Grading Daily Powers

[keterys]

You're right, I am surprised that you rate Tendrils of Thuban so highly. It's not a bad daily and it's probably better than the other options at level 15 but it still only inflicts immobilize which I say one of the weaker effects. Would you rate a power that did "immobilize (save ends) Saves against this power have a -5 to the roll" as a A grade power?

Depends how easy it was to increase that save penalty since immobilize (no save) is completely incapacitating for a number of creatures. What would you rate a power that was 'ongoing 10 damage and immobilize (no save)'?

You rate the rogue and warlord dailies as all-subpar which strikes me as a bit odd. What are they lacking in comparison to?

They're largely victims of the fact that all of the other dailies are better than them. For example, if you might expect Bloody Path or Slaying Strike to do 30-40 damage on average, but that Dragon's Fangs might do 60, Bleeding Wounds 75, Unyielding Avalanche 150, etc... how could you not rate them lower?

It's not like the warlord or rogue have the option of taking another classes dailies and none are all that bad in comparison to the other dailies rogues and warlords get.

They certainly can, with multiclassing and other features. They can also take their own lower level dailies. Or ones from other sources.

I also think that Bloody Path and Garotte Grip are worth at least Bs. You can get a large number of attacks with Bloody Path

Sure, let's say you're level 22 and bloody path past a Death Giant, Hezrou, Rot Slinger, and Efreet Fireblade (pretty much the whole selection of normal level 22 monsters). On average:
Death Giant hits itself for ~10.8
Hezrou hits itself for ~12
Rot Slinger hits itself ~7.2 (and ongoing 10 necrotic that it ignores)
Efreet Fireblade hits itself ~11

For what it's worth, a Shock Sphere (level 3 encounter) would do more damage than that, by and large.

I think Bloody Path is one of the coolest powers, so I'm very sad that it's not more effective. If it were a move action, I think that'd probably do the trick.

Consider the case of the poor Drow Priestess

I'd actually contend that the Drow Priestess isn't worth using Garotte on in the first place, since she's a non-elite or solo threat of equal or lower level to the rogue who will die easily by just being attacked by the group for all of a round... but, that's a fair point that Brutal Scoundrels can actually get their Fort defense up quite a bit higher than I'd been factoring. So, it's very low damage no matter how you cut it, so effectively it's an immobilize attack and 'detaunt' combined.

To sum up, Garotte Grip is very powerful assuming that you are a brutal scoundrel and your target is humanoid or does not have a large strength bonus.

Sounds good, I'll up it. I actually like the power a lot, but I do think that between a push/pull/slide attack (which will break the grab, regardless of whether it hits the rogue or the target), "free" move action attempts to duck out, teleports, and just the target flat out dying, it's pretty unlikely that the 3 round-delayed unconscious will be that much use.

 

[keterys]

Fwiw, I'm playing an Inspiring Warlord now... and Stand the Fallen (level 5) is actually a better power for the play that I've experienced so far than Renew the Troops (level 15). In a Wight heavy area, Renewing certainly has a lot going for it, but Stand the Fallen is exactly as much damage and reliably more healing and running out of surges has oh so rarely been an issue.

That said, other groups seem to have issues with people running out of surges so I'll bump it upwards a little so at least it counts as an above average level 15 rather than an average one

 

[keterys]

My DM came up with a theory that different classes were created by different designers and the people who edited for "play balance" and put the stuff together weren't particularly good. It appears as if the person who edited cleric was a lot more generous than other designers. Compare shield of faith to sacred circle, or consecrated ground to pretty much any level 5 daily. Clerics though slightly unglamorous from a damage and domination standpoint are arguably the most powerful class in PHB1.

This kind of thing is part of what prompted me to start this project, yep.

A) CA is very good but a lot of characters can gain this is they need it especially vs an immobilized creature. Keeping an attacker out of combat for a round has to be as good or better than this advantage 75% of the time.

If melee are gaining CA against an immobilized target, then that highly limits the potential effect of the immobilize.

A) stopping flying is very situational agreed but still can be pretty powerful.

I wish less fliers could hover.

Also, you're assuming that the dazed creature also is melee only.

Not really - but the immobilize trick is only useful on melee only monsters, so it was to show the effect of daze on a melee only monster. The defender can similarly shift back 1 square and the creature can't engage the defender so might have to charge someone other than the defender, possibly provoking, etc - I've actually done this with my fighter and stopped a monster's movement (and turn).

Similarly if you daze a ranged combatant, they have to choose whether to provoke OAs when they make a ranged attack or to fall back on a crappier melee option.

Immobilize and Daze are both very good options, though worse than stunned. Immobilize is situationally useful. Daze is universally useful. I do think I'll make a pass through the powers at some point to make sure I didn't mark immobilize lower than I should have, though. If you see any in particular, feel free to call them out.

Clearly there's room for debate here but in my experience immobilize prevents a lot more attacks than daze.

I'd imagine so - but that assumes you're all that worried about preventing attacks. Focused fire and killing things prevents attacks too, after all

Thanks for this as well. Other than the argument that each attack is a separate attack (which I've seen made for other powers) this makes sense.

I pondered this for a bit and I think actually that it would be 3 separate attacks given that if you were under the power of a +2 to next attack bonus, I wouldn't give you +2 all 3 times. it's not critical to game play by any stretch but poses an interesting question.

