4e's [W] damage discrepancy

[Deverash]

The caster +1 dmg feats are even worse in that they have stat requirements - for stats that you're likely to not have much use for - and don't scale. Whereas anyone can take weapon focus and its damage increases by tier.

While I've been thinking similar things as your post, the caster feats <i>do</i> scale with tier, at the same rate as weapon focus. There's just no similar feats for all the other melee feats in the PHB. Hopefully, it'll change with PHB2, but that seems to be the earliest it can happen(baring Dragon articles).

 

[Prism]

i'm not too sure about the rogue yet but from playing a ranger it seems that the dailies either do mega damage like attacks on the run or blade cascade OR low damage but with a debuff. The warlock seems somewhere in the middle. I wouldn't argue that the ranger can do some major damage - i'm not sure how much the debuffs count

 

[Plane Sailing]

Greatbow, Adventurer's Vault.

Gosh, you don't mean to say that the very first splatbook produces a new uberweapon to support the archer ranger (already near the top of the tree) even more?

Where is the rolleyes smiley when you really need it

 

[Felon]

Wish I could give you some practical advice. I'm running my 1st 4e game this weekend, and I've only participated in a few playtests.

I actually brought this issue up about a month before 4e's release, when all the preview stuff was floating around; I was basically shot down immediately. I feel both validated and disappointed that, at least in your case, it's panned out. Hopefully someone can give you some good ideas. All I can say is, I'll be watching this one closely.

Hopefully, as time goes on, most people will desert the camps of extremism that 4e has split a lot of players into over the last year. The camp that shot both you and me down early on is the camp that was so enamored of 4e that they wanted to regard any and all criticisms as if they were hysterical cries of "the sky is falling". It's a camp committed to the principal that everything people suggest is a bug is actually an intentional design feature.

I am glad this thread has attracted level-headed responses. It shows that we're making progress to a point where we can talk about improving specific aspects of 4e without praising or condemning it as a whole. Since my feelings about 4e remain highly ambivalent, I look forward to seeing an end to the "love or leave it" sentiments.

 

[Cadfan]

If it's a 10-foot wide corridor, the front line works great, but otherwise I just illustrated how monsters can circumvent the front line.

15 foot wide corridor.

One space for the fighter, another space on his left, another space on his right.

If you want to deal in all dimensions dimensions, you're really looking at a 3x3 "no fly zone" in the middle of the battlefield.

Its always been sufficient for my group. Not flawless, but sufficient.

 

[Felon]

An additional problem faced by implements vs weapons comes from races that can use oversized weapons. Minotaurs and bugbears (or any race that can get oversized weapons) can up the damage they do on [W] powers - but nobody can improve the damage done by powers.

Cheers

Gosh, you don't mean to say that the very first splatbook produces a new uberweapon to support the archer ranger (already near the top of the tree) even more?

Where is the rolleyes smiley when you really need it

This is very much the crux of my argument. When you set up guy A with a fixed value to work with, and then give guy B a variable value, you cannot hope to maintain equity between them--at least not when the baseline value of the variable starts out roughly equivalent to the fixed value. Guy B has nowhere to go but up, up, up, while Guy A has nowhere to go, period.

It's a pretty simple exercise in logic, when you get right down to it.

 

[jbear]

My party's level 2 warlocks hellish rebuke can do a max of 12-27 dmg if some monster is stupid enough to damage her. 1d6+5 +1d6+4 +1d6.
Not bad compared to the fighter 7-18 cleave.

 

[Dausuul]

I think there are some distinctions made in this thread that you aren't taking into account in your post.

You have to use that d6, while using that d10 is the fighter opting not to deal more damage. Also, it's not clear where your 1 point discrepancy in bonus damage is, but all things being equal (ability scores, magic items), those bonuses would be the same, making it more like 1d6+7 versus 1d10+7.

Now, your example throws out an at-will. If you start looking at encounters and dailies for your characters, you're going to start seeing those dice double and triple, creating a much larger discrepancy.

Of course, the wizard has a lot more AoE than anyone else, so he can easily slough off lower average damage output for single targets, as long as there are squishies running around.

Oh, sure. I'll freely admit that my wizard is more optimized than the fighter. My stat bonus is one point higher (I have Int 20, he has Str 19), and I have the Hellfire Blood feat. Put us on an equal level of optimization, and our damage rolls wouldn't be so close to equal.

However, as you also point out, the wizard's attacks are AoE. I can almost always hit two targets and often three with scorching burst. The fighter's damage advantage rises when he busts out daily and encounter powers, but my blast radius goes up, increasing the number of targets. Even if the fighter were better optimized, I would not be worried about him hogging all my glory, unless all our battles were against solos and elites.

The more general theme here is that weapon users do tend to have higher raw damage output. People who don't use weapons get lower damage but are supposed to make up for it in special effects - debuff riders for the warlock, healing mojo for the cleric, AoE for the wizard.

I have found that the cleric and wizard special effects are more than adequate to compensate for slightly lower basic damage. As I said before, I'm not yet sure about warlocks; although I do find that debuffing the enemy is usually better than buffing yourself, particularly for a striker whose job is to mess up big targets.

 

[GoodKingJayIII]

People who don't use weapons get lower damage but are supposed to make up for it in special effects - debuff riders for the warlock, healing mojo for the cleric, AoE for the wizard.

But as Felon said earlier, this idea is circumspect when you throw in the Rogue, who uses [W] damage and gets special effects that hinder the target - and often allow the Rogue to deal more damage.

 

[Spatula]

While I've been thinking similar things as your post, the caster feats <i>do</i> scale with tier, at the same rate as weapon focus.

Whoops, you're right. Missed that.

Either way, you still have to deal with feats only affecting some of your damage types and the bizarre stat requirements. Is there any particular reason why a fire wizard is supposed to have above-average Dex and Cha scores?