Goumindong
First Post
Forked from: Secondary ability benefits - why the wizard inconsistency?
No they aren't. There is no way that anyone in their right mind could constue Clerics to be better controllers than wizards.
They have 2 powers that are marginally better at dealing AoE damage to enemies and have no significant control elements aside from that.
Those powers described are daily and as such inherently less efficient than Encounter AoEs, which the wizard gets plenty of. As well, it can easily be shown that the powers simply are not better than equal or lesser wizard powers of similar type.
And all of this is before you get into the wizard specific abilities and paragon paths which only apply to wizard powers(or now artificer powers, since they are arcane and have spells.)
The two powers in question are Firestorm and Astral Storm. One of them does more damage because its "hit component" does higher damage, and one of them does more damage because it is all damage types and so ignores most resistances. Flamestrike is right out, its simply not better at damage than lower level wizard spells, let alone equal level wizard spells.
So lets look at that first. Flamestrike does vs ref, area 2, 2d10+wis and 5+wis ongoing(save ends), with 1/2 on miss(no ongoing).
But you don't have to look far to see that even low level wizard spells are better. Flaming Sphere(wizard daily 1) does 1d4+int/round in an area 1... but you can move it... and you can sustain it with a minor action... and you can make 2d6+int attacks continually as a standard. Over the course of a battle. The flaming sphere will be doing more damage than the flame strike simply because the flame strikes damage peters off after an average of 1.8 rounds(or something).
The same thing happens at the wizards level 5 dailies with stinking cloud. Except not only does stinking cloud persist as a minor action(and so will average many more than 1.8 rounds of extra damage), but you can knock enemies into it for 1d10+int, and another 1d10+int when they start their turn. Oh, and you can move it, and it blocks line of sight.
Now blocking line of sight is important, because at level 9(when you get flame strike). Enemy artillery is going to doing on average 2d6+5 or more damage/round/enemy. Which means that you need to factor in that these artillery which can simply ignore the cleric cannot ignore the stinking cloud and have to either move through it(1d10+int at the minimum likely more) or give up actions.
For every attack you prevent that is 1/5th of a parties action you gain. I.E. stopping that attack is like giving yourself another turn. Two artillery getting LoS blocked from the stinking cloud means that you another another get essentially free hits on other enemies.
So the equivalent damage that stinking cloud does(by both preventing incoming) and increasing outgoing starts to spike up much higher than flame strike on a spell that already did more damage out of the box.
The same thing happens when you consider Fire Storm. Fire Storm does a lot of damage out of the box and pretty decent continuing damage... And its even sustainable so there are no arguments regarding the Cleric losing damage to a save.
But it doesn't prevent any damage. While something Evards Black Tentacles will. Especially something with low reflex, like a brute or soldier. Brutes and Soldiers immobilized out of melee range not only deals damage to them, prevents them from attacking you(1-2/5 free actions/round) but also lets you easily gang up on artillery and skirmishers. I.E. the things that do the most damage. Fire storm might do a decent amount of damage, but an ice archon rimsteel, a fire archon blazesteel, or a goristro is going to shrug it of and ruin your day. Preventing you from attacking their skirmishers/artillery and dealing damage to you as well.
Such Evards is 1-2 actions ahead of flame strike per round and as it continues it just gets worse.
The best part is that since the wizard has a lot of knowledge skills and since melee enemies tend to hold melee weapons or look like melee monsters and have low reflex scores the wizard can pick and choose his abilities to correspond to the particular encounter, isolating the artillery to take down a lone brute/skirmisher/soldier, or isolating the brutes/skirmishers/soldiers in order to deal with the artillery.
This maximizes the ability of the wizard to control the battlefield and makes the powers presented explicitly better control powers than the Cleric has.
Astral Storm is a pretty potent damage power. But as a sustainable damage power it doesn't hold a candle to wizard level 25 powers. As a burst damage power it barely compares to wizard level 25 powers. As a burst power Elemental Maw does nearly as much damage and stunns, knocks prone, and teleports the enemy(typically into something unsavory, like right between a defender and striker, over a pit, or 20 squares in the air[or 20 squares over a pit] for extra damage or simply removing them from the fight entirely]. Elemental Maw is nearly on par for burst damage before we look at the control it can do which can be plenty of saved actions which means even more effective damage.
As a sustainable power necrotic web comes up way to fast, doing more damage per round, not needing an attack roll, immobilizing enemies so they cannot leave the zone, and it doesn't need actions to sustain. Which means that it will keep going even if the caster is stunned(which Astral Storm will not), or if the cleric needs to dedicate actions to other endeavors.
And through all of this we haven't even figured in the wizards increased AoE and control in encounter powers or with at will powers(such as knockback, to ensure that enemies stay in those zones and controlled area where they lose actions) which Clerics simply do not have.
Keep in mind that its already been explained how low damage push all powers can be more powerful than selective push powers, that Wizards get these abilities much earlier(Encounter: AoE Push vs ref is 4 levels earlier), they they get Arcane Reach, Spell Focus, Arcane Mastery, and Spell Accuracy, as well as extra AoE damage and control in nearly all of their paragon choices(the best of abilities which do not apply to other classes abilities)
Falling Icicle said:
No they aren't. There is no way that anyone in their right mind could constue Clerics to be better controllers than wizards.
