Grading At-Will Powers

[Switchback]

The chances to hit on average for Reflex Defenses are nearly identical with Will Defenses (not on any given creature, but overall throughout the MM).

Have you averaged out every monster in the manual? Because other's have and do not agree with you. But the averages are not as important as being able to pick the foes out in a battle that you can hit most easily.

http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?t=229092

I consider 2 auto-damage on 16 attacks for 32 total points of damage (this happens regardless of hit or miss) to be a lot more useful than stopping 1 opponent from attacking back once in 16 of his attacks (on rounds he is attacked by Illusory Ambush), especially considering that CoD will also often drop multiple attacks by auto-dropping minions.

Most combats last more in the neighborhood of 7-12 rounds than 16. Of which I am sure the Wizard is not sitting pumping out CoD into one minion every single action. It's a situational type deal as with all powers. The guys you want to be hitting Ambush on are the big hitters. And as you yourself admitted, some monsters have more than one attack, solo's esp, and the penalty hits all of them until the end of your next turn.

PS. My Wizard PC has Int 20 and Wis 12 for only one point of damage and I still would not take Illusory Ambush because 16 points of damage in 16 attacks (plus minion killing) is vastly preferable to stopping one counterattack one time in 16. Math 101. It's beyond a no brainer for Wizards with Wis 14 or higher. Why gimp yourself?

The math favors attacking Will defense. Especially in the longest battles against the most beefy of creatures that will be the ones standing for many rounds. Getting +3 would be a 15% increase every round when you target the right creatures. It is not the best idea to simply look at a general avg of Will and Reflex. Because you have the option at which defense to attack with different powers. You want to leverage the chances you get to hit the weakest defense. If there happens to be a low Reflex monster in the battle, then you might spend some turns hitting it with a different power. That is the value of being able to target different things.

 

[keterys]

Have you averaged out every monster in the manual? Because other's have and do not agree with you.

The link agrees with him. They're practically the same. Now, Fortitude or AC are indeed higher, but Reflex and Will are pretty close.

But the averages are not as important as being able to pick the foes out in a battle that you can hit most easily.

This is, however, important.

The math favors attacking Will defense.

By a fraction of a percent.

I agree that having diverse attack options is useful, but I suspect most wizards only get one single target option for at-will.

I wish it was possible to have more. I'd cheerfully take Scorching Burst, Thunderwave, Cloud of Daggers, and Illusionary Foes.

 

[Switchback]

By a fraction of a percent.

I agree that having diverse attack options is useful, but I suspect most wizards only get one single target option for at-will.

I wish it was possible to have more. I'd cheerfully take Scorching Burst, Thunderwave, Cloud of Daggers, and Illusionary Foes.

It's much closer to +1 than zero (at Heroic), which is the difference between an 18 and 20 INT.

But it doesn't play out as a fraction of a percent really. Most battles have mixed types. If you can pick the type with the +3 lower Will then you do. Now the other guy can target the lowest Reflex as well, but that will not tend to be the creatures left standing in melee the longest.

So in reality, once the minion's have been dealt with (which have been killed mostly with AOE if your good not wasting 7 rounds to take out 7 minions with CoD) then the big guys left standing need to be dealt with and CoD looks less useful here both in its hit % and vs the value of getting them to miss with big attacks.

I agree the choices for especially non-human wizards are difficult.

 

[KarinsDad]

I don't know if I should be amused or sad that no one pointed out that slow prevents a monster from running AWAY from you. I guess it's usefulness depends on how stupid your DM plays the opponents in your campaign.

This was mentioned several times in this thread (so, you should be neither amused nor sad since people have discussed this). Yes, it is a feature of Ray of Frost. Can it help? Sure. Is it very useful? Probably not, regardless of how stupid or smart DMs play opponents.

If an enemy runs away and alerts other enemies, it really is not skin off of my nose most of the time. I was going to kill those enemies anyway. There is a good chance that they would see it coming anyway (and ambushes are not a real big deal most of the time).

If an enemy runs away with the magic item our group is looking for, as a Wizard I will eventually be at a level where I can stop him with a Hand or Wall spell.

So the utility is there in Ray of Frost (slowing 40% of running away enemies assuming only one enemy runs away at a time), it's just not that big of a deal too often. I'd rather have the utility of auto-killing minions. JMO.

 

[keterys]

But it doesn't play out as a fraction of a percent really.

Sure it does. If your only choice is Reflex or your only choice is Will, it's a fraction of a percent. That fraction of a percent is particularly close depending on what you're fighting or at what level. For example, my paragon group fighting a mix of soldiers and controllers can apparently expect to see lower Reflexes than Wills.

If you have the option to use either, then it plays out very differently.

Now the other guy can target the lowest Reflex as well, but that will not tend to be the creatures left standing in melee the longest.

Not shown by any statistics given. Artillery and Lurkers, for instance, have the worst Will to Reflex ratio and are typically premium targets to kill, using Encounter (or Daily) powers, not at-wills.

then the big guys left standing need to be dealt with and CoD looks less useful here both in its hit % and vs the value of getting them to miss with big attacks.

The big guys left standing is where CoD does quite well, since brutes and soldiers have almost identical ref/will and don't tend to carry as dangerous status effects (where a penalty to attack shines).

I agree the choices for especially non-human wizards are difficult.

Yeah, I definitely want a way to get another at-will...

