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Banishing Eldritch Blast
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<blockquote data-quote="clearstream" data-source="post: 7518049" data-attributes="member: 71699"><p>My thread title for obvious reasons lead initial posters to believe I was targeting a nerf. My goal is to broaden viable strategies.</p><p></p><p></p><p>In play the 120' range is almost always sufficient to give 100% up-time. It's true Agonizing Blast is essential: it's an example of narrowing viable strategies by making one strategy over-shadow. We've discussed a few ways that it can be improved. One is to make it a class feature rather than an invocation (if something is so good you have to take it, you might as well have it as an auto-pick... and one could argue that not doing that sets up a trap for new players). Another is to make it apply to other damage-dealing cantrips. I've tried that in some dummy runs, and experientially it did make me feel a lot more like casting things such as Frostbite, Ray of Frost, even Toll the Dead.</p><p></p><p>A single low AC enemy? Warlock's chance of hitting with EB is as good as any other character's, their range is often better, and they can divide the bolts for maximum efficiency. It's amazing in play how often the correct answer turns out to be "spam Blast".</p><p></p><p></p><p>It's a nice scenario. In play, these setups often don't work out as well as they sound on paper. It can happen, no doubt. The experience will be different depending on tier. Up to tier 3, the Warlock has two spell slots and could use Hold Person. The foe must be humanoid. They give up their first turn to cast it. (Sometimes the range will be an issue, but often not.) If it lands, they spend a couple of turns dropping that foe. Spells with saving throws can't critical, so the benefit is hitting a bit more often: prima-facie I think spamming EB will work out about the same for damage, and better by tier 3. FWIW it'd be better to cast Hold and hit the target with Blast, which can critical. In many cases it'be be better to Fireball with the slot, and then switch back to Blast.</p><p></p><p></p><p>With RAW as it stands, Toll is okay in tier 1 and then falls terribly behind. Part is that it doesn't scale as ferociously. Part is the shorter range and conditional resulting in more circumstances where it lacks 100% up-time.</p><p></p><p></p><p>Trolls and Vampires. Vampire Trolls! I wish Celestial had a feature that let them make Eldritch Blast deal radiant. I as saddened and surprised not so see that!</p><p></p><p></p><p>It's not, but no one likes a nerf. That said, I think, probably the only feature these boards agree on the evaluation of, is GWM! And I don't feel like GWM needs a nerf!! I really use the all-in melee attack as the standard by which others are judged. Ranged attacks for me should be about 2/3rds the damage, to be ensure non-ranged strategies are viable in play. Part of that is up-time. Part is safety.</p><p></p><p></p><p>I think Hex shouldn't be counted as 100% up-time. Sometimes the Hex falls on a target that turns out not to be the best one to attack, or goes down before the Warlock attacks it, or runs off, or whatever. I count Hex at 65% up-time in my balancing estimations.</p><p></p><p>An adult black dragon would be a tier 3 encounter. The chance of hitting with Tolls isn't too much better than with Blast, given <strong>8+stat+prof+misc</strong> for saves vs <strong>roll+stat+prof+misc</strong> for ranged spell attacks. Adult black dragon has +6 on the save, or 19 AC so the difference is 5%. Blast at tier 3 is doing 3d10+15 at 120'. Toll is doing 3d12 at 60'. Dragon flies (speed 80').</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="clearstream, post: 7518049, member: 71699"] My thread title for obvious reasons lead initial posters to believe I was targeting a nerf. My goal is to broaden viable strategies. In play the 120' range is almost always sufficient to give 100% up-time. It's true Agonizing Blast is essential: it's an example of narrowing viable strategies by making one strategy over-shadow. We've discussed a few ways that it can be improved. One is to make it a class feature rather than an invocation (if something is so good you have to take it, you might as well have it as an auto-pick... and one could argue that not doing that sets up a trap for new players). Another is to make it apply to other damage-dealing cantrips. I've tried that in some dummy runs, and experientially it did make me feel a lot more like casting things such as Frostbite, Ray of Frost, even Toll the Dead. A single low AC enemy? Warlock's chance of hitting with EB is as good as any other character's, their range is often better, and they can divide the bolts for maximum efficiency. It's amazing in play how often the correct answer turns out to be "spam Blast". It's a nice scenario. In play, these setups often don't work out as well as they sound on paper. It can happen, no doubt. The experience will be different depending on tier. Up to tier 3, the Warlock has two spell slots and could use Hold Person. The foe must be humanoid. They give up their first turn to cast it. (Sometimes the range will be an issue, but often not.) If it lands, they spend a couple of turns dropping that foe. Spells with saving throws can't critical, so the benefit is hitting a bit more often: prima-facie I think spamming EB will work out about the same for damage, and better by tier 3. FWIW it'd be better to cast Hold and hit the target with Blast, which can critical. In many cases it'be be better to Fireball with the slot, and then switch back to Blast. With RAW as it stands, Toll is okay in tier 1 and then falls terribly behind. Part is that it doesn't scale as ferociously. Part is the shorter range and conditional resulting in more circumstances where it lacks 100% up-time. Trolls and Vampires. Vampire Trolls! I wish Celestial had a feature that let them make Eldritch Blast deal radiant. I as saddened and surprised not so see that! It's not, but no one likes a nerf. That said, I think, probably the only feature these boards agree on the evaluation of, is GWM! And I don't feel like GWM needs a nerf!! I really use the all-in melee attack as the standard by which others are judged. Ranged attacks for me should be about 2/3rds the damage, to be ensure non-ranged strategies are viable in play. Part of that is up-time. Part is safety. I think Hex shouldn't be counted as 100% up-time. Sometimes the Hex falls on a target that turns out not to be the best one to attack, or goes down before the Warlock attacks it, or runs off, or whatever. I count Hex at 65% up-time in my balancing estimations. An adult black dragon would be a tier 3 encounter. The chance of hitting with Tolls isn't too much better than with Blast, given [B]8+stat+prof+misc[/B] for saves vs [B]roll+stat+prof+misc[/B] for ranged spell attacks. Adult black dragon has +6 on the save, or 19 AC so the difference is 5%. Blast at tier 3 is doing 3d10+15 at 120'. Toll is doing 3d12 at 60'. Dragon flies (speed 80'). [/QUOTE]
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