There's a shaman power that does back up the argument that you have to declare targets, then resolve:

Effect: Make the attack one more time against the same target or a different one.

That Effect is unnecessary if 'two attacks' allows you to resolve one attack then decide the next... so either the designer was misinformed on the rule, or the interpretation that you have to declare targets for all the attacks is RAW.

 

[keterys]

*Cleric*
B+ / Holy Spark
B / Purifying Fire
B- / Seal of Warding

Holy Spark is a rare STR vs. Will that has the weapon keyword. There is no other cleric melee power that has this property and this makes it quite accurate. The damage isn't too bad either, if you assume that there will usually be at least 1 NPC within 3 squares.

It can actually be pretty cool for clearing out minions and some other things - it's a very large area that it covers potentially.

Purifying Fire

is yet another effective cleric ranged AoE. The fact that it doesn't target allies makes it safe to drop on your defender. The problem is that the healing side effect is dependent on the turn order so if the NPC goes first and saves against the ongoing damage then your allies lose out on the healing.

One nice thing is you can hit multiple enemies with it, and you can get the healing until they all save, so that does suggest you'll probably get at least a couple allies with the healing. I think you might be discounting how much raw damage Purifying Fire can do, at least when comparing the scores of Holy Spark and Purifying (since both just do damage). I'd actually expect Purifying Flames to do a good 50% more damage, and have the healing side effect.

Seal of Warding

gets slightly downranked because I'm of the opinion that Close burst powers are harder to use as effectively as ranged burst powers for a wisdom based cleric. The zone effect is nice but at level 15 you will want all your actions and shouldn't tie up for minor action for such as small effect.

Clerics often hang out within 5 squares of their enemies, which makes them fairly easy to come into melee contact with enemies. Further, this power does not require Charisma in any way, so many battle clerics (who are right up in melee) would be able to take it and close attacks work quite well for melee types. Close burst 3 (7 x 7 area centered on the cleric, does not provoke) is not necessarily worse than Area burst 2 within 10 (5x5 area within not too many squares, provokes) - just different I'd not be surprised if the zone isn't sustained, but slowing all the enemies around you then making everything difficult terrain does make it hard to shift or even move anywhere at all which can be pretty helpful.

*Fighter*
Dragon's Fangs / C+
Serpent Dance Strike / B -
Unyielding Avalanche / A

Dragon's Fangs is almost exactly like a double brute strike. The damage is good but that's all there is there. At level 15, monsters have a TON of hps and I feel a daily attack should do something besides chip away at their HPs. On the other hand, it does do a lot of damage so I could see bumping this power up to B in some situtaions.

Yeah, the damage range on level 15 dailies is a little wonky honestly. In the end I spreadsheeted an expected damage for all powers of that level and this one fell in a rough middle area, so I went with C+ for it (it's dreadfully boring and straightforward and really does seem like the textbook of an 'okay' but not exceptional daily) and based my damage comparisons around its. If I upped it to somewhere in the B range, then I would up all the other ones based on damage.

Sepent Dance Strike

is another one of the shift and attack powers capping out at 4 targets. This power is unlikely to be able to be used to maximum effect in every battle but since it's a daily you can wait and save it for when it is most effective.

Yeah, I wanted to mark it a B- like you did, but I really think its difficulty in using optimally is a real disad. After all, you can save it until it's most effective... but if that means you don't use it in a day, or you save it from when it's 'good' to the last fight when it's 'sorta awful' then that doesn't quite work out.

Unyielding Avalanche

is the best stance power the fighter has so far. Regeneration, an AC bonus and best of all, an auto hit attack against everyone next to you that slows makes this stance very very good.

I was tempted by A+ for this one, but held off... but still, wow. Especially in the hands of a fighter with a good Con this can heal a ton and slowed enemies are hard pressed to disengage, and hoo boy the damage potential. It's not bursted like Blade Cascade's, but it can do buckets more damage in most combats.

*Paladin*

Bloodied Retribution / C -
Break the Wall / C +
True Nemesis / B +

Bloodied Retribution only works while bloodied and from what I've seen from our paladin, he doesn't spend that much time bloodied. This power also doesn't do a significient amount of damage to make up for its situtational use.

I really do think this would have been a pretty spot on level 5 daily.

Break the Wall

is at least useful for setting up other PC's powers but on the whole, there's nothing too special about this power which even targets a defence that is usually as high as AC.

Curious, why did you set it so high? Range 5, against Fortitude, low penalty that doesn't persist long, low damage. The idea is certainly sound, it's not a horrible daily, but that's just a lot of negatives against it that I'd think would drag it it down below average (C+ being average)

True Nemesis

is better than it looks at first glance. Notice that the secondary effect lasts the whole encounter and triggers even on a miss. The reaction attack also does damage on a miss so if the paladin can stay within 5 squares of his target, he's certain to do at least 1d10 + CHA/2 damage per round.

Yeah, True Nemesis is pretty darn cool - honestly combined with a different defender marking the target it'll really tear up a lot of Elites and Solos.

*Ranger*

Blade Cascade / A+
Bleeding Wounds / D
Confounding Arrows / B-

Blade Cascade. Do you even have to ask? Even in the errata'd version does more damage than pretty much any other ranger power. It does require some setup but nothing a ranger shouldn't be doing anyway.

