Grading At-Will Powers

[Switchback]

Cloud of Daggers can prevent flank. You shouldn't consider only the character in a vacuum.

Note: Cloud of Daggers for an Orb user can be put into three squares at the same time (one extended one in round one, one standard action on round two, one action point on round two) which can really screw up enemy tactics and help party tactics. Sure, it doesn't last long, but it can really screw up a Paladin marked opponent (maybe even a minion) if he has to walk into a CoD in order to attack the Paladin (or take damage from the mark). Ditto for Fighter marked synergy with CoD. If the marked opponent moves out of the CoD, the Fighter gets to attack.

Lots of synergies with Cloud of Daggers. Like you said, you shouldn't consider only the character in a vacuum.

I guess this depends on your DM, but I find a lot of the area denial arguments about CoD unpersuasive. If a enemy has to choose between losing a turn or getting blasted by range another round vs simply charging through the daggers, I think he is going to go right through them. Similarly to try and finish off that pesky wizard that is whittling him down, its probably well worth the damage just to get flanking and smack the squishy with his big attack.

The daggers have no status effect, its usually going to be a measley 2 or 3 HP of damage which is not much against the inflated HP of 4e creatures. All things equal no one is going to step in that square for the fun of it. But in the life and death of combat where every round is critical, not losing a turn or avoiding a bad tactical situation, outweighs the minor deterrence it provides.

Still the damage alone can be an argument over MM, but as a 'control' spell its pretty weak.

 

[Goumindong]

The daggers have no status effect, its usually going to be a measley 2 or 3 HP of damage which is not much against the inflated HP of 4e creatures.

Unless its a minion, in which case the area denial is perfect. Stick it behind a door and no minions can come through which means can mean a whole lot fewer melee attacks(if they are all melee minions), or ranged attacks if you are able to get some cover and deny them the ability to advance.

Add in the fact that minions have pretty standard attack and defense comparable to full HP creatures and the ability to deny them area is pretty handy. Not to shabby for an at will.

 

[Mistwell]

Yup, feats help. Inescapable Force and Solid Sound can help Cloud of Daggers.

But with regard to the 3 (core) single target At Will Wizard powers, nothing really changes that much at high level. They still have the same range, they still do about the same amount of damage.

As for Fort, sure, some creatures have low Fort. Some. It's ~18% with better Fort than Reflex (give or take, I have not calculated it for all creatures).

That's less than 1 creature in 5 with better Fort than Reflex. That means that the +2 to hit you are talking about for WinterTouch (which does not occur until turn #2, the creature has to be hit with cold on turn #1 in order for WinterTouch to affect it on turn #2) merely negates most of the difference between Fort and Reflex for 4 out of 5 creatures (and the difference for these 4 out of 5 creatures is closer to 3 than 2 due to the 1 in 5 creatures which are more susceptible to Fort bringing down the average).

WinterTouch is an entire feat whose purpose is to put cold spells on par with non-cold spells with regard to "to hit", but only if the Wizard takes the Lasting Frost feat as well. Without Lasting Frost, WinterTouch totally sucks. WinterTouch is also worthless for the first cold attack against each creature. It doesn't kick in until attack #2.

So sure. Lasting Frost will give +5 damage. Compared to +Wis to damage hit or miss for 10 character levels of Cloud of Daggers. Two feats, just to get Ray of Frost on par with Cloud of Daggers.

That sounds like a lot of feats just to get in the same ballpark.

Let's take a simple example.

50% chance to hit. 11th level Wizard with +2 implement, 21 Int and 15 Wis (i.e. the Wizard never bumped up his 1st level 14 Wis, this favors your POV). We'll ignore the 1+ better Fort 1 in 5 creatures and consider it a wash with the 3+ better Reflex 3 in 5 creatures (and the fact that WinterTouch does not give a +2 bonus on round one) for simplicity.

Cloud of Daggers does 50% x 3.5+7 + 100% x 2 = 7.25
Ray of Frost does 50% x 3.5+12 = 7.75

With a gimped Wisdom Wizard with zero feats, Ray of Frost with two feats does slightly more damage. One would expect two feats to do more than this.

Up the Wizard's Wisdom to 19 (which at level 11, many PC Orb Wizards will have 19 or even 21) and it becomes 9.25 CoD damage vs. 7.75 RoF. And, there are other ways to get Combat Advantage which puts Ray of Frost back into the Fort saves sucks category again (60% x 3.5+7 + 100% x 4 = 10.3 vs. 50% x 3.5+12 = 7.75).

Ray of Frost is the weakest of the At Will single attack powers and needs feats to help it out. The Slow is practically irrelevant to the conversation. It hardly affects combat at all compared to killing a minion nearly every time CoD is used against one.

All in all, Cloud of Daggers is better for most applications than Ray of Frost and this is especially true for levels 1 through 10 (and still better than Ray of Frost for levels 11+).


Note: Sure, Slow can help in conjunction with other powers like ones that create Difficult Terrain. But, Slow for one creature rarely does anything when most powerful creatures have ranged attacks.

Nice post and analysis!

The other advantage is that MM can be used with the plethora of Warlord Abilities that grant ranged basic attacks.

Plethora?

Name 5. I count extremely few. The vast majority specify melee basic attack, not ranged.

 

[Torchlyte]

I don't get the love for deft strike:

1. The movement provokes an attack of opportunity.
2. If you can't flank with your base move speed, you're doing something wrong.
3. Its only practical use (using it to get close during the surprise round) is dangerous (puts you next to all the enemies) and is easily surpassed by tossing a shuriken.

