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Echo Knight is Wildemount's Most Popular Subclass
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<blockquote data-quote="Ruin Explorer" data-source="post: 7975555" data-attributes="member: 18"><p>Sure, still a problem indicative of poor playtesting. You bring up the "restricted" point again. Again I point out that that is literally not an argument in favour of your position, unless the spell is restricted to an otherwise-weak subclass. And that is not the case - it is in fact associated with a very strong subclass, certainly one of the best Wizard subclasses.</p><p></p><p>Not really clear why you're obsessed with things being "not broken" though? Broken isn't just a failure of playtesting/balance. Broken is a result of a total breakdown of playtesting/balance. It's like "Well yer honor, yes ma cousin hit the sheriff in the face with a beer bottle, but at least he didn't shoot him!". That's not exactly a great point to be making.</p><p></p><p>It's comfortably within the range of 2nd level spell. Does less damage than you expect for a 2nd-level spell, but the movement impact is more than you'd expect, and it has a bonus effect. It's obviously vastly superior to the 2nd-level Snilloc's Snowball Swarm.</p><p></p><p>This admittedly because Snilloc's is rubbish, Snilloc's does 1.5 more damage than 1st-level MG, to a MUCH smaller area (less than a third of MG, making it harder to position, and with a much lower max and likely targets), with a much worse damage type (Cold is nearly as bad as Fire, though Poison is the worst damage type in 5E), and NO secondary effects instead of two, one of which is amazing. So it is OBJECTIVELY superior to Snillocs. And that's a 2nd level spell vs a 1st. It's not a small margin either.</p><p></p><p>And Shatter and Snillocs are the only similar 2nd-level spells to MG. Upcast MG is certainly the equal of Shatter, and even 1st-level MG is pretty close, just a bit less damage (but using a first-level spell slot!!!). Snilloc's is really bad compared to Shatter, which happens within spell levels, but it's also really bad compared to MG. Which is staggering.</p><p></p><p>Fix-wise I'd suggest lowering the damage to the expected 2d6, and the radius to 5'. That would make it actually like a 1st-level AE spell.</p><p></p><p>(re: Dragon's Breath, it's a far better spell on paper than it is in practice, in experience - it also serves a different role - generally you want to cast it on a melee character who does mediocre damage, like a Cleric, because that way even if they can only safely hit one target, particularly after you've used it once and the enemy scatter/manuever, which is very common, it's still helpful. Players often make bad mistakes with it in my experience, in a way they don't with stuff like Shatter, like Sorcerers casting it on themselves then trying to go kill stuff, and getting the snot beaten out of them, or casting it on a character who does way more DPR than they're likely to get out of using their action that way, then being irked the other character isn't using it.)</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Ruin Explorer, post: 7975555, member: 18"] Sure, still a problem indicative of poor playtesting. You bring up the "restricted" point again. Again I point out that that is literally not an argument in favour of your position, unless the spell is restricted to an otherwise-weak subclass. And that is not the case - it is in fact associated with a very strong subclass, certainly one of the best Wizard subclasses. Not really clear why you're obsessed with things being "not broken" though? Broken isn't just a failure of playtesting/balance. Broken is a result of a total breakdown of playtesting/balance. It's like "Well yer honor, yes ma cousin hit the sheriff in the face with a beer bottle, but at least he didn't shoot him!". That's not exactly a great point to be making. It's comfortably within the range of 2nd level spell. Does less damage than you expect for a 2nd-level spell, but the movement impact is more than you'd expect, and it has a bonus effect. It's obviously vastly superior to the 2nd-level Snilloc's Snowball Swarm. This admittedly because Snilloc's is rubbish, Snilloc's does 1.5 more damage than 1st-level MG, to a MUCH smaller area (less than a third of MG, making it harder to position, and with a much lower max and likely targets), with a much worse damage type (Cold is nearly as bad as Fire, though Poison is the worst damage type in 5E), and NO secondary effects instead of two, one of which is amazing. So it is OBJECTIVELY superior to Snillocs. And that's a 2nd level spell vs a 1st. It's not a small margin either. And Shatter and Snillocs are the only similar 2nd-level spells to MG. Upcast MG is certainly the equal of Shatter, and even 1st-level MG is pretty close, just a bit less damage (but using a first-level spell slot!!!). Snilloc's is really bad compared to Shatter, which happens within spell levels, but it's also really bad compared to MG. Which is staggering. Fix-wise I'd suggest lowering the damage to the expected 2d6, and the radius to 5'. That would make it actually like a 1st-level AE spell. (re: Dragon's Breath, it's a far better spell on paper than it is in practice, in experience - it also serves a different role - generally you want to cast it on a melee character who does mediocre damage, like a Cleric, because that way even if they can only safely hit one target, particularly after you've used it once and the enemy scatter/manuever, which is very common, it's still helpful. Players often make bad mistakes with it in my experience, in a way they don't with stuff like Shatter, like Sorcerers casting it on themselves then trying to go kill stuff, and getting the snot beaten out of them, or casting it on a character who does way more DPR than they're likely to get out of using their action that way, then being irked the other character isn't using it.) [/QUOTE]
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