Because it does no damage on miss and the sequence stops when you miss, you _really_ have to set things up so that you need a 2 or 3 to hit before it's worth using at all. Even then, you probably want a reroll available to ensure you're really capitalizing on its damage output. The errata-ed version is still very powerful, but it's just damage and has a huge requirement - so if you don't end up meeting the appropriate attack conditions, fight a foe who doesn't have enough hp to make it really matter, etc its damage plummets horribly. I don't think this is broken powerful anymore.

Bleeding Wounds

. Lackluster damage considering that 5 ongoing isn't very much around level 15. Level 9 Dailies do more damage.

I hope the earlier charts disproved this enough for you - basically it's a better power than Blade Cascade unless you need a 2 or 3 to hit.

Confounding Arrows

is a stunning power which is very powerful. Stun is 2nd most useful status effect to inflict and can be quite effective on a dangerous NPC.

The damage is pretty darn good, too, even without damage on miss. More damage than Blade Cascade until like 7 or less to hit.

*Rogue*

Bloody Path / B
Garrote Grip / A+
Slaying Strike / C+

Bloody Path is one of the more amusing powers in the game and I'm tempted to rate it higher just for that reason alone. One thing to note is that many creatures do not have a basic melee attack but instead use their more powerful at will strike. You can get creatures to inflict status effects on themselves if you are facing the right opponents.

Monsters need ~10 to hit themselves, so a lot of them miss, and it's hard to trigger from _that_ many critters at once... but it's damn fun, so I wish I could rate it higher.

Garrote Grip

's power depends on if you can relyable substain the grab. Most monsters don't have an acrobatics or althetics score listed so I assume that they'll be reduced to making STR vs fort tests to escape. I think this means you shouldn't have many difficulties holding the grab for 3 rounds.

Teleport, any type of forced movement, daze, stun, can all screw up these plans (and those kinds of things certainly appear at the level 15-30 range that this power will be used at), but it is potentially harder to get out than I was dismissing... but I don't see what part of it is actually broken or close to broken?

Slaying Strike

is not truely a bad power but it does rely on getting a foe to bloodied. From what I've seen in our games, the strikers generally wanted to unload their dailies as quickly as possible and I don't think they would have liked to wait until their dangerous target was bloodied.

Bloodied is a restriction, but it's not a crippling one. The real problem is that multiple attacks just do crazy more damage than single attacks so a pure damage single attack starts to look worse and worse as you get higher level. Like the much laughed at 'No Mercy' or 'Godstrike' that do less damage than some level 1 dailies, level 3 encounters, etc.

 

[keterys]

Ok, I have some more time so here goes the warlock, warlord, and wizard analysis.

Pretty neat having stuff to reply to, right after looking at stuff Thanks again.

*Warlock*

Curse of the Golden Mist / D
Fireswarm / C-
Tendrils of Thuban / B-
Thirsting Maw / C

Curse of the Golden Mist is simply a waste. You are using one of your precious dailies, not to do damage, but simply to trade your actions for the targets. This is most useful on solos, the very monsters where you are most likely to miss with this power. If you don't believe me, imagine that this power was "Hit: Target is stunned (save ends)" That is weak for a level 15 daily but better than this power.

The thing that gets me the most is that it's just boring. It just slows the combat down and makes it less interesting for everyone.

Fireswarm is another sustain standard power which becomes worse the more powers you have and better options for your standard action become available. The damage is good but NPCs can easily avoid the splash damage on the later turns.

Actually, I need to mark this down more than I did - I see that my calculation assumed it was a damage increase over eldritch blast if it hit, but Eldritch Blast actually goes to 2d10 in epic so then it's just the half miss. Oops.

Tendrils of Thuban is only halfway decent because how difficult it is to get out of the zone once the NPC is stuck in it. Since the NPC saves at the end of its turn, it leaves itself open for being immobilized again by the power's continued effect.

Yep - in order to escape it needs to make a save, be missed by the attack, and be able to move out of the area then not get knocked back into it. And in the meantime allies can knock people into it and the sustain lets you attack new people. And each time it immobilizes for 1.5 turns and does another 20 damage or whatever. Most powers are save ends or attack ends, and this is both, on an effect that is effectively a stun for certain enemies - the real consolation is that most melee only enemies have a good Fortitude, which tempers this power considerably.

Thirsting Maw does low damage coinciding it is a level 15 daily. There might be some use for it considering the new warlock feats that let you deal damage to yourself in exchange for benefits but I don't know those feats well enough to comment.

Yeah... which is a shame since it's actually a pretty cool idea, just really low output.

*Warlord*

Make Them Bleed / B (D if the ongoing damage doesn't stack)
Renew the Troops / B+
Warlord's Gambit / C


Make Them Bleed adds 5 ongoing untyped damage which I don't know if it stacks or not. I know ongoing damage from the same source does not stack, if a monster hits you for 5 ongoing fire damage and then hits you again the damage does not become 10 ongoing. I'm not sure if that applies to this power or not. Anyone have a good grasp on the ongoing damage rules?

It doesn't stack, so yeah... that target will totally have ongoing damage 5 right up until the point it dies... but that's all.

Renew the Troops heals without using a healing surge which is quite handy in a pinch. You're rarely going to be able to use this to heal everyone because damage is usually concentrated on 1-2 PCs but every bit helps.

