Dragon 370 - Invoker Preview

[Rechan]

Hey, buddy, didn't mean to offend.

No offense taken.

I can just be a little... zealous, in defending my opinions.

 

[Tony Vargas]

The big balancing factor is that both spells target all creatures in their AoE. If you use vanguard's lighting to shut down opportunity attacks, you'll tend to hit fewer targets than the wizard simply because shutting down opportunity attacks is best in situations where the characters and monsters are mobbed together.

I don't understand.

If you're not shutting down OAs - if you're just blowing up enemies safely sepparate from your allies, day - then V'sL and SB perform identically, as burst 1s doing the same damage. If you are shutting down OAs with V'sL, by targetting a smaller number of enemies in contact with your party, then SB won't hit any /more/ of those enemies, and won't shut down any OAs. One power does what another does, and some more. That seems the definition of 'strictly superior.'

Is it the risk of shutting down your own guy's OAs? Because, if you're trying to shut down the enemies' OAs, they're probably /not/ engaged with the fighter, because fighters have little need to provoke - it's the striker who wants to run away or the ranged combatant who's stuck in melee provoking OAs. If you're worried about shutting down your enemies' OAs, your allies' OAs probably aren't a priority.

What am I missing?

 

[gribble]

There's nothing inherently wrong with having inferior at-wills. As long as your encounters/dailies/utilities are superior enough to make up for it, there's no issue. You can't just look at one type of power.

I don't agree with this, when 4e multiclassing is taken into account. It makes it too easy to "cherry-pick" the best encounter/daily powers from another class for the above to be true, IMO.

 

[Sir Brennen]

There's nothing inherently wrong with having inferior at-wills. As long as your encounters/dailies/utilities are superior enough to make up for it, there's no issue. You can't just look at one type of power.

I don't agree with this, when 4e multiclassing is taken into account. It makes it too easy to "cherry-pick" the best encounter/daily powers from another class for the above to be true, IMO.

I think 5th meant "superior enough to be on par with other classes". I think. "Superior enough" is a strange turn of phrase, though.

But it's pretty clear by Mr. Mearls statement that it's not necessarily OK to have inferior at-wills. The wizard is a tad weak and not quite as controller-y as he should be. Not horribly weak, but enough that they're going to address it in an upcoming book. If you're not a serious optimizer you probably won't even notice the slightly subpar abilities.

I think part of the problem with nailing down the wizard's role was in carrying over many of the spells from previous editions which don't necessarily support that role.

 

[Fifth Element]

I think 5th meant "superior enough to be on par with other classes". I think. "Superior enough" is a strange turn of phrase, though.

That's correct. If your at-wills are inferior, your other powers (or your class features) have to be superior to balance the class. But they have to be superior enough to make up for the inferiority of the at-wills, not too superior, but not not superior enough. I'm not helping, I'll stop now.

But it's pretty clear by Mr. Mearls statement that it's not necessarily OK to have inferior at-wills. The wizard is a tad weak and not quite as controller-y as he should be. Not horribly weak, but enough that they're going to address it in an upcoming book. If you're not a serious optimizer you probably won't even notice the slightly subpar abilities.

I think that's true. It's better to have balanced at-wills across classes, but like you say I don't think the differences are really that significant.

 

[Fifth Element]

I don't agree with this, when 4e multiclassing is taken into account. It makes it too easy to "cherry-pick" the best encounter/daily powers from another class for the above to be true, IMO.

Eh, some would argue that the power-swap feats are underpowered anyway, since it costs you a feat and the power is a slightly lower level. There's a lot of things to balance here and I don't think you can just point at an at-will that's better than another and decide it ruins the balance.

 

[gribble]

The wizard is a tad weak and not quite as controller-y as he should be. Not horribly weak, but enough that they're going to address it in an upcoming book. If you're not a serious optimizer you probably won't even notice the slightly subpar abilities.

I definitely agree with that. It's not so big a bump as to have a huge impact or break the game or anything - I don't think anyone is saying that.

It's more that it seems to set a dangerous precedent that I'd rather not see. As one of the D&D designers said in reference to this - it's not power creep, it's just that it's a slightly more powerful version...

Still, someone else did point out that Dual Strike is a strictly inferior version of Twin Strike, so I suppose that precedent had already been set (albeit in reverse).

 

[Ahglock]

At the level my party is at, for them at wills are most of the fight and lots of time the entire fight. Disparity of at wills even small disparities can have a large impact. Where I think it can be felt most if a class with the same role has strictly superior at wills.

The invoker is a spellcaster and a controller. That makes the invoker very similar to the wizard. If the invoker is better, but only slightly better, it is bad. Unless someone has a real issue with divine vs arcane magic they just wont play the wizard over the invoker. If there is a problem, it should be fixed. They should change scorching burst is vanguards lightning goes out like that. Or heck change a wizards class abilities, they could use some love.

 

[Ahglock]

Speaking only for my campaign, I'd say it happens somewhere around once per session, or every other session. You're artificially limiting it, though; over the course of multiple spells, those single points add up.

Basically, I think the dual-element feats are very comparable to Weapon Focus. Yes, Weapon Focus increases damage by +1 per tier, but as I mentioned before, there are more element-based Close and Area attacks than there are Weapon-based Close and Area attacks.

-O

I'm not massively impressed with weapon focus either, though I think you will usually get slightly more out of it since spell casters usually mix up there elements over a fight, and weapon users rarely change weapons over a fight. Though the ranger in my game does all the time, so maybe I am wrong about that.

 

[Jack99]

Still, someone else did point out that Dual Strike is a strictly inferior version of Twin Strike, so I suppose that precedent had already been set (albeit in reverse).

It might be dangerous to compare at-wills across roles.