters to move away from it.

But that control effect is weak because in 80% of situations the monsters moved away from the existing Flaming sphere anyway. Yes I know many of you disagree about that, but it is definitely our local play experience.

The supposed value of making monster move away from a key point is narrow - it is much better achieved with existing at wills like Thunderwave, and the at wills of many other classes. At least with those powers the monsters never get the choice to stay.

The supposed value of breaking up enemy formations was never a problem for a wizard. Any area of effect spell can do that.

IMHO and that of most of the current users of the spell who like to blast with it - it becomes worse than an at will power, has no real value as a daily power, and will never be used again.

Weakening and rebalancing a power is fine, players will accept that. But completely neutering a power just makes players angry, it doesn't help the game.

A movable damaging zone is a fine concept for a wizard. The changes to flaming sphere means it play more like a summoned fire elemental. Both effects should be in the game.

 

[WalterKovacs]

The thread search results don't really prove anything one way or another, as people who have no problem with the spell are not going to start threads saying that they think it is fine.

It does prove one thing. It proves that there were threads that mentioned that Flaming Sphere was out of cotrol and needed to be changed. ForeverSlayer asked, and they delivered. It doesn't prove that it HAD to be changed ... but it did prove that there were threads asking for it to be changed, which was all that was asked for.

FS asked for examples, and examples were provides. Moving the goal posts after the fact that change the initial challenge. The challenge was not to show threads where the entire board collectively agreed to change Flaming Sphere, just to show that there was ANY thread where the issue was raised.

Originally Posted by ForeverSlayer
In all seriousness, please point me out a thread that has ever mentioned that Flaming Sphere was out of control and needed to be changed.

 

[ForeverSlayer]

It does prove one thing. It proves that there were threads that mentioned that Flaming Sphere was out of cotrol and needed to be changed. ForeverSlayer asked, and they delivered. It doesn't prove that it HAD to be changed ... but it did prove that there were threads asking for it to be changed, which was all that was asked for.

FS asked for examples, and examples were provides. Moving the goal posts after the fact that change the initial challenge. The challenge was not to show threads where the entire board collectively agreed to change Flaming Sphere, just to show that there was ANY thread where the issue was raised.

[/I]

That's fine and examples were given. But if you actually read those threads you will see that the "Sleep" spell was mentioned more than the actual topic of the thread. Another one was just a homebrew of the FS spell. Also, if you look at the page count and who actually contributed the number is very small.

I think it would have been better to actually rephrase what I asked for because there is a thread on everything, there is always someone out there who starts a thread or complains about something. The fact is though, I don't have to move the goalposts because what I say still stands. Compare the threads about Orbizards, Feychargers and any other broken thing out there and then look at the FS threads.

If Wizards changed something everytime someone started a thread or two with a few responses then we wouldn't even have a game right now, just a bunch of stuff jumbled together.

Not phrasing the question properly was my fault, but trying to hold on to that like it's proof that the spell needed to be changed holds no water for an argument. The fact of the matter is, there were hardly any complaints to warrant a change to the spell which shows the spell was actually fine as is.

 

[Psikus]

Not phrasing the question properly was my fault, but trying to hold on to that like it's proof that the spell needed to be changed holds no water for an argument. The fact of the matter is, there were hardly any complaints to warrant a change to the spell which shows the spell was actually fine as is.

(Emphasis mine). I'd like to point out that it works both ways, though. Just like the existence of forum complaints does not automatically mean that something deserves errata, the absence of complaints (or rather, the fact that these complaints do not reach some magic number) is not proof that something is fine.

You may argue that there is a public perception that some issues (Orbizards, or whatever) are more pressing than others, but ultimately, forum noise is a very poor indicator of game balance. Actual arguments expressed in forums can hold much more weight.