Astral Fire Style Feats

[Rith the Wanderer]

Has anyone done the math on the feats that deal +1 damage/tier to two specific types of energy? I'm looking at it specifically for wizards, and I think they're definitely a good feat choice except for the prerequisites. Has anyone looked at the math for taking a hit in one of your main stats (not intelligence, but wisdom or dex or con depending on your implement) to make a more balanced character statwise? This is normally not a good idea but I'm not sure if the added damage combined with the other benefits of having higher stats(not to mention pre-reqs for arcane reach and spell focus) would make it a good option. BTW, Str is still a dump, none of the feats use it.

 

[Rith the Wanderer]

Anybody have any input on this?

 

[Rystil Arden]

The loss of to-hit of taking a lower primary stat is much more of a factor than the loss of damage in almost every case. The extra damage from the feats is nice, but it isn't worth it on its own.

For instance, even at epic tier when the feat gives 3, it isn't really worth it. Consider the Warlock power Hellfire Curse. Let's say that you can pump Con by 2 and get +1 damage and hit on a 10 or else get up Dex and such and buy Astral Fire for +3 damage and hit on an 11. Let's also assume that you were choosing between Con 18 to start or Con 16 and Astral Fire, and then full stat raises into Con.

So for Con 18 and no Astral Fire, there's a 55% chance to do 5d10+9.

For Con 16, it's 50% chance for 5d10+11.

Expected damage? 20.075 with Con 18. 19.25 for Astral Fire.

And that's a power that has no added riders on a hit. If you really need to hit to do something awesome (true of many Leader and Controller type powers), then Astral Fire looks even worse.

 

[Pierson_Lowgal]

Except that going from 16 to 18 costs 7 points of 22, and going from 10 to 13 for feat access is only 3 points. I'd actually recommend only going to 12 and retraining for the feat after 11th level's stat bump.

Astral fire is particularly annoying because it requires dex, which both warlocks and wizards want to dump (in favor of int).

 

[Rystil Arden]

Except that going from 16 to 18 costs 7 points of 22, and going from 10 to 13 for feat access is only 3 points. I'd actually recommend only going to 12 and retraining for the feat after 11th level's stat bump.

Astral fire is particularly annoying because it requires dex, which both warlocks and wizards want to dump (in favor of int).

Well, that depends on some assumptions you made. If you were otherwise going to dump Dex to 8 (a pretty reasonable choice for a Wizard or Warlock), that'll be 5 points. I was assuming an 18 after a racial boost (from a Con boosting race). That costs only 4 from the 16.

 

[Rith the Wanderer]

Well I more meant dropping one of your secondary (non-power) stats. Like wisdom for an orb wizard or dex for a wand, in favor of having a more spread out array. I didn't think about the retraining, that may be a good thing for me to take a look at. Also, dex isn't the supreme dump stat (the one you make an 8). That belongs to strength. Also, if you want arcane reach at higher levels you'll want to have dex 14, this will also cover the prereqs for some of the elemental damage feats and allow you to have evasion later on, which is useful for anyone.

 

[Rystil Arden]

Well I more meant dropping one of your secondary (non-power) stats. Like wisdom for an orb wizard or dex for a wand, in favor of having a more spread out array. I didn't think about the retraining, that may be a good thing for me to take a look at. Also, dex isn't the supreme dump stat (the one you make an 8). That belongs to strength. Also, if you want arcane reach at higher levels you'll want to have dex 14, this will also cover the prereqs for some of the elemental damage feats and allow you to have evasion later on, which is useful for anyone.

Well, it depends. You may also want to grab a Light Shield, for instance, with the Strength. +1 AC and Ref (with options for magic) is not a bad deal. But yeah, if you were going to take the Dex anyway, of course it is worth it. And with the serious dearth of decent Epic Feats for, say, a Warlock (there's almost nothing a Warlock can take), you may indeed want to retrain for old feats back then. 11 to start will give you 13 at 21, and 12 to start will give you 14 at 21 (so you can grab Astral Fire at Paragon and Arcane Reach at Epic if you start with 12 Dex).

As for Wis and Orb Wizards, Wis is almost as important for them as Int (and some builds choose Wis over Int!)--maxed out Wis allows them to shut down enemies with no save bonuses. And of course, getting 13 Cha by Paragon tier is pretty crucial, to get Spell Focus. Str and Dex (though not Dex if you do wands) are the only stats you can often dump, and maybe Con if you don't mind being very frail, needing to rest for more surges all the time, and you don't plan on grabbing a staff as a second implement eventually for the defenses (you can always blast with the orb and just keep the staff around for the defense boost).

 

[Cadfan]

My take- I wouldn't go out of my way and spend 6 character creation points to raise two stats from 10 to 13 in order to get a feat like Astral Fire. There are better uses for those 6 points.

But if I was getting more benefits out of those 6 points than just the Astral Fire feat, I might consider it. For example, if I were playing a wand based wizard who already had high dex, I might throw 3 points into charisma so that I could pick up Astral Fire. It benefits my will save (which is probably lackluster in a wand mage), and it helps me with Spell Focus at paragon tier.

I'd also consider it if I were getting racial bonuses that offset the cost, or if I felt I could afford to wait until paragon tier to get the feat, because then I could save a point or two by relying on the paragon tier ability score boost.

 

[Voss]

Anybody have any input on this?

I do. These feats are total and utter garbage, even if you pick abilities that only use those damage types. And they'd be garbage even if they didn't require you to set stat points on fire to take them.

Its fairly simple. That +1 isn't even 5% of a 1st level kobold's hit points, and the +3 isn't even 1% of the tarrasque's hit points (its roughly 0.2%). The damage bonus simply isn't relevant at first level, and monster hit points vs the damage PC's deal scale in a way that makes it increasingly less relevant as you level.

To add insult to injury, they don't even have much flavor to them. You're just slightly better with two fairly unrelated things.

 

[rhm001]

I do. These feats are total and utter garbage, even if you pick abilities that only use those damage types. And they'd be garbage even if they didn't require you to set stat points on fire to take them.

Its fairly simple. That +1 isn't even 5% of a 1st level kobold's hit points, and the +3 isn't even 1% of the tarrasque's hit points (its roughly 0.2%). The damage bonus simply isn't relevant at first level, and monster hit points vs the damage PC's deal scale in a way that makes it increasingly less relevant as you level.

To add insult to injury, they don't even have much flavor to them. You're just slightly better with two fairly unrelated things.

But isn't that analysis a question of 3.X scale feats vs. 4.0 scale feats? I think there's a reasonable argument that to hit bumps will be more useful, but there are a lack of to hit bump feats, and even if you want to take something like Combat Reflexes, you've got feats to spare. This isn't 3.X, where you needed every feat for your chain to get the awesome one at the end.

And as for flavor, you have a point for some feats, like Burning Blizzard, but others have a nice theme; Astral Fire is all about things that (theoretically) burn you. More importantly (OK, for me,) Raging Storm is thunder and lightning. Come on! They exist together in nature. They're the chocolate and peanut butter of attack spells! Two great tastes that are even better together!