 

[Tripgnosis]

heh, I stopped reading ALL the replies halfway down the page cuz I'm adhd. Actually I'm not, i'm just full of coffee, anyway sorry if I repeat anyone...

IMO furious smash is awesome, cuz , like someone else said, it gives a GREAT bonus to an ally. Not only that but it's a melee attack power that uses your weapons proficiency bonus and it's against FORT and not AC. That's a big deal in my opinion. You get your weapon bonus for attacking, but the defender doesn't get a bonus for his armour. This is rare as far as powers go.

Also, I think Cleave has been a bit under-rated. It's a minion dispatcher for one thing, and it's even more fun with a reach weapon. The secondary target can't be at reach but the primary can be. (yes I know it's not technically a secondary target but you know what I mean). My Halberd wielding bad-ass has been using cleave ALOT. Think of this, too. If you gotta guy near you with a high ac, and a minion near you with a low one. You can target the minion, likely killing him, AND giving yourself a better chance of dealin at least SOMETHING to the heavily armoured guy since you don't have to roll an attack against him. All you gotta do is hit your traget, and teh second guy is gonna take damage no matter what his defenses are. Better option than reaping strike if you have that other guy to target...

 

[Switchback]

Sure it does. If your only choice is Reflex or your only choice is Will, it's a fraction of a percent. That fraction of a percent is particularly close depending on what you're fighting or at what level. For example, my paragon group fighting a mix of soldiers and controllers can apparently expect to see lower Reflexes than Wills.

I get what your saying, but a monster cannot have .75 less Will. It has to be the same or a whole number more or less. Nothing is forcing you to attack Will 50% of the time and Reflex 50%. Options are always good. My daily is Flaming Sphere, and once it gets brought out it becomes almost an At-will to hit reflex at 2d6+INT, so I think it goes good with I.Ambush for instance.

The whole point of this thread is to put powers in a box and judge them I realize, but its much harder to do in 4e reliably. Because much of the strategy in the game comes in the combats themselves, where in past versions it was more in building your character. A +12 to hit was always a plus 12. But now it matters what defense you hit, when you hit it, what your allies are doing, what other powers you have, etc.

Your Tier point is worthwhile. I think it might be worth considering as well for instance that at low levels, many common monsters (kobolds, orc’s, goblins, little animal critters) just due to the nature of being low level and weak might tend to have higher reflex than average vs higher level creatures that get stronger and more beefier. The old MM’s would call this ‘common, uncommon, rare’ etc for how often they appeared. But humanoid types are probably the most common and you can make good assumptions about them. You can also retrain powers now and thus, there is nothing stopping you from taking one At-Will for a couple levels, then deciding in a few more, another one suits your needs better. If you know your campaign is going to spend the next few months engaging with drow in the underdark that alone might lead you to choose a few things differently.

It's interesting hearing how other players judge things, but I remain totally unconvinced that it is 'incomprehensible' to choose anything but CoD as your single target AT-Will as posited earlier.

 

[keterys]

I get what your saying, but a monster cannot have .75 less Will.

Nor can it have .13 less Will. That doesn't change the statistics in question.

Options are always good.

Agreed.

The whole point of this thread is to put powers in a box and judge them I realize, but its much harder to do in 4e reliably. Because much of the strategy in the game comes in the combats themselves

We have to assume a power is used effectively. Simple as that. If a campaign has a particular slant (for example, a heavy undead game would favor radiant powers), that's kinda separate from this particular examination.

A +12 to hit was always a plus 12. But now it matters what defense you hit, when you hit it, what your allies are doing, what other powers you have, etc.

Well, it always mattered what your save DC was, what your allies were doing, what other spells/buffs you had, etc.

vs higher level creatures that get stronger and more beefier.

This trend is not as bad as you think. *points to the statistics*

You can also retrain powers now and thus, there is nothing stopping you from taking one At-Will for a couple levels, then deciding in a few more, another one suits your needs better.

I actually figured that I'd have Scorching Burst on my wizard until sometime in Paragon when I swapped it out for something else - because by that point my encounter powers (and the incidental AoE of my allies) should be sufficient without drawing on it.

It's interesting hearing how other players judge things, but I remain totally unconvinced that it is 'uncomprehensible' to choose anything but an exact 2 AT-Will's as posited earlier in the thread.

Agreed I mean, I'll note that almost anything that's in a range of 2 is largely a taste, implementation, and party thing. And some things require a certain 'spec' (like Trickster vs. Brutal Rogue)

Still, you should have some real warning flags on the 4s and 9s and such, and I'd suggest that the game might actually be a better place if those were changed to slip back into the expected range.

 

[Mengu]

Still, you should have some real warning flags on the 4s and 9s and such, and I'd suggest that the game might actually be a better place if those were changed to slip back into the expected range.

I agree. If most classes had a 9+ somewhere, I'd be all right with that, but when it's only one or two, I don't like it. I would really like to avoid the 4-'s. Replacing the auto-picks and dead weights will only lead to more fun and interesting options.

 

[keterys]

If anyone feels that the scores I have posted in the beginning do not reflect at least the gist or median of the discussion here, please let me know. Things seem to have settled down and I tried to skim through and update things based on what seemed like a prevailing opinion.

If anyone has advice for adding - or + to any, or if I should just drop those or switch my scale in some way, let me know.