Careful Attack/Sure Strike: A mathematical analysis

[Ulorian - Agent of Chaos]

Like most people, I'd noticed that the Careful Attack Ranger at-will seems underpowered when compared to another Ranger at-will, Twin Strike; but how underpowered is it really? Is it Twin Strike that's too powerful?

I've written a Java application to compare powers under a customisable range of scenarios: differing weapon damage dice, differing weapon crit ranges, the hit chance for a given use of the power, the ability modifier applicable for that power, and other damage bonuses (coming soon: bonus critical damage and multiple weapon damage dice e.g. falchion = 2d4). The application compares the powers (in this case, by expected damage, but it's flexible) then pumps out text reports detailing the results.

I've attached both the text files containing the analysis and the source for the Java code itself, in case anyone is interested in tinkering with it (I used JDK 1.6.0_06, no other libraries).

One of the text files contains the raw data: the expected damage for each of the evaluated powers: Basic Attack, Careful Attack/Sure Strike, Twin Strike, Reaping Strike, and variations on several of those (I evaluated Careful Attack at +4, Twin Strike at -2 per attack, and Twin Strike at -4 per attack), under each possible scenario (i.e. a scenario is a combination of weapon damage die, crit range, hit chance, ability mod, and other bonus damage).

The other text file contains more focused comparisons of two powers in head-to-head matchups, including more detailed analysis on how the powers fared under differing scenarios (e.g. how were head-to-head 'wins' distributed in low to hit chance situations versus high? What about when the ability mod was a minor factor in the total bonus damage versus a major factor?).

Both text files are in the attached stats.zip.

So, to no one's surprise I'm sure, Twin Strike is better than Careful Attack (and Sure Strike, since they're exactly the same power) in all scenarios. Although I expected Careful Attack to compare poorly to a Basic Attack, I was surprised by how poorly: it's virtually always to your advantage to use a Basic Attack over Careful Attack/Sure Strike! The way that Careful Attack was frequently modified in the months leading up to release (apparently, it granted +4 at one point, and added Dex to damage before that) leads me to believe that they neglected to consult their on-site mathematician on the final iteration of this power.

The other question I had was whether Twin Strike was too powerful. To determine that, I compared it to the Fighter's Reaping Strike, another at-will power that does nothing more than deal raw damage. I would expect Twin Strike to deal more damage than Reaping Strike, since it is a Striker power and Reaping Strike is a Defender power. I compared Twin Strike, Twin Strike at -2 to each attack, and Twin Strike at -4 to each attack. RAW Twin Strike seems to deal way too much damage; the -2 to hit version is more palatable to me.

Having both Careful Attack and Twin Strike is fairly pointless to me, since effect-wise they're the same power: both are intended to do more damage than a Basic Attack. Boosting Careful Attack/Sure Strike to +4 doesn't seem to improve it drastically enough versus Basic Attack. See this post Careful Attack/Sure Strike Houserules for my houseruled replacements for Careful Attack/Sure Strike.

Edit: Updated the files to reflect a bug fix for a Reaping Strike algorithm error.

 

[Goolpsy]

Try to compare Twin Strike, with a 16 STR Cleave

Careful Attack / Sure Strike is just plain pointless unless your ability mod is 0 or less... OR if you need a 21 to hit a monster

 

[med stud]

I'm curious how good twin strike is over the levels. When I playtested level 11, the ranger did 1d10+8 with a basic attack. 1d10+8 is a better average than 2d10 so against non-minions a basic attack seems to better in almost all situations.

EDIT: About sure strike, I think it can be good in some situations. If you know that an enemy is low on health, if you want to activate a flaming bow (for example) or if you want to kill one minion. In raw damage output it's crap, though.

 

[Zurai]

I'm curious how good twin strike is over the levels. When I playtested level 11, the ranger did 1d10+8 with a basic attack. 1d10+8 is a better average than 2d10 so against non-minions a basic attack seems to better in almost all situations.