I think you're all undervaluing the +stat damage powers, too. As long as your average damage is less than 20, a +1 damage bonus is better than a +1 attack bonus. As long as your average damage is less than 40, a +2 damage bonus is better than a +2 attack bonus.

 

[keterys]

I don't get the love for deft strike:

1. The movement provokes an attack of opportunity.
2. If you can't flank with your base move speed, you're doing something wrong.
3. Its only practical use (using it to get close during the surprise round) is dangerous (puts you next to all the enemies) and is easily surpassed by tossing a shuriken.

While I did consider it good, but lower than the other rogue at-wills, I'll take a moment to respond to these points...

1. And if you're an artful dodger, you may not care.
2. This statement is a gross failure to see the benefits of the extra 2 movement. You can use Deft Strike, then a move after. You can use Deft Strike to avoid using a Run action when your base move is insufficient for any number of reasons. You can combine shift with deft strike to move 3 while not provoking in some circumstances, etc.
3. You can throw a shuriken while using Deft Strike.

I think you're all undervaluing the +stat damage powers, too. As long as your average damage is less than 20, a +1 damage bonus is better than a +1 attack bonus. As long as your average damage is less than 40, a +2 damage bonus is better than a +2 attack bonus.

This is just wrong. Even a basic 4th level character who deals 1d8 + 7 damage (4 stat, 2 enh, 1 feat, for instance) deals more damage from +2 hit than +2 damage. In addition, hitting and having _some_ effect is almost always better than missing more often but doing slightly more damage. Minions, almost dead critters, effects which trigger on hits, etc. It's definitely worth taking a penalty to hit for more damage (hence why Sure Strike is lackluster, just not enough bang for the buck) but +2 dmg < +2 hit barring extraordinary circumstances.

 

[blargney the second]

If you have a Str-based melee heavy hitter in your party, then Commander's Strike is a 10 for a tactical warlord. Mine uses it in preference to his encounters or even dailies.

Letting your fighter mark another enemy is great, and letting any heavy hitter make an attack that can finish off an enemy is likewise fantastic.
-blarg

 

[Evilhalfling]

If you have a Str-based melee heavy hitter in your party, then Commander's Strike is a 10 for a tactical warlord. Mine uses it in preference to his encounters or even dailies.

Letting your fighter mark another enemy is great, and letting any heavy hitter make an attack that can finish off an enemy is likewise fantastic.
-blarg

With the difficulty that the warlord has to be in melee range of the target as well. We used it a lot, alternating giving the rogue a second chance of sneak attack (if he missed) and giving the 20 str fighter another swing rather than the 14 str warlord. Then saw that the warlord needed to be in melee range as well.

 

[Arbitrary]

It begs to be used with a reach weapon.

 

[Switchback]

Unless its a minion, in which case the area denial is perfect. Stick it behind a door and no minions can come through which means can mean a whole lot fewer melee attacks(if they are all melee minions), or ranged attacks if you are able to get some cover and deny them the ability to advance.

Add in the fact that minions have pretty standard attack and defense comparable to full HP creatures and the ability to deny them area is pretty handy. Not to shabby for an at will.

That's a good use. But it is pretty situational. Majority of minions are already out when a battle starts, and if some come running you might not know it till they bust in. Lots of the doors on the battlemaps and such are double doors too. How high is the Cloud anyway, they might try jumping over it?

 

[Goumindong]

Name 5. I count extremely few. The vast majority specify melee basic attack, not ranged.

R= works with ranged
M= works with melee

Lev 25 daily:
RN: Relentless assault[Everyone makes any basic attack as free action on crit till end of encounter]
R:Stir the Hornet's Nest[Miss; ranged basic attack for everyone]

Lv 23 encounter:
M: Pillar to Post[1 melee basic on hit]
RM: Sudden Assault[Grants Standard Action to combine with Victory Surge]

Lv 19 Daily:
M: Windmill of Doom[Everyone adjacent melee basic]
RM:Victory Surge[hit: Everyone Free basic attack after using any standard action till end of next turn, Miss: One does as above, Sustain minor: continues for one].

Level 17 Encounter:
RM: Hall of Steel[All allies within 5 squares make basic attack]

Lv 15 Daily:
RM: Warlord's Gambit[Ally can make basic attack as immediate interrupt when target attacks warlord]

LV 13: Encounter
RM: Beat Them into the Ground [All allies make basic attack as free action against target of choice, no damage but knocks prone]

lv 9: Daily
M: Knock Them Down[All allies can move 3 squares and make melee basic attack as free action against target of choice, attacks deal no damage but knock them down]

lv 7 encounter:
M: Surprise Attack[One ally makes attack as free action against target of choice with combat advantage]

lv 1 Encounter:
M: Hammer and Anvil[hit: meleebasic attack]

Keep in mind that due to movement, many of these work best with ranged abilities since they are most likely going to be able to hit the target in question

So that is 11 powers that affect melee over 9 level choices, 5 of which are encounter levels.
7 that affect ranged over 6 level choices, 3 of which are encounter levels.

So yea, any warlord that wants to will be easily able to throw these or multiple each and every combat encounter and the ability to take part in these[often with attack and damage bonuses granted by the warlord in addition to the powers] is no small advantage for magic missile.

Granted, its not valuable until your warlord has these powers at later levels, but they are there and will be getting pulled out each and every encounter during times when you are less likely to be using your at-will powers(since you are going to have encounter powers to use first)