disintegrate is 10d6+40
lets give the fighter a great sword (so 2d6+5) lets give him the action surge 6 attacks... that is 12d6+30
That is why I mentioned taking into account what you're using it against. Unless disintegrate is your only combat spell, you aren't generally using it against fast, agile opponents which will have a high Dex save. Your chance of landing the damage is higher with disintegrate due to Dex save's scaling with CR compared to AC, even before you start specifically targeting creatures that are probably relatively low-dex.
I was also using a d8 rather than 2d6 because in my experience, while having a magic weapon at that level can be assumed, having the exact best one for your build cannot. Unless you have an Artificer in the group. ;-)
if that is steel wind (I think that is closest I can find) it iis it deals 6d10 to 5 targets. so up to 30d10
Yes. You would have to nerf the 9th level wizard class ability based around moving about and hitting things quite considerably before it becomes equivalent to the 11th level fighter ability based around moving about and hitting things.
Tangent but:
The trick here is to make the goal of most combats something other than reduce all the baddies to 0. Once you introduce concrete goals outside of that - combats become more dynamic and fun.
OK. And what sort of character do those sort of fights favour? The classes capable of versatile combat actions able to shape the battlefield and grant new capabilities to the combatants? Or the ones whose class abilities revolve around reducing the baddies' HP to 0?
That’s such a depressing way to think about it.
And belied by my personal experience, which is that after everybody tried GWM/PAM in the first year, they got much more creative with feat choice. I don’t think you can rank them 1st, 2nd, 3rd “best”.
Its depressing but absolutely true. It is the same for maneuvers and spells: Your first picks are the choices that you want the most. By definition your later picks are choices that you didn't want the most, because if you did want that capability more, you would have picked it first.
"And the fighter has the 2nd worst rolls outside of combat."
I am sorry, but how is this even a statement. The second worst at what? Athletics? Acrobatics? And what about the third 14? That accounts for something, somewhere? How about this, if you want to be a fighter who rocks at skills, convince the DM to use feats and take Skilled. Better yet, if you are using point buy, take the three 13s and 3 12s. Combine it with Skilled, use Tasha's Tool option, and you have quite the skilled fighter.
Like any other character can at character creation you mean?
At character creation, the fighter gets the "worst rolls" because they get four skills and a background feature. Just like most other classes including casters - so wouldn't that make them even?
However with the application of esoteric disciplines such as observation and mathematics, it is noticeable that while a caster can base all four of their proficiencies on their primary stat, the fighter cannot. Thus by definition a fighter will have proficient ability check rolls than the equivalent caster.
Ah! But the fighter has the choice of directly sacrificing their primary ability score in order to get better at non-combat situations. Just like casters don't have to because their spells that contribute in non-combat situations still key off their primary stat as well as potentially all of their proficient skills.