Arcanist playtest

[Marshall]

Give me a scenario where those two spells are overpowered.

Flaming Sphere was an autodamage attack with little to no investment. Its the equivalent of a 15th level SOR daily(Lightning Daggers) that doesnt require further attack rolls and hits multiple targets. The spell needs a rewrite, moreso AFTER the rewrite. It went from overpowered to garbage.

Stinking Cloud and damage-on-enter zones are infinitely abusable with forced move.
Drop the cloud on something = 1 attack.
Move Cloud so Mob is adjacent to it.
AP Beguiling Strands or other forced move power.
Slide Mob in = Autodamage at Full Attack Value.
Slide mob out
Slide Mob in = Autodamage at Full Attack Value.
Slide mob out
Slide Mob in = Autodamage at Full Attack Value.
<repeat for every 2 more points of forced move>
Mob starts turn = Autodamage at Full Attack Value.

1 Round netted you 1 attack and 4 instances of Autodamage. Thats just the caster, what happens when his friends have forced move also?

All zones needed a nerf, What they are doing tho is death by a thousand paper cuts in nerfing individual powers. And since its WotC, they are using the meat cleaver to make the paper cuts. The way these spells were gutted.... to be kind, I'll just say that its going to take my PCs being dominated before I throw out buffs to team monster.

 

[ForeverSlayer]

Here is the main problem with EOT effects. You will start to see monsters become nothing but kamikazes. A DM will pretty much know the max damage that can be done, look at how much their monsters have and just go for whoever they can take down with them.

With EOT effects you have creatures than can get off full attacks and full movement so they can take down a PC and still move to avoid the effect. Creatures have a lot more chances to attack with minor actions as well as standard.

We actually tried EOT and it didn't work. Sure creatures were moving all over the place but it ended up leaving PC's open and battles ended up taking way to damn long.

 

[ForeverSlayer]

I'm going to go ahead and call this the Voltron Theory. What that means is you have one individual per part in order to make Voltron work and I think this is the direction the game is going. I don't want this to happen. Sure I like teamwork but I don't each role to be locked into one exact specific thing.

It's almost like the designers want the leader's to heal, the defender's to shield, the controllers to set em up, and the strikers to kill. In an abstract way that is what is supposed to happen but not so much literally.

Bottom line is, the Wizard was actually fine just the way it was. While not completely fixing the Orbizard they did manage to tone it down. This is just change for the hell of it.

 

[Raikun]

We actually tried EOT and it didn't work. Sure creatures were moving all over the place but it ended up leaving PC's open and battles ended up taking way to damn long.

Had the opposite effect here. Players were able to more easily coerce monsters into getting out of position and getting themselves set up to be flanked, AoO'ed, etc. It seemed to balance out quite well.

 

[Oldtimer]

Here is the main problem with EOT effects. You will start to see monsters become nothing but kamikazes. A DM will pretty much know the max damage that can be done, look at how much their monsters have and just go for whoever they can take down with them.

How is that relevant to start-of-turn or end-of-turn damage?

With EOT effects you have creatures than can get off full attacks and full movement so they can take down a PC and still move to avoid the effect. Creatures have a lot more chances to attack with minor actions as well as standard.

Yes, they can attack and move away. End-of-turn doesn't prevent that. Neither does start-of-turn (unless it actually kills them). But end-of-turn encouraged them to move away, something start-of-turn was unable to do.

We actually tried EOT and it didn't work. Sure creatures were moving all over the place but it ended up leaving PC's open and battles ended up taking way to damn long.

I house-ruled my Flaming Sphere to end-of-turn damage over a year ago. It worked so much better for what we wanted it to do. Forcing monsters to move "all over the place" is exactly what we wanted the controller to accomplish. Especially into places where the strikers could nuke them. Teamwork FTW!

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Here is the main problem with EOT effects. You will start to see monsters become nothing but kamikazes. A DM will pretty much know the max damage that can be done, look at how much their monsters have and just go for whoever they can take down with them.

With EOT effects you have creatures than can get off full attacks and full movement so they can take down a PC and still move to avoid the effect. Creatures have a lot more chances to attack with minor actions as well as standard.

We actually tried EOT and it didn't work. Sure creatures were moving all over the place but it ended up leaving PC's open and battles ended up taking way to damn long.

You guys have it backwards. BOT damage from FS is neigh unavoidable. I've DMed 4e for its full run and run plenty of games. In no case have I yet seen the monsters avoid FS except a couple situations where the spell really shouldn't have been used. So my logic as a DM when that spell comes out is "Oh well, I'm taking the damage, so I'll just go crazy, pick up a few OAs or whatever and banzai charge." Best thing I can do in fact is get right in with the PCs where maybe the sphere won't dare follow. It is all my choice though, there's no control, no hard choice at all. Just go about your business and take your licks.

With EOT damage I'm likely to ACTUALLY think about moving. Unless that thought enters my head there's no control involved, just damage.

What you're really saying is "it was stronger before, so the PCs will suffer for it being weaker now." This may be true, but that's totally independent of whether it is control or not. Also, damage/death is not control. To say that it is is silly. You can argue it is BETTER than control, but that itself is not clear. If I as a controller reshape the battlefield such that my side wins and wins more easily than some striker that might theoretically be in my place then obviously my control was superior. This IME is often the case. Time and time again I've seen wizards drive the enemy out of an otherwise unassailable position, delay the arrival of a monster in an effective combat position by multiple rounds, etc. Not to even mention things like just tossing a BBEG off a bridge into a bottomless pit with Spectral Ram (yeah, flying BBEG, so what, it was knocked prone...). It may SEEM like damage is the best thing there is in the whole world, but quite often you'd just rather force the enemy to be HERE instead of THERE.

 

[Incenjucar]

I find myself liking this change. Just a few threads from here you can see someone saying that pyromancer wizards>sorcerers in damage-dealing. Yeah. That's an issue.

 

[The Human Target]

So wands are still lame and scorching burst is still worse than its new contemporaries.

Thats pretty sad.

 

[DracoSuave]

So wands are still lame and scorching burst is still worse than its new contemporaries.

Thats pretty sad.

The solution to wands is to print good wands. wands are subpar for every class that uses them, except maybe bards. Maybe.

 

[ForeverSlayer]

How is that relevant to start-of-turn or end-of-turn damage?


Yes, they can attack and move away. End-of-turn doesn't prevent that. Neither does start-of-turn (unless it actually kills them). But end-of-turn encouraged them to move away, something start-of-turn was unable to do.


I house-ruled my Flaming Sphere to end-of-turn damage over a year ago. It worked so much better for what we wanted it to do. Forcing monsters to move "all over the place" is exactly what we wanted the controller to accomplish. Especially into places where the strikers could nuke them. Teamwork FTW!

Killing them is the whole entire point. Having the option to actually drop them before they even need to make a decision is what it's all about.

Let's say you have a PC two squares away from the Flaming Sphere and you have a creature standing next to it. Let's say that PC is close to dying and so is the creature. If you have BOT that creature could actually die when his turn comes around. With EOT all that creature would need to do is take a 5 footer, full attack that PC who is almost down and drop him into unconsciousness or death.

Delaying the death of a creature can get you killed. The Wizard is the best controller in the game and doing EOT makes him less. Sure he may be able to shuffle people around a little bit more, but death is what you are wanting no matter which class deals it.