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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Nibelung" data-source="post: 6703902" data-attributes="member: 74499">Originally posted by Dedekine:Paragon Tier Ardent DisciplinesLevel 13 At-Will Disciplines[sblock]Conflicted Emotions (PsP): Generally the problem is getting enemies to cluster, so the unaugmented version is not going to be all that useful. The Augment 1 penalizes the target for being near allies -- except for the very real possibilty that it starts adjacent to you. A similar problem arises with the Augment 4. Confusing Strike (PHB3): The unaugmented version gives a mark-level penalty to attack rolls, and the Augment 1 drops Will as well. But the meat of this is in the Augment 4, which dazes all adjacent enemies you can see, and creates a zone where anything takes a -2 to hit.Essence Conduit (PsP): The unaugmented version is worse than Energizing Strike, but the Augment 1 is better than Energizing Strike's Augment 2, and Essence Conduit's Augment 4 is surge-plus healing, and can benefit from Psychic Lock. Wis ardents hate it for the Con modifier dependency.Field of Alacrity (PHB3): Unaugmented turns all allies adjacent to the target into kobolds, and they can shift as minor -- which is not that impressive. Augment 1 ends prone on everyone with 5 squares of you, which is situational. And the Augment 4 lets someone take a move as a free action, which is distinctly underwhelming for this level.Hope's Audacity (PHB3): Extended crit ranges for everyone! Unfortunately, to make use of this, you're going to have to use Hope's Audacity almost every turn. Invert Defeat (PsP): The unaugmented version is strange, but it's actually better than simple resistance: if the attack does enough damage to actually bring your ally below 0, this power will immediately bring them back to their feet. The Augment 1 lets you hand out a good number of THP, and the Augment 4 lets you give a smaller amount of THP but do it a whole bunch of times -- and that on top of doing great damage. This is one of the best Wis-based powers ardents have.Revelatory Strike (PHB3): An upgrade to Focusing Strike and Psionic Shield, all in a single power. The Augment 4 version is amazing, giving a saving throw with bonus or a Wis modifier bonus to all defenses in zone burst 2.Stack the Odds (PsP): Positioning kills this power. Normally in a fight you don't want a cluster of adjacent allies: it means you're not flanking and you're making it easier for enemies to catch you in bursts or blasts. The Augment 4 affects both allies and enemies, so it's a little better, but still, there's better choices.Victorious Urging (PHB3): The unaugmented version is uninspiring, as a +2 bonus to accuracy for a single ally against a single enemy isn't going to get as much mileage as a -2 to defenses to that same enemy. The Augment 4 version is much better, giving everyone the accuracy bonus, possibly against multiple enemies, but without a good unaugmented or Augment 1 version, you probably want to give this a pass.[/sblock]Level 15 Daily Disciplines[sblock]Aggressive Accompaniment (PsP): One of your allies makes an attack: you teleport over, soften the enemy up, grant your ally combat advantage, and give him extra damage. If you're lucky, the enemy ends up dazed as well. This is a great tool for dealing with nasty controllers or artillery.Bloody Resurgence (PsP): As the name implies, you use this power when bloodied, where you get to do decent damage to enemies and grant surge-plus healing to an ally. That's respectable, but not inspiring.Coordinated Effort (PsP): You grant a basic attack, a charge, a shift, let one ally fly, and another spend a healing surge. All as a minor action. This is a huge amount of enabling packed into one tiny package. Hopefully you have a five-character party, though, or something is going to go to waste. Extermination Urge (PHB3): Dominated and dazed are great status effects, and the vulnerability can be huge. Imminent Demise (PHB3): A hefty amount of ongoing damage that affects every enemy next to you which the can't save against -- this is a guaranteed tool for ending fights sooner.Mountainfall Strike (PHB3): Immobilized and slow are weak status effects, especially considering you could be taking Extermination Urge at the very same level. If your party has a way to force enemies