Dailies vs. Encounters vs. At-Wills

[Prestidigitalis]

Hi all. Long time lurker, I posted as Elseth Arnelian back in 2000-2001. (Hi to Karin's Dad and Charwoman Gene and PirateCat and especially Morrus.)

Following on the string of posts rating the At-Wills, the Encounters and the Dailies, I ask the question:

"For each class, what is the respective contribution to the power of a character from his/her At-Wills, Encounters, Dailies and Utilities?"

In other words, when you judge a character class -- good, bad, balanced, broken -- which power set do you emphasize? What percentage comes from which set? Is there a particular class that is notably "Daily-based" or "Encounter-based"? Does the answer change when feats or Paragon Paths are taken into account?

Obviously, power varies depending on the opponent and the party makeup, but I'm looking for a more holisitic assessment.

I am also curious about your preferences. For example, I wish that At-Wills were better -- more than 2 (3 for human) At-Wills known, more choices to pick from, and the option to take specific feats that add power specifically to At-Wills. But maybe you like At-Wills as they are and would prefer to make Dailies stronger.

 

[keterys]

I judge most from the encounter powers I think, because that's more reliable. Daily powers are a bit game specific and depend on how many encounters per day the group does... in some groups they might be a lot more important than they've been in my games.

For at-wills, I don't necessarily want them to do more damage (though I have designed some feats for bringing other at-wills in line with the top tier ones), but I'd like a greater variety. I actually wish you got 3 at heroic, 1 at paragon, 1 at epic. Let you attach greater flavor to certain things.

 

[Kzach]

I must say that I don't generally judge by the encounter powers at all.

With perhaps the exception of the paladin which I feel is badly designed as it promotes MAD, not to mention being completely against the recommendations of Strength + Charisma as main stats, when Wisdom is the common modifier to all the powers.

I mean, the cleric at-wills aren't anything spectacular but they're nice enough, and clerics get extra encounter powers to make up for it. Same with warlord. Wizards have great at-wills but really, it's the encounter and dailies that are the fun ones.

So for me, at least, it's a holistic look at the character and class as a whole rather than individual aspects that do or don't shine.

 

[Prestidigitalis]

Another angle from which to approach this question is to look at which set of powers most strongly conveys the flavor of the class. At low levels, this will obviously be the At-Will powers for every class, since they are just about all you've got.

On a related note, I must agree with a number of other commenters that the Wizard has lost of lot of Wizardly flavor, and join with still others in wishing that the Expanded Spellbook feat gave additional Utilities known instead of additional Dailies.

(By the way, many thanks to you, keterys, for your earlier posts, upon which this one is predicated.)

 

[Danceofmasks]

It depends on the tier you're playing at.
At epic, for instance, you can reasonably expect a Wizard to open most encounters with a daily, and see the combatscape change from 'difficult fight' to 'cakewalk.'

Also, on the subject of utility options, abuse the ritual book more.
Yes, rituals cost money to use. Yes, they take a lot of time also.
But .. they can be awesome backup plans for almost anything outside of actual combat.

 

[Branduil]

In general, it seems to me that Strikers and Controllers have the best at-will powers, Leaders have the best encounter powers, and Controllers and Leaders have the best Daily powers. Defenders aren't the "best" at anything but they are good across all types.

 

[Mengu]

When looking at the attractiveness of a class, first thing I look at is at-will powers. These are like the meat and bones of what you will be doing most of the time. I think Clerics and Rangers were blessed with the best at-will powers though they both also have a dud. But overall, there is very good balance between different class at-wills, and I can find something attractive for every build.

Encounter powers to me are the second most important. These are powers you'll be trying to figure out the best timing for, every combat. So if a class has hard to use encounter powers, I may wrinkle my nose at it. I am particularly fond of some Rogue, Warlord, and Wizard encounter powers, and not quite as fond of the Cleric and Fighter encounter powers. I've tried a cleric, and some encounters, I found myself unable to create a situation where my encounter power would be more useful than an at-will. But perhaps that's because I like the at-will's so much.

Daily powers are probably the least important for me. I'm a conservative player, not knowing what the rest of the day may bring, and tend to hang onto those powers, until either a perfect situation presents itself, or the dung hits the fan. They are kind of the get out of jail free cards. The better informed you are about your fights (via scouting and information gathering), the more useful the daily powers become. I think Clerics got some very strong dailies, while Warlocks drew the short stick on these.

But when you add class features, feats, items, party composition, etc. into the mix, it becomes a very open ended formula. A wizard power may look lack luster on paper, but when you add an orb implement on top of it, and a fighter in your party with Tide of Iron and a Rogue with Positioning Strike, it may start to look very appealing.

 

[SSquirrel]

According to the designers, if you have spent your dailies, you should still be at about 80% power

 

[keterys]

At low levels, at-wills matter the most purely due to lack of other options, but that actually quickly solves itself.

Later on, if combats average around 6 rounds, that's enough time for people to do about 4 encounter abilities... which leaves 2 rounds of daily/at-will to work through. I find it's fairly common for one person to use one daily each combat so you might see 7 round combats if people don't, and then the big fights will tend to burn a lot of dailies so that works out okay. But, in general I find that things like 'Blood Pulse' and 'Healing Strike' matter a lot more than the once a day Beacon of Hope or Wall of Fire.

If you're epic tier, wizards may have a variety of ways to get daily powers back (and people in general have a lot of ways to avoid using at-will powers). Certain at-will powers, like Sacred Flame, Righteous Brand, Furious Smash, Twin Strike, Thunderwave may always have a purpose no matter even over other encounter powers.

 

[Pickles JG]

According to the designers, if you have spent your dailies, you should still be at about 80% power

Hmm that is one thing that seems to vary by class.

Wizards have both their hardest control effects & their DOT damage increasers (sustainable powers I mean) in their Dailies. I am sure you can build a wizard that plans to use one of these DOTs every fight & also cannot usefully use much more than that as they are hard to sustain.
This is the opposite of the 3.5 wizard who can turn it on for a big fight but mostly uses his Magic Missile wand, though this build is possible in 4e too - just take an aoe one shot damage spell for each daily (for example).

The difference between these two wizard concepts being full or down to their last daily is huge. (well it seems so to me the person that has not played them). It does give me some hope that the wizard has kept some of his old edition feel, principally as this means the character classess may be a little better differentiated than the fact they all have the same suite of powers indicates.

Wizard damage daily powers & encounter do seem far more damaging relative to their at wills than any other classes (with sneak attack etc taken into account).

Rogues have so much damage tied up in sneak attack that IMO they mostly look to their daily/encounter powers for special effects. Some of these will not be useful in some fights or will be VERY useful so the contribution of their dailies is variable. This applies to the other strikers too, though I feel Warlocks may get more damage boosts, certainly AOE than the others (from a lower base damage).

A fighter could build a "stance" build with 4+ daily stances (right now that's very high level & some are marginal but I expect more will come along soon). He is like the sustainable power Wizard. He would plan to use a stance in every moderately difficult fight - he too cannot really turn it up for the big fights but conversely should make easier fights even easier & help overall with resource conservation.

Anyhow in answer to the OP I think you have to look at all of the abilities & it depends on the class as to which are most important (though crap at-wills would be VERY BAD, I think every class build has the one good one they need).