Arcanist playtest

[brehobit]

And...

Ok,
Looked at the PP changes. They were way overkill for no obvious reason. Action point powers getting really hosed badly for no clear reason is the worst offender, but Bolstering Blood's change is crazy. PC hit points are more valuable than monster hit points. This just kills the PP (well it, and the other nerfs in this update, though Destructive Salutation needed it.

 

[Gortle]

Humm, what update to rain of steel?

Apologies I was think of another power.

Rain of Steel wasn't touched when the fighter was and it does a whole lot more damage than Flaming Sphere and that for a defender not a striker.

http://www.wizards.com/dnd/files/CC_Fighter.pdf

Are WotC going to make that an end of turn effect as well? Defenders are supposed to be better controllers than strikers anyway.

 

[Raikun]

Are WotC going to make that an end of turn effect as well? Defenders are supposed to be better controllers than strikers anyway.

Fighters can be built either to emphasize control, or damage.

Read PHB, Page 76, under "Great Weapon Fighter" for instance.

 

[Al'Kelhar]

Controller (Wizard)
Controllers deal with large numbers of enemies at the same time. They favour offence over defence, using powers that deal damage to multiple foes at once, as well as subtler powers that weaken, confuse, or delay their foes.

(My emphasis)

The changes to zones that operate to reduce area damage to mass targets reduces control, by WoTC's very own inital definition of the role. EOT damage reduces control. If you choose to define "control" as "making enemies think about battlefield postioning", EOT damage may affect control - but reducing the damage from the zone as well (e.g. Stinking Cloud) just adds insult to injury.

Flaming Sphere has a range 10. It must always remain within 10 squares of its creator, who must also continually retain line of effect, and must have line of sight to move or sustain it. It is party-unfriendly. That is is largely more effective than any other 1st-level daily wizard spell merely reflects the general suckage of other 1st-level daily wizard spells. I have never seen Flaming Sphere break an encounter. I have seen it alter the flow of battle, particularly in confined spaces. I have also seen - from both sides of the screen - the conjuring wizard receive the almighty smackdown from every unmarked enemy on the battlefield as soon he or she rolls it rolls out, the best defence from a dangerous zone being to knock its creator unconscious.

The changes to the wizard (sorry, arcanist - ugh) that are proposed are to address (1) a systemic flaw with damage-on-entry zones; and (2) one-trick ponies and damage optimisers.

Problem (1) requires a system-wide fix that should have occurred years ago. Zone damage 1/turn appears to be the most widely adopted house rule ever. Problem (2) is a problem for organised play, not for home games (or at least well-managed home games). I will continue to use the PHB wizard in my own games, thanks.

Cheers, Al'Kelhar

 

[Raikun]

(My emphasis)

The changes to zones that operate to reduce area damage to mass targets reduces control, by WoTC's very own inital definition of the role.

Except that same definition also includes "as well as subtler powers that weaken, confuse, or delay their foes."

 

[ForeverSlayer]

You have damage, but very little control with old Flaming Sphere.

And there's no "learning your lesson" with it either seeing as many times there simply is no way to avoid it.

Until now, that they've fixed it.

Old flaming sphere - Monster standing there, watching this ball of flame coming at him unable to move until it's hit him.

New flaming sphere - Monsters finally have the option to jump out of the way.

Actually with the old FS the monsters took damage and jumped out of the way. It's not rocket science and I hate it when people leave out what obviously happens in order to try and win an argument.

In our games and every other game I have played in, the monsters move away from the FS after they have taken the damage because they don't want to take the damage again when their next turn comes around. We get damage and we get control.

9 times out of 10 monsters are going to move anyway. You really aren't giving them an alternative, so before they move they will be taking damage.

I think who ever decided on this errata may be lacking in the various ways to use these spells in combat on a tactical level. You don't burn away three types of tactics in order to, what they think is more control when it's actually not, and gain really nothing in return.

We have done battle after battle after battle with the new changes and it doesn't work. We can't figure out what in the hell the playtesters were doing in order to come up with these changes. During our multiple playtests we even switched initiative order several times to where the monsters have been from 1st to last and we still come up with the same results. The errata is a failure.

 

[keterys]

It's not a failure. It works just fine for a daily of that level. In some cases you may also want to also use a defender and/or other control powers of your own, to ensure best results.

It's certainly less powerful. For some of the powers, _much_ less powerful. Which means that you're going to get far lower results than you've come to expect. The wizard has several dailies that outperform their level by quite a bit, to the extent that they dramatically shift the balance of a combat more than almost every other class. Now it has less of those. On the "plus" side, maybe some of their more neglected dailies like summons, will be more popular. I do wish they'd also improved some of their really neglected dailies, like Fireball.

 

[Raikun]

Actually with the old FS the monsters took damage and jumped out of the way. It's not rocket science and I hate it when people leave out what obviously happens in order to try and win an argument.

Except 1) With old FS the monster never has a chance to jump out of the way before being hit, and

2) It's NOT obvious that he moves anyways. It's been described why many times.

3) I did not leave out what might happen. It's right there in my statement with a conditional modifier (until).


Undisputable fact remains:

Old flaming sphere - Monster standing there, watching this ball of flame coming at him unable to move until it's hit him.

New flaming sphere - Monsters finally have the option to jump out of the way before it hits him.

Subjective part:

I've played with the flaming sphere fix for some time now, and it plays much better.

 

[Oldtimer]

The damage is only equivalent to a hit from a typical basic attack. Many monster have 100+ hit points.

So now the damage is trivial? Why is it then a minor disaster that it's not automatic anymore?

And 100+ hit points? That would be a level 7 Brute or a level 9 Soldier. It's a freaking first level spell! Of course it's not going to scare the pants of monsters in high heroic. But against a group of level 2 Artillery it's going to look pretty intimidating.

 

[Oldtimer]

Actually with the old FS the monsters took damage and jumped out of the way. It's not rocket science and I hate it when people leave out what obviously happens in order to try and win an argument.

In our games and every other game I have played in, the monsters move away from the FS after they have taken the damage because they don't want to take the damage again when their next turn comes around. We get damage and we get control.

9 times out of 10 monsters are going to move anyway. You really aren't giving them an alternative, so before they move they will be taking damage.

This is madness. Why on earth are your monsters moving? There is just no incentive. Not at all. They win nothing by moving. Your argument is faulty to the extreme.

We have done battle after battle after battle with the new changes and it doesn't work. We can't figure out what in the hell the playtesters were doing in order to come up with these changes. During our multiple playtests we even switched initiative order several times to where the monsters have been from 1st to last and we still come up with the same results. The errata is a failure.

No, the failure is not in the errata. We changed Flaming Sphere to end-of-turn damage over a year ago and it plays so much better for us. In both campaigns I play. Of course it works. I can't think you're really serious anymore. This is way into trolling territory. I'm out of here.