Grading At-Will Powers

[Fedifensor]

Yes, numbers can easily be skewed as you showed. That's why I talk about average foes and not specific groups. If one uses Illusory Ambush versus Brutes in their examples like you did, one can misrepresent Illusory Ambush to make it look real good.

Brutes are a common foe from level 1 all the way to level 30 - they're easy to run, and considered "baseline muscle" per the DMG. Artillery, Lurkers, and Skirmishers are, on average, also good choices to target with Will.

Now, part of the reason you have multiple at-will powers is to match the attack to the defense. Half of the wizard at-will powers target Reflex, so adding an at-will that targets Will is a good thing. If it wasn't for the fact that Fortitude seems to be higher on average than Reflex or Will, Ray of Frost would be a better choice than it currently is. Will is, by the stats given in this thread, the lowest of the defenses. Thus, it makes sense to pick an at-will that targets that defense.

Your Tarrasque example is a bit of a joke. Sure, the Wizard can easily give the Tarrasque a -2 to hit. But he would NEVER EVER do that until late in the combat. First off, he should not readily know that he has a 95% chance to hit the Tarrasque and only a 45% chance to hit the Ancient Red Dragon.

Funny, I was under the impression that the core rulebooks were available for everyone to purchase. Heck, after a few years of DMing 3.5, I'll often know a creature's strong and weak saves on the top of my head. Furthermore, the players should be able to figure out the relative value of a defense after a few rounds of attacking it, given that DMs are encouraged to dispense information like, "it didn't hit, but you think it was close".

As to whether the wizard would use Illusory Assault before late in the combat, that's a straw man. A wizard won't use any at-will in a fight against a solo until he's exhausted his other options. You don't hold back against the big bad guy.

Finally, though I provided examples for each tier, you only focused on the Epic Tier example. The Tarrasque certainly isn't the only monster in the MM with a weak Will save, not by far.

Secondly, he would throw most of his Per Encounter and Daily powers at the Tarrasque and only when he was done doing that would he ever consider using Illusory Ambush.

As we're grading at-will powers, the assumption is that the wizard has already used his other powers, or for some reason doesn't want to use them (maybe the Tarrasque is the warm-up before fighting Orcus). I could replace "Illusory Ambush" with "Cloud of Daggers" in the quote above, and it would be just as true.

And, the Tarrasque can give the Wizard a -5 to AC.

If he's not bloodied. Which, if you're down to using at-wills, the Tarrasque better be bloodied...or you should be running away. Cloud of Daggers may deal decent damage when used by high-WIS characters, but a party isn't going to chew through nearly a thousand HP with just at-will powers.

But, these are not average encounters. For the 1 in 5 encounters where Illusory Ambush is slightly better (much better chance to hit, but still less damage and still infrequent chance to protect the party with the -2 to attacks boon), there are 4 encounters (and especially the 1 minion encounter) where Cloud of Daggers wipes the floor with Illusory Ambush. The reason is that the chance to hit is about the same between the two in these majority cases, but Cloud of Daggers does more damage. Dead foes do not need a 1 in 16 chance of putting a -2 to hit on them.

Sorry, you're going to have to back this argument up, instead of just whipping a "1 in 5" number out of thin air. Against minions, unless the minions are incredibly spread out, Scorching Burst or Thunderwave are both better than any of the single-target powers, so using Cloud of Daggers is a moot point. Illusory Ambush does respectable single-target damage and reduces damage taken. I'm not saying it's a no-brainer...but neither is Cloud of Daggers.

Sorry, but offense trumps defense in 4E for the most part. It's all about economy of actions. It's often better to kill 1 foe than it is to damage or hinder 3 foes (unless one can hinder them to the point that they cannot do counterattack actions).

It's not that simple. I'd rather deal X damage with Scorching Burst to 3 or 4 different foes than 2X damage to one foe with Cloud of Daggers. Even if 2X is enough to kill one opponent, two rounds of Scorching Burst beats out two rounds of Cloud of Daggers.

The main advantage that PCs have over NPCs is that when NPCs gang up on a single PC, that PC can be healed and can still fight. When PCs gang up on a single NPC, it typically cannot be healed and eventually just falls. So, NPCs rarely decrease the number of PCs they are fighting from round to round whereas PCs often decrease the number of NPCs they are fighting from round to round.

It's all about economy of actions.

