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Message: <blockquote data-quote="mneme" data-source="post: 5624969" data-attributes="member: 59248">NO.  Damage at EOT means the -monster- gets control.  Your control is greater with BOT damage.BOT damage is greater control than EOT damage -- because BOT damage first hits the monster (making the next turn's BOT damage matter -more-) then presents the monster with the threat of even more damage next turn.  Sure; that threat is hard to avoid.  But it's not gaurunteed; if I've got too much to do, I might very well not have a move action to move the sphere (particularly if a monster is in my face).  Lets look at the basics for a moment:1. Dead is the best control.  This isn't hyperbole -- it's the core of why "move or I'll smack you" is control at all.  So you need this as a foundation or you might as well argue that fire wizards (and other damage-based types) don't work at all.2. The monster always (within reason) does what is best for it.  And if it doesn't, that ok, because what's bad for it is good for the party.3. To be effective control, the damage on damage based control must be better for the party than the control.  This is a natural result of #2 -- without this, the monster will always choose the damage, and no control will result.4. 3+2 = It is better if the monster takes the damage.  If the monster is expected to choose the control, and it always chooses what is best for it, it is better for the -party- if it takes the damage.  It's ok if it takes the control; that's really what the effect is intended to do, but if it always takes the damage, that's actually better.5. Therefore, old Flaming Sphere is simply a more powerful spell than new FS.  It does more damage, the damage matters more, and it exerts more control, as the future damage matters more and the damage is, itself control.This doesn't mean, btw, that new FS is a worse spell for the -game- than old FS.  Just less powerful, and even a less powerful controller effect.  The thing about damage-based wizards is that as above, they need to have the "I'll just take the damage" option be the -worse- option.  This means that, all things being equal, sucking up a wizard's punishment damage should be worse than sitting there and sucking up a striker's damage -- the striker has unconditional damage; the wizard has conditional damage that might be, for instance, trying to convince the monsters not to mob the striker.  So if you build a damage specced wizard, she should (if monsters completely ignore her as a controller) do more damage than a damage specced rogue.  This doesn't happen, but that's not important now; what's important is that in order for this to be the case, her damage needs to be -actually- conditional on monsters ignoring her control (or on clever player plans ignoring multiple characters working in concert, but that just means the monsters need to ignore -someone-'s control).  Otherwise, she can be a better-striker-than-a-striker all the time, and a controller when she absoluteley has to.The problem with Flaming Sphere is that as a controller effect, it was much closer to a striker ability with a control rider.  This means that either it was doing too much damage (full controllery damage where the monsters desperately were trying to avoid it, but getting smacked anyway) or too little (other spells might have been like this, but not IMO Flaming Sphere, because it gets full bonuses to damage rolls).  So it was just sitting in the wrong place in the design continuum.But it certainly wasn't being worse control than the playtest FS.  It was being better control -- but also too powerful as a striker ability.</blockquote>

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