So, you don't need surgeless healing _that_ often... maybe all the games I've seen are atypical, but once someone gets down to 1 or 0, you know you're about to rest or you start drawing on certain magic items or utility powers. So, then you're 1-2 targets has to come from someone who is having surge issues for this to be truly worthwhile. It's extraordinarily comparable to the level 5 Stand the Fallen... which, granted, is a very good power, but it's a little disturbing how little has changed in 10 levels. Do other people run into needing surge free healing a _lot_? I 'get' powers like Mass Cure Light Wounds (a level 10 utility which I'd consider at least as useful as this power) a lot more.

Warlord's Gambit has the nasty problem of giving your opponent choices. If it's beneficial to hit you, the NPC is going to enjoy the attack bonuses and if its not then the effect is wasted. The penalty of having an ally make a basic attack against it is not that prohibitive as its roughly the same as a fighter's mark which monsters ignore if the benefits are high enough.

Yeah... I really don't get what was going on here.

*Wizard*

This is the level that wizards start to really play with the good spells. Up to now, their dailies have been not that interesting but from now on wizards get spells that really control the battlefield.

Flaming Sphere, Stinking Cloud, and Wall of Fire would beg to differ

Bigby's Grasping Hands / B-
Blast of Cold / C
Otilukes Resilient Sphere / B
Prismatic Beams / B+
Wall of Ice / A

Bigby's Grasping Hands deserves extra points just for its humorous nature. Sadly the fact that it needs a minor action to sustain means that it competes with other cool wizard powers.

Sure, but those other options are dailies. Wizards can mostly pick a daily attack to use for a fight, then ride it to the end - they don't have much use for their minor actions otherwise (occasional mage hand to pick up something or swap an implement). The potential damage output on Bigby's is sizable and as you already pointed out it's not _that_ easy to break out of grabs - and a grab by a conjuration has the potential effective stun on certain combatants.

Blast of Cold. Remember buring hands, thunderwave, color spray, thunderlance? If you do, then you already know Blast of Cold, the latest and not the greatest in the series of close blast powers that do damage and a minor status effect.

Heh, pretty much. If it immobilized even on miss, this would probably be a lot more popular.

Otilukes Resilient Sphere is excellent for isolating a dangerous foe for several rounds while the rest of the party cleans of the rest of the NPCs. The only problem is that you need to hit on that attack roll as the miss effect is nothing to write home about.

While I don't think immobilize is as strong as APC does, I think you might be discounting its effect a bit too sharply. It's no stun, but it's also no Slow or Weaken

Prismatic Beams is amazing if you roll high. If all three beams hit which will happen more often the only some of them hitting, the target takes 4d6 + 2 INT, 10 ongoing and is dazed. Dazed is one of the nasty status effects to inflict and it is keyed off the lowest defense.

Pretty much agreed. Double modifiers (int, focus, enhancement, temporary bonuses like TacLord AP use, etc) really lets this do very good damage.

Wall of Ice is what you have all been waiting for. A wall 12 can completely surround two adjacent squares. It does 4d6 to each creature attempting to break the wall down and doesn't even require an attack roll. Aside from blade cascade, I'd say this is the most powerful level 15 daily.

This is the other one I think might potentially be an A+ - it's a lot less clear than on some, like say Consecrated Ground or the original Blade Cascade, that any of the 15s are broken... With the right terrain, or even without it for a couple creatures you completely enclose, you _really_ screw some targets with the amount of automatic damage output.

 

[Korror]

Yeah, I wanted to mark it a B- like you did, but I really think its difficulty in using optimally is a real disad. After all, you can save it until it's most effective... but if that means you don't use it in a day, or you save it from when it's 'good' to the last fight when it's 'sorta awful' then that doesn't quite work out.

I think you can count on getting a cluster of 4 enemies near the fight at least once in an encounter. The fighter in our party used to love passing attack (he eventually switched out to a barbarian) and found a use for it in pretty much every encounter. Passing attack only needs 2 close together and not 4 like Serpent Dance Strike but since the monsters often get stuck in around the fighter, I think it's a decent power.

Of course it pales in comparison to Unyielding Avalanche but that's probably a sign that Unyielding Avalanche is too good rather than Serpent Dance Strike being bad.

Curious, why did you set it so high? Range 5, against Fortitude, low penalty that doesn't persist long, low damage. The idea is certainly sound, it's not a horrible daily, but that's just a lot of negatives against it that I'd think would drag it it down below average (C+ being average)

C+ is not average, a power that was perfect balanced in every possible way would be a B based on the scale on page 1. C+ is for powers that are underpowered in general but may be alright in certain situations. Break the Wall is conceivable useful against targets being focused fired down as the defense penalty is nice in that situation. However, I agree with you that the other powers are certainly better.

Because it does no damage on miss and the sequence stops when you miss, you _really_ have to set things up so that you need a 2 or 3 to hit before it's worth using at all. Even then, you probably want a reroll available to ensure you're really capitalizing on its damage output. The errata-ed version is still very powerful, but it's just damage and has a huge requirement - so if you don't end up meeting the appropriate attack conditions, fight a foe who doesn't have enough hp to make it really matter, etc its damage plummets horribly. I don't think this is broken powerful anymore.

My thought is that if it was broken before, it's still pretty powerful now. 5 attacks is still more than you're going to get with any other daily. If you rarely got >5 attacks on old version, then it wouldn't have needed an errata and the outcry over the power was unjustified. So either the new version is still powerful or people were making a lot of fuss over nothing before.