Which is why different powers have different functions. AoE powers (Scorching Burst and Thunderwave) wear down the HP of multiple creatures at once. Cloud of Daggers does strong damage (for an at-will) to one target. Magic Missile does less damage than Cloud of Daggers (though Bracers of the Perfect Shot can balance this out), but it does so at a longer range and works well with a Warlord's power to grant basic attacks. Illusory Assault is best when the encounter has one strong creature to worry about, as it inflicts a significant penalty on the creature who dishes out the most damage (or effects, in the case of controllers). Even Ray of Frost can have uses with the various cold feats.

When NPCs do manage to decrease the number of PCs they are fighting from round to round, that's typically when TPKs (or semi-TPKs if some PCs run away) occur.

Which is less likely to occur when the creature that does the most damage is taking a penalty to hit.

I did not say that Illusory Ambush was useless. I said it was on average suboptimal. Same for Ray of Frost (which is even more on average suboptimal than Illusory Ambush).

You also seem to have the baseline assumption that your wizard is pumping Wisdom to the exclusion of other stats. That's true for an Orb wizard, but not for a Staff or Wand wizard. With a lower Wisdom, Cloud of Daggers loses much of its luster. Now, if you're saying there's no reason for a wizard to take any implement except Orb, that's a completely different discussion.

There are always going to be scenarios where one At Will power is preferable to any other. Magic Missile wipes the floor up on all of the other At Wills if the Wizard stays 11+ squares away from his foes (at least from the POV of the Wizard, maybe not from the POV of the entire party).

That, at least, we can agree on.

One thing people forget is that in order to get to super PCs and wipe out the Tarrasque, the PCs have to do a few things first:
1) Wipe out ~290 encounters before getting to 30th level, the vast majority of these where Cloud of Daggers helps combat more than either Ray of Frost or Illusory Ambush.

That hasn't been proven, and Scorching Burst is more potent than either Cloud of Daggers or Illusory Ambush in the typical encounter.

For example, the mega-AC 50 Wizard that you are talking about has to give something up in order to get a Heavy Shield and Hide Armor. Str and Con do not grow on trees.

If the thread survives the database fix on the WotC boards, I'll link to it here.

Edit: The WotC boards are back up, and you can find it here. If we're going to discuss that build, let me know and I'll cross-post the build to these forums in its own thread.

3) The PCs have to have all of these magical items that people doing comparisons so easily hand out. But, if you check the DMG magic item hand out system, this is not the case.

All a wizard needs for respectable attack and defense scores are three items - all of which can be level 26. A +6 implement, +6 armor, and a +6 amulet. Everything else is gravy. All three are easily acquired before level 30. Heck, with residuum used as currency, you can just craft them with the Enchant Magic Item ritual.

Not all players will be playing mega-PCs. Sure, they will pick good items and feats and ability scores, but they won't be optimized across the board. Want a high Int Wizard, one gives up Fort Defense. Want a high AC Wizard, one gives up Wisdom or Int. Pros and Cons.

While true, we're talking about a reasonably optimized character. If the character is not optimized, then the player isn't going to care about which at-will is best - they're just going to pick for flavor.

Want Illusory Ambush to wipe out weak Will opponents? Fine. You don't get to wipe out quite as many Minions or Leaders or Elites as quickly.

Straw man, once again. You get more than one at-will. Scorching Burst takes care of most of that, and if you're a human (the optimized wizard will be either human or eladrin for the Int bonus) you get three powers to choose from, depending on the situation.

 

[Fedifensor]

I don't want the baseline to be a C, because that implies any power that's worse (a D) is actually is mediocre, instead of adequate.

Honestly, it IS mediocre in that case. You only get two (or three if a human) at-will powers, EVER. No matter how many sourcebooks come out with more powers, the only thing that matters to a player is what the top two or three at-wills are in their eyes. For example, I would rate Priest's Shield a D because while it has some minimal effect, the other at-wills are going to be a much better choice for general play.

Maybe my understanding of grading is flawed, though.

C - Pass. Adequate.
D - Mediocre. Fails in some cases, borderline passes in others.

A C will get you through school without any academic warnings. I think a lot more powers on your list fall into that definition than a B. Also, in school, the + and - adders are a lot less common than the base letter. For example, if the range for a B is 80 to 89, you'd have 80 for a B-, 81 to 88 for a B, and 89 for a B+.

I would move everything that's a B- to a flat C, move the C- and D+ (Priest's Shield and Hit and Run) to a flat D, and otherwise streamline things so only a few powers have + or - next to the letter.

 

[Leatherhead]

If you are going to grade with letters you should grade on a curve.