At level 11, it's not 2d10 for Twin Strike. At the least, it's 2d10+4, for a +2 longbow. More likely it's closer to 2d10+10 (+3 longbow, +2 weapon focus) or even 2d10+16 (add Sly Hunter to the mix).

 

[med stud]

At level 11, it's not 2d10 for Twin Strike. At the least, it's 2d10+4, for a +2 longbow. More likely it's closer to 2d10+10 (+3 longbow, +2 weapon focus) or even 2d10+16 (add Sly Hunter to the mix).

Do you add those bonuses, though? As you show, it would lead to a blatantly powerful at-will power. So blatantly powerful that I don't think it would fly beneath the radars of WotC.

 

[Zurai]

Yes. You always add those bonuses to damage rolls. Ability modifier is the only bonus that isn't always added to rolls.

 

[DemonLord57]

...stuff...

Yea, I was trying to come up with reasonable versions of Careful Attack/Sure Strike myself. Note, however, that the differences in the power between the at-wills is dependent on the weapon used and the attributes of the characters.

For example, if you use two daggers with 18 Str for twin strike and reaping strike, you'll find that clearly reaping strike does more damage (at 50% hit chance, TS does 2.5 ADPR (average damage per round), and RS does 4.25).

For further analysis: Assuming the best damaging weapons available immediately (2 1d10 weapons vs a maul), the ADPR would be: TS = 5.5, RS = 7.5. Of course, this is slightly unfair, as each damage boost to "damage rolls" affects TS doubly, and the enhancement boosts will increase damage on both attacks (though strength mod boosts make RS better, but not TS), not to mention that TS is a great minion killer.

My main point from this analysis is simply that it's not that TS is "overpowered" in some way (though it is very good with focus), it just is useful in different ways, and responds better to "damage roll" boosts, which I think works as a striker power. It can get quite good, but I think that's okay, since you need to focus on the damage to do so (note: I didn't say "balanced". I do not have some strange idea that focusing on your damage will hurt your other areas in any significant way) Also, fighter powers in general suck... a lot.
Actually, I think that defender powers might just be weaker in general than other classes' powers. Leader powers seem to give very nice bonuses, Striker powers seem to have nice side-effects, whether debuff or situational things like movement or not provoking, and Controller powers (only one so far, but still) seem to be very across the board, useful in multiple different situations depending on the situation (do you want push, slow, area burst, square blockage, or... boring damage), but Defender powers seem to be pretty simple and boring, barely a step up from basic attacks for the most part...

Edit: Thinking about Careful Attack/Sure Strike. Having +4 to hit alone is still almost always worse than Twin Strike, rolling two dice and taking the better is very obviously strictly worse than TS, so I'm pretty sure that balancing it will involve adding damage to the attack, unless we make it basically an auto-hit attack. I think that something like +1/2 Str mod to attack and +Str mod to damage would be interesting, and great with some focus on Strength. +2 to attack on effectively a basic melee attack seems worth it to me, and when you increase your Str mod, it only gets better. It might even be competitive with TS, as it only gets better as you get more Str mod (similar to bonus to damage rolls). I don't think that a flat +2 bonus would be good enough, and a flat +4 bonus would be way too good.

 

[Ulorian - Agent of Chaos]

I'm off to work, but I'll reply to some of these thoughts when I get home. I'm going to add some unit tests to double-check the numbers.

 

[jtrowell]

Try again to compare, this time by limiting Twin strike to one attack per target.

Carful strike is useful again when you just want to kill one minion, or to make sure that your killing blow hits on the very damaged solo monster.

 

[Mengu]

I did the exact same research, and came to similar conclusions. Haven't messed with Sure Strike yet, but I did make some alternatives to Careful Strike, over here.

Twin Strike is indeed very powerful. But when I compared the archer Ranger build's twin strike using Hunters Quarry to the Rogue's Sly Flourish with combat advantage, the Rogue comes out on top against most AC's. So I'm not convinced Twin Strike is too powerful, though it is *the* most damaging Ranger at-will power, so I expect every ranger to pick it up and make it their main mode of attack.