Monsters need ~10 to hit themselves, so a lot of them miss, and it's hard to trigger from _that_ many critters at once... but it's damn fun, so I wish I could rate it higher.

Yea, I agree this power could use some help. I didn't account for how little damage monsters generally did when I first went over the power.

Teleport, any type of forced movement, daze, stun, can all screw up these plans (and those kinds of things certainly appear at the level 15-30 range that this power will be used at), but it is potentially harder to get out than I was dismissing... but I don't see what part of it is actually broken or close to broken?

Anything that denies actions or causes the unconscious effect has the potential to be broken and while I won't say that Garrote Grip is broken ( I'd move it down to a A- or B+ since I forgot that monsters could make 2 actions to escape) I think that the combination of automatic grab/cover+redirection/chance of unconsciousness make it quite powerful. I also don't think push/teleport/daze/stun effects are that prevalent for monsters. PC have tons of those effects but for monsters those abilities are rare and often encounter powers.

Here's a list of all the level 15 monsters which should be a good sample of the kinds of targets a rogue might face.

Destrrachan Far Voice (High STR, Stun powers)
Rakshasa Archer (Low Str, ranged attacks)
Salamander Archer (Low Str, ranged attacks, push)
Salamander Noble (Low Str)
Yuan-ti Malison Incanter (Low Str, daze powers)
Azure Rager
Thunderfury Boar (high STR)
Chimera (high STR)
Drow Priestess (low STR, ranged attacks)
Immolish
Angel of Battle
Githyanki Gish (low STR, teleport)
Adult Red Dragon (high STR)
Rakshasa Warrior (low STR)
Red Slaad( low STR)

Judging from this list, there are just about as many good targets as there are bad ones. The bad targets are the Salamander Archer, Githyanki Gish, Destrrachan Far Voice, Adult Red Dragon and the Immolish who can either break out pretty easily or you don't want to be in meele range of them anyway. The targets where Garrote Grip is close to broken are the Drow Priestess, Rakshasa Archer, Salamander Noble and Red Slaad who have to dedicate all of their actions to escaping and only have a ~75% chance of succeeding or accept that they are going to be out in 3 rounds.

 

[keterys]

I think you can count on getting a cluster of 4 enemies near the fight at least once in an encounter.

I'd really think it would get more difficult with the number of large creatures at higher tier, but maybe I'm mistaken. I'm fine upping it a step anyways - it's been so long that I worked on these that I thought my baseline was C+, but it's actually B- so I need to make another pass through.

I think it's a decent power.

Agreed.

Of course it pales in comparison to Unyielding Avalanche but that's probably a sign that Unyielding Avalanche is too good rather than Serpent Dance Strike being bad.

Also agreed

C+ is not average, a power that was perfect balanced in every possible way would be a B based on the scale on page 1.

Eh, B- was the baseline, but I actually thought it was C+... oops. That said, I expect the powers people take to actually be higher than that, since balance is a tricky thing and people like more powerful stuff... hence Wall of Ice, Unyielding Avalanche, etc

My thought is that if it was broken before, it's still pretty powerful now. 5 attacks is still more than you're going to get with any other daily. If you rarely got >5 attacks on old version, then it wouldn't have needed an errata and the outcry over the power was unjustified. So either the new version is still powerful or people were making a lot of fuss over nothing before.

It was _theoretically_ broken before... if you've seen some of the explanations, it used things like multiple characters to setup a situation in which you hit on a 2 for all the attacks in the sequence, had +100 damage per attack, and had 3 or so rerolls to unroll 1s. At which point you were hitting 800 or so times so everything exploded. At 5 attacks, you can still setup that crazy stuff and it will do the 500 damage... so it's certainly powerful, but in the same situation Confounding would do the 300 damage and stun (save ends)... and Twin Strike does 200 damage... so, eh?

Anything that denies actions or causes the unconscious effect has the potential to be broken and while I won't say that Garrote Grip is broken ( I'd move it down to a A- or B+ since I forgot that monsters could make 2 actions to escape) I think that the combination of automatic grab/cover+redirection/chance of unconsciousness make it quite powerful. I also don't think push/teleport/daze/stun effects are that prevalent for monsters. PC have tons of those effects but for monsters those abilities are rare and often encounter powers.

Do make sure when you look at a power that you look at it at more than just immediately when you get it, but also over the course of how long you have it... so level 15 through 28 you'll have this power.

But, mostly I don't tend to think of 'this happens 3 rounds later' as being that worrisome, since any creature you're attacking other than a solo should be dead three rounds later. I'll probably bump it a notch, all the same.

 

[keterys]

Adjusted scores due to my mistaken baseline, as well as a couple erroneous assumptions (Fireswarm, Garotte, Break the Wall)

 

[AngryPurpleCyclops]

Think about it this way, does the warlord often have difficult decisions where two people need his inspiring word? Usually for our group there's just 1 person who is in danger. If you ever get to a case where everyone has taken significient damage, somebody is either being reckless or not defending the party properly. Monsters with blast powers can change this but blasts are usually encounter abilities and rarely do 1/4 of a PC's hps on their own.

That being said, there's not too much difference between a B+ and a A- so the power really could go either way. I don't think it has the flexibility to rate an unqualified A but it does have the raw power in certain situtations.

