D&D Beyond shared some stats about the things people are using from Explorers Guide to Wildemount. These are stats from 28 million characters.
You're putting words into my mouth and then demanding I "prove" them? Please do not do that.
I said they're overpowered. Not "broken". I don't use those terms interchangeably. Those are two different things, at least by degree. Hence people often saying "broken overpowered" when describing stuff in computer games, to mean something isn't merely problematic (like a gun that does 10-15% more damage than other guns), it actually breaks the game (like a gun with infinite ammo, or a gun that does 100% more damage). I don't know if anything here "breaks the game", but there's certainly "overpoweredness" in the sense of stuff that's clearly better than typical options.
What is "it" in the subject of this sentence anyway?
I'm leery of going into deep examples, because in my experience, people who've demanded such things tend to do one of two things when they are provided:
1) Walk away from the thread and never comment on it again (let alone acknowledging the often significant time and effort that goes into providing the examples and accompanying math).
2) Dismiss the examples with terms like "white room" (necessarily any example on a messageboard will be vulnerable to this, just as examples from real games are vulnerable to the issue that the player may be holding back or not very mechanically adept), or with very weak arguments (c.f. the "well you can kill the echo pretty easily stuff", where in fact the resources being used to kill the echo are potentially pretty huge - forcing an enemy to make a pointless attack is like having Stunning them for a turn).
I'm not saying "I refuse", I'd just like you to acknowledge that these are valid concerns. I've seen too many times when people (not always me) have provided detailed examples which have simply been ignored or dismissed unreasonably.
As for Healing Spirit being fixed "easily", maybe, but not everything can be fixed that easily.
I also note your original wording re: "bet" that they are balanced - have you actually looked at them? You haven't answered on that. I'm certainly not going to bother with this until you have looked at them (including all the spells).
No. If you think that's a requirement to seeing that something is obviously overpowered, then, I'm afraid I don't think agree and I don't think that's a reasonable position, and I've been vindicated in this viewpoint so many times in my lifetime that it's not even funny. Some flaws only emerge in actual play. Many others are obvious even without it. In my long experience, here, in video games, wargames, card games, and RPGs, It's far more often the case that something seems fine on paper, and is broken in practice, than vice-versa.
Some people will always claim that "Well in my game it's fine!", no matter how unbalanced or badly-designed something is. That's a fact, and it's something anyone who has discussed RPGs significantly will have seen. The interesting thing is that it's often true - but the reason it's typically is that the player is either restraining themselves voluntarily, or isn't capable of understanding how to leverage what the ability in question is. The perfect example is LF/QW, which people swear blind isn't an issue in their games, and again, I'm sure that's true, but as a point of the rules design, it is a problem.
The spells in particular are frequently better than other spells of the same level (not all of them), to a degree that says not "This wasn't tested at all", but rather seems like clear power creep, which to me undermines any suggestion of rigour.
Well, generally you should engage with something before you make an opinion on it, and if you haven't, don't be surprised when people don't take your opinion seriously.No. If you think that's a requirement to seeing that something is obviously overpowered, then, I'm afraid I don't think agree and I don't think that's a reasonable position, and I've been vindicated in this viewpoint so many times in my lifetime that it's not even funny. Some flaws only emerge in actual play. Many others are obvious even without it. In my long experience, here, in video games, wargames, card games, and RPGs, It's far more often the case that something seems fine on paper, and is broken in practice, than vice-versa.
Some people will always claim that "Well in my game it's fine!", no matter how unbalanced or badly-designed something is. That's a fact, and it's something anyone who has discussed RPGs significantly will have seen. The interesting thing is that it's often true - but the reason it's typically is that the player is either restraining themselves voluntarily, or isn't capable of understanding how to leverage what the ability in question is. The perfect example is LF/QW, which people swear blind isn't an issue in their games, and again, I'm sure that's true, but as a point of the rules design, it is a problem.
The spells in particular are frequently better than other spells of the same level (not all of them), to a degree that says not "This wasn't tested at all", but rather seems like clear power creep, which to me undermines any suggestion of rigour.
Just the ability to have your actual character stay behind cover while your infinitely re-summonable dupe makes ranged attacks and draws enemy fire can get ridiculous in many dungeon situations.
Overall, I think the Echo power of the Echo Knight edges out the Invoke Duplicity power of the Cleric of Trickery.
That said, I do something similar with a Cleric of Trickery. I run the perfect Illusion into the midst of a group of monsters and spam Word of Radiance and Toll the Bell. Unlike an Echo, the Illusion cannot be disrupted.
Some errors in your understanding of ID. It uses Channel divinity, so it can be done once per SHORT rest staring at second level, twice at 6th level, and eventually up to 3 times per short rest at high level.It doesn't "edge out" Invoke Duplicity. It destroys it by comparison. Invoke Duplicity is something a 3rd level Trickery cleric can do once per long rest, and it lasts a minute. The echo knight's duplicate can be summoned an infinite amount of times, as a bonus action, and lasts forever until destroyed (whereupon it can be re-summoned next round, as a bonus action).
I've read it, it's flavorful and not bad: but a Champion at the Level 3 gets expanded Crit range, which is extremely powerful, particularly as Bonus Attack starts coming online, and can be extremely powerful in the hands of, for example, a Two-weapon wielding Half-Orc.
They're comparable in utility.
I don't like the UI. I don't like how it can't compute my spell slots accurately (like counting cantrips against my prepared spells per day). The app is terrible and the functionality on desktop is questionable.
It is a strange beast, an online character builder that is somehow even worse than what we had a decade ago in 4e with DDI. It doesn't facilitate online play at all, so you still need a VTT, which already have built in character sheets that work better than D&D Beyond.
I can't see the point in it, unless it's some form of charity to give Wizards more money.