to clump, to spread the immobilization, this power is much better. For Psionic Binders, it's invaluable.Treachery's Seed (PsP): Whenever the target makes an attack, you can spend an immediate reaction to make an MBA against whoever you want. No save, no time limit: these are good things. The DM making sure the target is never adjacent to any of his allies: this is the inevitable bad thing. Given that it triggers off making an attack, it's not even useful for forcing mark disrespect.Unchecked Aggression (PHB3): The zone is small and not mobile, but the July 2010 errata makes it sustainable, which improves it.Vigorous Offensive (PHB3): Attack up to four enemies, and each time you attack (not hit), an ally within 5 gets THP. You might not get surrounded very often, but that's why this is a daily![/sblock]Level 16 Utility Disciplines[sblock]Bountiful Life (PHB3): THP to every ally within 10 every time you earn hit points is pretty pointless, unless you have a way to get regeneration.Common Cause (PsP): An ally spends a healing surge, and every ally within 5 squares of him gets 10+Cha mod THP. Again, as an immediate reaction, you can't use this power in your own turn, so it can't trigger off surges you grant. Also, this is a ranged power, so it will trigger opportunity attacks on you. Daily usage makes it a little more limited yet. It's not bad, but other powers stand out more.Detach Mind (PsP): Shut down a save ends condition for one turn, then give the target a bonus to save against the effect. Note that the power stipulates that the target can't make a saving throw at the end of their next turn, but that says nothing about granted saving throws. All round, this is a very solid power.Disbelieve Danger (PsP): Make an ally insubstantial as an immediate interrupt. There is absolutely no downside to this.Fortunate Recovery (PHB3): The odds are pretty high that if one person in the party needs to make a saving throw, quite a few do, so a bonus to saving throws that follows on you making a saving throw is likely to be useful quite often. This stacks with Mantle of Understanding, which makes this power appealing even for Wis ardents.Mental Rejuvenation (PHB3): This is great surgeless healing. Either two healing surges worth of healing to one target, or one healing surge to everyone within 5 makes this a healing power that would stand out even in the cleric's power list.Re-Form Mind (PHB3): Train somebody in an arbitrary skill. This is a very nice out-of-combat power, but its usefulness entirely depends on how your party deals with out-of-combat situations.Resilient Bond (PsP): You and an ally get regeneration 5, as long as you stay within 5 squares. That's easy to arrange.Uncanny Awareness (PHB3): Rearranging the battlefield at the start of combat is nice, but there's better powers. The Augment 4 version of the lv. 17 at-will Diamond Defense Assault is markedly better.Level 16 Skill Powers[sblock]Diehard (Endurance, PHB3): In the hands of a leader, this power effectively means "choose not to die."Insightful Riposte (Insight, PHB3): Accuracy is always key, and this is a chance to put the occasional near miss over the edge.[/sblock][/sblock]Level 17 At-Will Disciplines[sblock]Blinding Clarity (PsP): This is a very clear upgrade for Impetuous Ruin. The unaugmented version of Blinding Clarity is the Augment 1 of Impetuous Ruin, so Blinding Clarity wins in that respect. The Augment 1 penalizes all out-of-turn actions. Unfortunately, the Augment 4 makes the enemy blinded instead of dazed -- which means the enemy gets a full complement of actions, and can still make immediate attacks. If you can burn the power points to always use Impetuous Ruin at Augment 2, stick with it. If you're looking for a powe that you will mostly use unaugmented or at Augment 1, Blinding Clarity should be your choice.Diamond Defense Assault (PHB3): An upgrade on Distracting Strike. The unaugmented version doesn't give you the opportunity to mark the enemy yourself, but that's a bad idea regardless. The Augment 1 version given anyone a weak version of the fighter's Combat Challenge, and since the attack is a free action, it will stack with a defender's mark punishment. The Augment 4 sets up a nice protective zone. Once again, with a fighter, battlemind, or warden in your party, this power is an even better choice.Emotional Flood (PsP): A nice two-for-one