Inspiring word and healing word are different in that you usually reserve them for people who are in the bottom 1/3 of their hit points. I totally agree that there are few rounds when two people are both in danger of going down (though it happens fairly frequently over the course of a career) it's not really that important to this power. We're talking about pc's all having taken some damage not all being bloodied. My experience has been (admittedly we play in a dangerous campaign) that by the time someone is down to 25-35% of their hit points then everyone is damaged to some degree. 15th level pc's have roughly 80-130HP's if we wait until the defender has taken 90-95 damage (our fighter and rogue get targeted a lot in melee) the odds that the cleric and wizard have 20+dmg is very high. 5 x 24-34 = ~140 hp's of healing without a surge. That's a pretty giant impact on a combat. I agree stand the fallen is also very powerful but it does cost 5 surges AND if you miss there's no benefit. Missing with renew the troops is still 70'ish healing. That's a very very large benefit. Both these powers scale well with levels. At level 30 this power might heal 300HP's on a hit (the miss values don't scale as nicely so there is a decreasing ROI with advanced levels).

This poses an interesting question. My personal belief is that PC hit points are approximately twice as valuable as monster hit points. i.e. if your rogue is standing in the middle of a group of creatures doing 25-30 damage per round but taking 15-20 in return you're probably getting a negative net return in terms of projected victory int hat encounter. I would be interested in hearing other peoples perspective on this. In fact i'm going to start a new thread. here

One thing that you might be overlooking is that it an escape action only takes a move action and thus can be attempted twice and it targets the wizard's weakest defense (athletics vs fortitude) making it very likely that at least 1 creature will escape and move away. If both creatures escape and move then the wizard has to spend 2 movement actions and his minor to attempt to reacquire his targets. Giving up your move action is a big deal as you often have to shift to get away from an adjacent monster or move to get line of sight on another. I agree that the hands can do quite a bit of damage but you sacrifice too many of your own options for it be an A level power.

great point on the double move, but doesn't that effectively mean that a monster's turn is wasted by the hands? Spending your move action to do damage hardly seems a waste. In fact I think the spell is only enhanced by creatures escaping the grab. If one creature escapes and one doesn't I have the option to use my move action to grab the escapee. If that hits I get a free "clap" so I've scored for 6d10+30 dmg without using a power, I have at least one creature grabbed (burning up their actions) and admittedly I've spent all my actions they're very well spent. If I miss with the grab (I might use an AP or force a reroll if I have that ability looking to score the 6d10 whammy) but I still have one creature held for my minor, I can move if I'm pressed by a bad guy or I can take a standard and unload an encounter power. The perception that this power is using too many actions is faulty. Wizards generally deploy a daily and then ride that daily through an encounter. This lets them preserve their other dailies for the rest of the day. I can sustain this with a minor and use my move and std elsewhere, but that's rarely going to the case as most times this spell gives me the option of making two attacks by trading my move for an attack. 2d10+10ish. How many powers let you attack with your move action? This doesn't even factor in the effect that the grabs are having on burning up two monsters actions.

Otilukes on the other hand gives no option for escape if you hit. You know that the monster will be stuck there for 4-5 rounds or more if you target a leader or controller like the Drow Priestess who will be lucky to break out in 15-20 rounds. I don't rate it higher than a B power as it still needs to hit and doesn't do anything but hold a monster but it is still more "controlerish" than the hands.

more "controlerish" is fine but doesn't really speak to which is "better". I did just realize that otilukes has another advantage over hands. If you're an orb wizard you can lock in the immobilize on a miss. Probably not as good as other affects you could lock in but still an advantage. I agree otilukes might be devestating on some creatures in some situations. Drow Priest is a great example but, hands can snatch her up on about an 8 attack roll and hands have range 10 while she has range 5 with everything but her darkfire power so if she's grabbed and held in the 6-10 range her powers are greatly crippled and the other hand can snatch up a drow blademaster and beat her to death with it. My perception is there are a lot more situations where hands will have an advantage over otilukes. Even in this example, if you miss the priestess how much benefit are you getting from otilukes? My point being if you miss 45% of the time hands crush otilukes by a factor of 10. In the other 55% I think the two powers are close to equivalent depending on the situation. If otilukes had the reliable keyword how much better would it be?

*RANGER*

Why does no one discuss stunning steel? It appears to me that two attacks both with stun is pretty mighty. Damage is low but the opportunity to stun two creatures or at least the high probability of stunning one seems pretty strong. Comparable to confounding arrows in a most favorable way to my perception.

*WARLOCK*

NA / Curse of the Golden Mist
C- / Fireswarm
A / Tendrils of Thuban
C- / Thirsting Maw

Tendrils of Thuban is an area immobilze that does good damage, and the sustain minor attacks again and immobilizes. With a little work you can keep a melee enemy locked down for a very long time with no way to get out (which is why I'm rating this as highly as I am, much to some folks' surprise I suspect). Solid damage, powerful control effect, nice sustain.

totally agree. This power is one of the best area damage powers because of the combination of immobilize and the mechanic for it to sustain itself through the new attack. Coupled with slide/push/shift/pull mechanics this power is potentially a lock in some encounters. Lasting frost/winter touched combo makes it frighteningly powerful. The flavor says the tentacles reach down from overhead (I know flavor has no game effect but...) how do you play this power or a power like it against flying creatures? I guess my first instinct is the burst 1 means it can hit everything in a 15' cube.