Ideally most powers should be a "C", meaning a power that won't let you down if you pick it and have the stats to support using it. Only powers that are under performing or noticeably better should warrant a "D" or "B" respectively. "F" and "A" should be reserved for powers that are so far out of whack with the others that they should probably be looked at.

"+" and "-" should only be used for conditional powers, denoting if the condition is common or not.

 

[keterys]

Cadfan, if they publish a power that does 1d6+X, then later one that does 1d8+Int, and they're otherwise identical, that shouldn't change the score of the 1d6+X. It should just raise a flag that there is a clear mistake or indicate a clear trend of power creep that people can adapt to depending on what powers they allow. For example, if someone were designing a 'scout' or 'swashbuckler' class and mining powers from the ranger and rogue, they might not include Twin Strike... at which point Careful Strike is no longer a zero.

Honestly, it IS mediocre in that case. You only get two (or three if a human) at-will powers, EVER. No matter how many sourcebooks come out with more powers, the only thing that matters to a player is what the top two or three at-wills are in their eyes. For example, I would rate Priest's Shield a D because while it has some minimal effect, the other at-wills are going to be a much better choice for general play.

Priest's Shield isn't all _that_ bad compared to, say, Reaping Strike. It's more defensive and it's not particularly impressive, sure, but it's not "Wow, you're serious? You're taking that... uhh, why?"

A C will get you through school without any academic warnings. I think a lot more powers on your list fall into that definition than a B. Also, in school, the + and - adders are a lot less common than the base letter. For example, if the range for a B is 80 to 89, you'd have 80 for a B-, 81 to 88 for a B, and 89 for a B+.

You're used to some very different grading than I ever was - a C was a way to barely skate by, D was actually failing (but recoverable), and you were _expected_ to do B-caliber.

Moreover, your +/- system is not at all what I experienced (quick googling)
A+ = 97 A = 93 A- = 90 B+ = 87 B = 83 B- = 80 C+ = 77 C = 73 C- = 70 D+ = 67 D = 63 D- = 60 F = 0 to 59.9
One interesting tidbit from that same googling:
'Many jurisdictions consider a pass to be 50% or D-. However, in Samoa, a pass is 60%. In New York state, it's 65%. In Texas, it's 70%.'

Sounds like things vary a lot.

I would move everything that's a B- to a flat C, move the C- and D+ (Priest's Shield and Hit and Run) to a flat D, and otherwise streamline things so only a few powers have + or - next to the letter.

I'll wait for other people to weigh in, but

 

[Mengu]

If you are going to grade with letters you should grade on a curve.

Ideally most powers should be a "C", meaning a power that won't let you down if you pick it and have the stats to support using it. Only powers that are under performing or noticeably better should warrant a "D" or "B" respectively. "F" and "A" should be reserved for powers that are so far out of whack with the others that they should probably be looked at.

"+" and "-" should only be used for conditional powers, denoting if the condition is common or not.

If you must use letters, this is the way I'd prefer to see it. Most powers will be D's, C's, and B's. A few will be A's and F's. Bell curve.

 

[keterys]

Actually, we should see a weighted curve - the bad stuff shouldn't get published and if you're only choosing 4 things to pass through, you should focus on the better stuff

But, easy enough to change. But I'll do that later after I see how people respond. No reason to bounce around with changing things if I might switch back or decide that people are more fiddly on letters than numbers

 

[Fedifensor]

Priest's Shield isn't all _that_ bad compared to, say, Reaping Strike. It's more defensive and it's not particularly impressive, sure, but it's not "Wow, you're serious? You're taking that... uhh, why?"

Which is why I would rate it a D, not an F. Some minor use, but subpar in the vast majority of situations compared to the other choices.

You're used to some very different grading than I ever was - a C was a way to barely skate by, D was actually failing (but recoverable), and you were _expected_ to do B-caliber.

I was a C student in high school. Granted, a C student with a 1280 SAT who was on our school's Academic Decathalon team (there were two each of A, B, and C students on the team), but still a C student. It's not anything to brag about, but I was still able to get into the college I wanted. That's all that mattered to me at the time.

Moreover, your +/- system is not at all what I experienced (quick googling)
A+ = 97 A = 93 A- = 90 B+ = 87 B = 83 B- = 80 C+ = 77 C = 73 C- = 70 D+ = 67 D = 63 D- = 60 F = 0 to 59.9
One interesting tidbit from that same googling:
'Many jurisdictions consider a pass to be 50% or D-. However, in Samoa, a pass is 60%. In New York state, it's 65%. In Texas, it's 70%.'

