DM's perspective: How to deal with the flaming sphere

[Mistwell]

We've had threads on nerfing the Wizard's Sleep daily (make Sleep weaker or less useful).
We've had threads on nerfing the Wizard's minion-killing at-wills (make minions stronger).
And now we have a thread on nerfing the Wizard's Flaming Sphere daily (make Flaming Sphere weaker or less useful).

All while most people seem to think the Wizard is weak, and Mearls is outright saying today he accidentally designed the Wizard as slightly underpowered.

So why all the attempts to nerf the few things that Wizards actually do well?

 

[DrSpunj]

Umm, who's nerfing? I'm just trying to figure out the best answers to situations that either have or I expect to come up in the game I DM with a Wizard with this Daily Power or for the Wizard I play. I haven't seen enough of the Wizard's abilities to make any changes to the class, but I read Mearls' comments tonight and am curious to read the full entries for both the Druid & the Invoker.

 

[Skallgrim]

Someone earlier in the thread had some good suggestions, and I'd like to chime in on them as some of them arose in the last session I ran.

The wizard was in difficult terrain. The "main enemy" (the person he really wanted to damage) kept near the wizard's allies. The "main enemy" sent minor enemies to harass the wizard.

This meant that while the Flaming Sphere was very useful, it was a REAL hard decision for the wizard. The more he did with his flaming sphere, the less able he was to defend himself against the minor enemies. The wizard's allies were reluctant to back away from the BBEG to attack minor enemies, as those enemies were not the ones they needed to stop. The wizard kept having to use a minor to sustain the sphere, and generally needed a move to keep it near the BBEG. That meant that he could either try to move to avoid combat, use another attack, or attack with the sphere.

In the end, he kept the sphere up to the end of the combat, but nearly died himself. He had at least one turn where he couldn't make an attack with the sphere, as he really needed to defend himself instead. He also had one or more turns where the sphere did no damage, as he couldn't move it adjacent to the BBEG without burning a downed and badly injured ally.

This was great. It made him tactically think about the sphere, and it often meant that what the party wanted him to do was not what he wanted to do:

"Burn him!"

"I can't! I'm down to 6 hit points over here! I need to kill this skeleton before he kills me!"

"Well, at least keep the sphere going!"

"What if I miss? I'll need to move away from this guy."

"I'll kill the skeleton before he can attack you"

"Are you sure?"

"Well, I'll try to, any way."

"I'm dropping the sphere."

"Noooooo!"

 

[BradfordFerguson]

Interesting thread. I think the original premise is slightly flawed... Why try to neutralize one of the few things that a wizard is good at? Not sure what level your game is at, but I tend to have monsters ignore damage if they are stuck (fighter's challenge) or if they are attacking an enemy that they perceive as weak or perceive as needing to die. It's kind of a case-by-case thing for me and usually I glance at least once at the creatures Intelligence before deciding what they do.

 

[Ebon Shar]

Does a flaming sphere provoke opportunity attacks or threaten a target? We've been ruling that it does, but that just feels wrong.

 

[Mahali]

Does a flaming sphere provoke opportunity attacks or threaten a target? We've been ruling that it does, but that just feels wrong.

No to both. How would it provoke? A: It's not a creature or animated object that be destroyed/killed.

See A plus add it has no actions of it's own, it's not intelligent, programable, or had any instincts. It cannot make AoO.

 

[deleteme123456]

Flaming Sphere is crazy good at level 1. Conjure it on turn 1 and stand back, let the frying begin. It autokills minions, so you can probably take down at least one a turn, or force them to avoid clumping, which hopefully leaves them in lousy positions, and it can potentially attack for 2d6+x every turn, which is more than any other wizard at-will, and is actually sneaking into the realm of striker damage (most warlock powers are 1d6, plus 1d6 curse), or at least great weapon fighter. If you had a bard around to slide you now and then you might even avoid using a move action to keep yourself in range, or you can as stated before just rely on your defenders.

Against a solo or elite, 1d4+4 (or 5 if you count a +1 implement) unavoidable damage (because the wizard will happily move the sphere to hit you and only you, which is pretty hard to avoid unless you move 7+ and want to take OA's) is very very good. An above-level elite soldier might have defenses that mean the party is hitting on the order of 25% ... fortunately, you just need to keep that sphere up to whittle it down in no time.

 

[Bagpuss]

All while most people seem to think the Wizard is weak, and Mearls is outright saying today he accidentally designed the Wizard as slightly underpowered.

He made it clear he was referring to only the wizard's At-Will powers.

 

[balard]

FS is nice. It really helps in a fight, but you must use it early. Different from Sleep or a 3|W| attack. It limits the actions of the wizards a lot, and MAKE him a target. The party must work well to protect him, and capitalize the Sphere. It is a strong daily? Yes. But I don't think it is a uber one.

 

[Mistwell]

He made it clear he was referring to only the wizard's At-Will powers.

And?

If the Wizard powers in general are weak, such as their at-will powers (most-often used powers), then nerfing or finding ways to avoid or diffuse wizard powers just hurts them that much more.

The attempts by DMs to nerf or avoid or diffuse spells like Sleep and Flaming Sphere are fine if those same DMs are increasing the power of the wizard at-wills and/or encounter powers, or finding ways to making those powers more effective. But it doesn't seem like that's the way these DMs are thinking about the situation. They seem to be looking to decrease the effectiveness of the daily powers (and sometimes even the at-wills and encounter powers if they increase the power of minions) while not increasing the effectiveness of the other powers. And if that is the case, then it's overall a nerf of the Wizard - a class which many feel is already weaker than most classes.