*WARLORD*

D+ / Make Them Bleed
B- / Renew the Troops
D- / Warlord's Gambit

Renew the Troops is basically Mass Cure Light Wounds (Utility 10) with slightly better range and healing a bunch less if you fail to hit. In truth, it would possibly be a better power if it did no damage and didn't make an attack at all. In the meantime, it is a big chunk of free healing which is still appreciated in the right circumstances. If you're not worried about surges, though, Stand the Fallen (level 5) is probably a better power so its rating can only be so good.

I don't understand why stand the fallen is better. Surgeless healing on a hit or miss at range line of sight means renew is much better. Surges are like firearms. You don't need one very often but when you need one you really need it. The definitive "we must long rest" resource is the minimum number of surges left in the party.

*WIZARD*
B+ / Bigby's Grasping Hands
C+ / Blast of Cold
B- / Otiluke's Resilient Sphere
A- / Prismatic Beams
A+ / Wall of Ice

Bigby's Grasping Hands is likely an action hog, potentially using up all of them in any particular turn, but grabbed is helpful, its damage is solid, and honestly clapping enemies together is a little hilarious.

I find the concept of "action hog" to be kind of questionable. If you have some reason to not use the hands you can sustain them for the price of a minor and move/std as normal. Wizards don't have a huge use for their minors (other than sustaining dailies) so unless you're planning on burning through many dailies in one encounter this is not a significant cost. When considering the action usage you have to say what else would I do with my actions? If you can unload a fireshroud on 7 targets and thereby get 3-4 ongoing 5's started by all means use your std to fire an encounter power but in a lot of rounds a wizard can stand still (if you're playing with sphere you frequently stand still to move the sphere, same with stinking cloud) and hands are super flexible in that you get to make numerous attacks on your move action over the course of an encounter. Even if you never get to "clap" them heads together you're going to repeatedly get to make two attacks in a round on targets up to 21 squares apart and beyond a respectable damage they wind up grabbed and almost forced to use at least one action to escape. Strength vs wizard reflex is not a great deal for a lot of creatures. That drow priestess is gonna be in a world of hurt if your reflex/fort defense are ~25 which by 15th level is almost a given, take great fortitude and she's really in trouble. If she does get lucky and escape, you simply scoop her up again. The sound of clapping drows fills me with joy

Otiluke's Resilient Sphere is a peculiar spell that won't be for most people, but it removes most enemies from the fight for multiple rounds (effectively for the fight, in a lot of cases), immobilizes on a miss, and can be used defensively in rare circumstances.

I also skipped the defensive use though it's hard for me to imagine many chances for this (restraining the dominated might be one). I did however take another look at sphere because of this and it occurred to me that the drow priestess example might be flawed in that the priestess can have her minions cut her out in a round or two (the group in the proposed encounter level 15 can do about 90 damage in a round average more if you let the warriors flank) if you throw in some grimlock minions like the other encounter they can bust her out in a round which effectively would make sphere equivalent to giving the party a surprise round. This also brought some interesting questions to mind. Can drow warriors gain CA vs an otilukes sphere? Does the drow priestess aura still work through a sphere? (I think so)

Prismatic Beams is a large close burst of enemies only that actually does solid damage and dazes. It's pretty unforgiving of low rolls, but its expected damage output can be quite high and dazed enemies are easy to disengage from.

I agree this power can be pretty potent against a group, and it has the huge upside of only impacting enemies but if you don't get at least 4 targets what is your expected outcome? If you get 4 targets I would think on average you get about 1 creature hit by all 3, 1 creature hit by 2 powers, 1 creature dazed and one creature missed. Something like 3 dazed, 2 with ongoing 5 one of which took 17 ish damage and the other which took 34 ish. So assuming you get a clump you probably score about 75 damage and 3 dazes with this spell. If the targets are more spread out you have a much smaller return offset by the rare cases you might get 6 targets and score 4 dazes, 100+ dmg. Don't get me wrong, I like this spell, but bigby's seems equally as effective even in the best case where you score a pile of dazes (bigby's will score a pile of immobilizes over the course of the encounter) but this spell can strike out or have low impact on certain encounters (any encounter with less than 4-5 monsters will severely limit this power) where as bigby's will not have that limit and bigby's will almost always win out in damage production and since neither is likely to put a 15th level monster down right away I think the repeated application of 2d10+Int far out weighs the burst of 2-6 2d6+Int's that you'll likely gain from this. Reviewing powers is obviously highly subjective and there's never going to be a 100% right answer when powers are close but I think bigby's gets a bum rap and the grabs are a lot more powerful than they get credit for. The automatic damage to held creatures is giant, how many automatic damages are there that get 4d10+20'ish?

Wall of Ice is absolutely brutal. You get automatic damage against any enemy you put next to it, can truly screw certain enemies if they're trapped inside it, etc.

Totally agree. This has everything a wizard can hope for, it can control by blocking or separating enemies into smaller groups and it can cause serious damage in the right terrain. Can you drop wall in a square that's occupied? What happens?

APC, if you strongly feel that immobilized is better than dazed, then simply consider all immobilized powers to be an appropriate amount stronger in grading.

I feel they both are strong. Situationally better at times with a slight edge to immobilize as it's often more likely to lead to a no attack action turn for the monster.

If you were ranking conditions on a scale from 1 to 10, how would you rank the following?