They have 2 powers that are marginally better at dealing AoE damage to enemies and have no significant control elements aside from that.
Those powers described are daily and as such inherently less efficient than Encounter AoEs, which the wizard gets plenty of. As well, it can easily be shown that the powers simply are not better than equal or lesser wizard powers of similar type.
And all of this is before you get into the wizard specific abilities and paragon paths which only apply to wizard powers(or now artificer powers, since they are arcane and have spells.)
The two powers in question are Firestorm and Astral Storm. One of them does more damage because its "hit component" does higher damage, and one of them does more damage because it is all damage types and so ignores most resistances. Flamestrike is right out, its simply not better at damage than lower level wizard spells, let alone equal level wizard spells.
So lets look at that first. Flamestrike does vs ref, area 2, 2d10+wis and 5+wis ongoing(save ends), with 1/2 on miss(no ongoing).
But you don't have to look far to see that even low level wizard spells are better. Flaming Sphere(wizard daily 1) does 1d4+int/round in an area 1... but you can move it... and you can sustain it with a minor action... and you can make 2d6+int attacks continually as a standard. Over the course of a battle. The flaming sphere will be doing more damage than the flame strike simply because the flame strikes damage peters off after an average of 1.8 rounds(or something).
The same thing happens at the wizards level 5 dailies with stinking cloud. Except not only does stinking cloud persist as a minor action(and so will average many more than 1.8 rounds of extra damage), but you can knock enemies into it for 1d10+int, and another 1d10+int when they start their turn. Oh, and you can move it, and it blocks line of sight.
Now blocking line of sight is important, because at level 9(when you get flame strike). Enemy artillery is going to doing on average 2d6+5 or more damage/round/enemy. Which means that you need to factor in that these artillery which can simply ignore the cleric cannot ignore the stinking cloud and have to either move through it(1d10+int at the minimum likely more) or give up actions.
For every attack you prevent that is 1/5th of a parties action you gain. I.E. stopping that attack is like giving yourself another turn. Two artillery getting LoS blocked from the stinking cloud means that you another another get essentially free hits on other enemies.
So the equivalent damage that stinking cloud does(by both preventing incoming) and increasing outgoing starts to spike up much higher than flame strike on a spell that already did more damage out of the box.
The same thing happens when you consider Fire Storm. Fire Storm does a lot of damage out of the box and pretty decent continuing damage... And its even sustainable so there are no arguments regarding the Cleric losing damage to a save.
But it doesn't prevent any damage. While something Evards Black Tentacles will. Especially something with low reflex, like a brute or soldier. Brutes and Soldiers immobilized out of melee range not only deals damage to them, prevents them from attacking you(1-2/5 free actions/round) but also lets you easily gang up on artillery and skirmishers. I.E. the things that do the most damage. Fire storm might do a decent amount of damage, but an ice archon rimsteel, a fire archon blazesteel, or a goristro is going to shrug it of and ruin your day. Preventing you from attacking their skirmishers/artillery and dealing damage to you as well.
Such Evards is 1-2 actions ahead of flame strike per round and as it continues it just gets worse.
The best part is that since the wizard has a lot of knowledge skills and since melee enemies tend to hold melee weapons or look like melee monsters and have low reflex scores the wizard can pick and choose his abilities to correspond to the particular encounter, isolating the artillery to take down a lone brute/skirmisher/soldier, or isolating the brutes/skirmishers/soldiers in order to deal with the artillery.
This maximizes the ability of the wizard to control the battlefield and makes the powers presented explicitly better control powers than the Cleric has.
Astral Storm is a pretty potent damage power. But as a sustainable damage power it doesn't hold a candle to wizard level 25 powers. As a burst damage power it barely compares to wizard level 25 powers. As a burst power Elemental Maw does nearly as much damage and stunns, knocks prone, and teleports the enemy(typically into something unsavory, like right between a defender and striker, over a pit, or 20 squares in the air[or 20 squares over a pit] for extra damage or simply removing them from the fight entirely]. Elemental Maw is nearly on par for burst damage before we look at the control it can do which can be plenty of saved actions which means even more effective damage.
As a sustainable power necrotic web comes up way to fast, doing more damage per round, not needing an attack roll, immobilizing enemies so they cannot leave the zone, and it doesn't need actions to sustain. Which means that it will keep going even if the caster is stunned(which Astral Storm will not), or if the cleric needs to dedicate actions to other endeavors.
And through all of this we haven't even figured in the wizards increased AoE and control in encounter powers or with at will powers(such as knockback, to ensure that enemies stay in those zones and controlled area where they lose actions) which Clerics simply do not have.
Keep in mind that its already been explained how low damage push all powers can be more powerful than selective push powers, that Wizards get these abilities much earlier(Encounter: AoE Push vs ref is 4 levels earlier), they they get Arcane Reach, Spell Focus, Arcane Mastery, and Spell Accuracy, as well as extra AoE damage and control in nearly all of their paragon choices(the best of abilities which do not apply to other classes abilities)