at-will that both pushes and gives THP to an adjacent ally. The Augment 1 gives the THP to all adjacent allies and pushes further; the Augment 4 loses the push but can deliver obscene numbers of THP. The Augment 4 might be tricky to get best use out of, though, and the lower augments don't stand out except for the mixed effect.Illuminating Strike (PHB3): Radiant damage, and you hand out resistance, either to all damage, or (Augment 1) a greater amount against necrotic, radiant, or psychic. The Augment 4 is one of your better damage dealing powers, doing 2[W] in burst one, but you can still only give resistance to one character. A solid choice for Wis ardents, even better if you're pulling a Radiant Mafia party.Probability Flux (PsP): This is a power based around denying the enemy critical hits. By definition, these are rare and unpredictable, so to get any use out of it you need to be spamming it all the time. This in turn means the vast majority of the time you are dong nothing useful at all.Temporal Strike (PHB3): Insubstantial against opportunity attacks is good with the Mantle of Elation or Mantle of Impulsiveness, but a lot less useful with a Wis ardent who has the Mantle of Clarity. The Augment 1 is very situational, but the Augment 4 is a hefty defensive boost.Terrifying Deluge (PHB3): The unaugmented version is poor: you can shift the target one square after an ally hits it. The Augment 4 version is a big step up, being able to slide every enemy in burst 2 that you hit with the attack, and then you can slide them again whenever an ally hits them. This power takes a step up if you have boosted your forced movement.Violent Surge (PsP): This is the focus fire at-will. Both the unaugmented version and the Augment 4 boil down to a damage boost to all attacks against the target. The Augment 1 is poor. Even if your Con modifier means that this would in theory be doing more damage, all the bonus damage is now riding on your to-hit roll. That makes you feel strikerish when you hit, but it screws the whole party if you miss. So while you should always give the Augment 1 a miss, this is the power you break out when there is an enemy that needs to go down.[/sblock]Level 19 Daily Disciplines[sblock]Chains of Affinity (PHB3): Decent damage, but it's a small, immoveable zone, and the punitive damage is small for the level.Clarified Pain (PsP): Good ongoing damage, and every time the target tries to save an ally gets an accuracy boost. It's a solid benefit while it lasts, but there's a 50% chance this will end doing little more than an encounter power would.Corridor of Pain (PsP): Restrained is a solid status effect, though it requires a hit to get. The Effect lets you teleport the enemy adjacent to an ally whenever the target takes damage, so use this to lock down would-be ranged attackers.Deflecting Disk (PHB3): Good damage for ardent powers, and you get a mini-spirit companion. +2 to all defenses is non-trivial, and doubling that bonus to save an ally is a reasonable gain for ending the effect.Mind Rend (PsP): A sustainable zone that dazes enemies that end their turn within it is magnificent control. The fact that the intial burst slows makes it easier to trap enemies in it, and the nature of dazed makes it hard for them to get out.Reactive Jaunt Strike (PsP): The ardent's only stance power! Sadly, it seems to be made for hybrids rather than pure ardents. If you've got a worthwhile MBA, then you might want to take a closer look at this, but otherwise the mobility the power grants is distinctly underwhelming.Shared Vigor (PHB3): The amount of extra healing isn't large, and random to boot. However, Customer Service rulings(x) suggest that the Mark of Healing applies to all healing granted by the zone, which takes this over the top. If you don't have the Mark of Healing, it's still a decent power, but other choices at the level are much more substantial.Temporal Acceleration (PHB3): Slowed and can't shift is just a weak status effect for this level. The zone can help with your defender's stickiness, but they probably don't need the help, and you'll need a way to draw enemies into the zone.Vitality Transfer (PHB3): Attacks Fortitude, decent damage, surgeless healing to the whole party, and one of only two Reliable-keyword powers the ardent has.[/sblock]</blockquote>

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