It may have changed over the years. I graduated high school in the 80's. Plusses and minuses were only used when a grade was on the edge between two levels.

 

[KarinsDad]

You also seem to have the baseline assumption that your wizard is pumping Wisdom to the exclusion of other stats. That's true for an Orb wizard, but not for a Staff or Wand wizard. With a lower Wisdom, Cloud of Daggers loses much of its luster. Now, if you're saying there's no reason for a wizard to take any implement except Orb, that's a completely different discussion.

Assumption?

Hardly. My Int 20 Wizard has a Wisdom of 12. He is a Staff Wizard. If he gets to level 30, his Wisdom will be 18 and that is only because I will be taking Demigod and bumping Wisdom up then.

Bump Int every time.

Bump Dex 4 times (plus 2 all stats bumps)

Bump Wis 3 times (one of which is Demigod, plus 2 all stats bumps).

Final stats: Dex 18 Int 30 Wis 18

His Cloud of Daggers only does 1 point more than Ray of Frost or Illusory Ambush would and he STILL is better off taking it.

Why? 1) It autokills minions. 2) It averages more damage. Even if it is only one per attack, that's one per attack.

With a higher Wisdom than my Wizard, it is even more viable.

 

[keterys]

Well, for grading purposes, I am assuming an orb wizard for both thunderwave and cloud of daggers, a trickster rogue for sly flourish, etc.

Anyhow, for actual math:
Assuming a 60% hit chance for either and, say, 6 casts, cloud of daggers will deal 6 * Wis Mod more damage than illusionary foes, -ignoring the ability to push things through it-.

At 1st level with Int 18, Wis 12 or 15:
IF: (1d6+4)*6*.6 = 27 avg
CoD: Same + (1 or 2) * 6 = 33 or 39 avg (+22% or +44%)

At 6th level with Int 19, Wis 13 or 16, and a +2 implement:
IF: (1d6+6)*6*.6 = 34 avg
CoD: Same + (1 or 3) * 6 = 40 or 52 avg (+18% or +65%)

At 11th level with Int 21, Wis 14 or 18, and a +3 implement:
IF: (1d6+8)*6*.6 = 41 avg
CoD: Same + (2 or 4) * 6 = 53 or 65 avg (+29% or +59%)

At 16th level with Int 22, Wis 15 or 19, and a +4 implement:
IF: (1d6+10)*6*.6 = 49 avg
CoD: Same + (2 or 4) * 6 = 61 or 73 avg (+24% or +49%)

At 21st level with Int 24 (DG 26), Wis 16 or 21 (DG 18 or 23), and a +5 implement:
IF: (2d6+(12 or 13)*6*.6 = 68 (DG 72) avg
CoD: Same + (3 or 5 (DG 4 or 6)) * 6 = 86 or 98 (DG 96 or 108) , 26% or 44% (DG +33% or +50%)

At 26th level with with Int 25 (DG 27), Wis 16 or 22 (DG 18 or 24) and a +6 implement:
IF: (2d6+(13 or 14)*6*.6 = 72 (DG 76) avg
CoD: Same + (3 or 6 (DG 4 or 7)) * 6 = 90 or 108 (DG 100 or 118), 25% or 50% (DG +32% or +55%)

Note that more hardcore orb wizards will have a higher Wis than that and even a casual user might choose to up Wis more than 2 of the available 6 times, as I did it.

Anyhow, that should be as rigorous an example as needed or desired, I'd hope. If you want to give Will an extra 3% hit rate, you can, but it doesn't make a big difference and I'd contend is not necessarily a trend that will stay consistent across new monsters (Fortitude, unfortunately, pretty much will).

 

[Fedifensor]

His Cloud of Daggers only does 1 point more than Ray of Frost or Illusory Ambush would and he STILL is better off taking it.

Why? 1) It autokills minions.

Which is the biggest draw of the power, and Scorching Burst is still going to be a better overall minion killer, because you can hit multiple targets with it (especially once Spell Accuracy comes into play and you can drop it on friends safely).

2) It averages more damage. Even if it is only one per attack, that's one per attack.

With a higher Wisdom than my Wizard, it is even more viable.

Of course it does more damage...because that's all it does. Illusory Ambush does damage AND reduces incoming damage (and reduces the chance of being hit with status effects that are based on a hit roll). Furthermore, as you go up in levels, encounter powers (and daily powers, in tough fights) are going to provide a larger percentage of the damage you dish out, making the damage from at-will powers pale in comparison.