Great question! I used decimals because I feel daze and immobilize are really close, my initial point was always that immobilize was being treated as less than daze by other posters when they're really pretty close and i think immobilize has a slight edge.

Stunned - 9.0 - short of dead or dominated this just rocks.
Dazed - 5.8 - if they can charge it's a small benefit but CA is always nice and taking away an action is always good.
Immobilized - 6.2 - it's more likely to limit a bad guy to no attacks than daze, and can lock someone in damaging terrain but also hurt by teleport and doesn't grant CA.
Prone - 3 - takes away an action to get up, but the bad guy has options, can charge etc. CA is limited to adjacent or else I would probably call it a 4. There's also no chance of it being ongoing like daze/immobilize/stun.
Weakened - 3 - doesn't take away an action but it can cut down on average expected damage by a small amount and it can be ongoing.

You're right, I am surprised that you rate Tendrils of Thuban so highly. It's not a bad daily and it's probably better than the other options at level 15 but it still only inflicts immobilize which I say one of the weaker effects. Would you rate a power that did "immobilize (save ends) Saves against this power have a -5 to the roll" as a A grade power?

No but this presents tendrils badly. First tendrils does damage as well as immobilize. Second your example with the -5 (equating -5 to the chance you'll hit after a save) negates the ability of tendrils to reacquire it's hold on you in numerous ways. Someone knocks you prone or slows you in the area. You get thunderwaved back in... etc. save ends -5 to save is over as soon as you save and as such it's bound to end. Tendrils is vastly more likely to keep you held longer or get you again once you escape AND it's doing significant damage on top of it. It's value in combination with other things can't be ignored either. If you couple it with lasting frost and winter touched now the save would be effectively -6, everyone in the party is also gaining CA if they took winter touched (which is pretty likely if you have a wizard or warlock working this combo) and the damage is going up by about 30%. Any class that isn't the wizard who can put down a zone of pain is a serious threat since the wizard has so many ways to move you into it or keep you there. Pretty nice combo with positioning strike, and various fighter powers that push or slide you as well. Only thing that's bad about it is that it target fort which is usually higher on the tough monsters. The feat combo helps by making it 10% more likely to grab you again.

Consider the case of the poor Drow Priestess who is reduced to making +8 attacks against the rogue who should have a fort defense around 23 if he is an artful dodger and around 28 if he is a brutal scoundrel.

Who decides what defense you get to target on a grab escape? I've assumed it was the attacker. The escapee allowed to choose to make an athletics check vs fort (basically a strength vs fort if you're untrained) or a dex vs reflex if you don't have acrobatics.

They certainly can, with multiclassing and other features. They can also take their own lower level dailies. Or ones from other sources.

I should probably start a new thread but when it comes to multiclassing it's been my experience people take cleric or a striker class if they multiclass. Be interesting to see a fighter/rogue/warlord who took wizard and then traded out a daily to gain an auto damage zone. Pretty potent if your martial type is dropping stinking cloud on the battle field so the wizard can lock people down in the area. Are all those creature marked? Maybe someone should fork this to a new thread if we want to discuss it.

I think Bloody Path is one of the coolest powers, so I'm very sad that it's not more effective. If it were a move action, I think that'd probably do the trick.

anything that lets you do attacks with your move action is pretty powerful.

Fwiw, I'm playing an Inspiring Warlord now... and Stand the Fallen (level 5) is actually a better power for the play that I've experienced so far than Renew the Troops (level 15). In a Wight heavy area, Renewing certainly has a lot going for it, but Stand the Fallen is exactly as much damage and reliably more healing and running out of surges has oh so rarely been an issue.

how so? this confuses me in that stand can miss and do no healing where as renew does 10+cha even on a miss. line of sight and not using surges are also both benefits to renew. stand is clearly a nice power but so is renew and renew is clearly superior though you could possibly make an argument that level 15 vs level 5 it should be more superior.

How superior is wall of ice to stinking cloud? If you're in an outdoor adventure is wall vastly superior? Wall's damage is going to be primarily concentrated in the first two rounds or concentrated on 1-2 creatures encircled. The cloud can follow a moving enemy or enemies and keep doing damage far into the combat. d10+int vs 2d6+int isn't a huge change for 10 levels. granted wall can block movement in closed environments but as I pointed out sphere can follow the battle in open environments. It's a lot more likely cloud will be doing damage 5 rounds after it's cast than wall will. I think the upside of renew is similar to the upside of wall if not greater in that it can't miss.

That said, other groups seem to have issues with people running out of surges so I'll bump it upwards a little so at least it counts as an above average level 15 rather than an average one

Single most important resource a party has. We try to never get in an encounter when the rogue or fighter doesn't have 3 surges or more.

If melee are gaining CA against an immobilized target, then that highly limits the potential effect of the immobilize.

I agree, I was pointing this out as a counter point when someone pointed out that CA was so valuable. I would always avoid moving adjacent to the immobilized creature and work on someone or something else while he was held. My point being that immobilize preventing the creature from being in combat is way better than the advantage of CA. End result, being charged and attacked by the dazed creature even though it's granting CA is inferior to the creature losing it's attack because it can't reach you.

Not really - but the immobilize trick is only useful on melee only monsters, so it was to show the effect of daze on a melee only monster. The defender can similarly shift back 1 square and the creature can't engage the defender so might have to charge someone other than the defender, possibly provoking, etc - I've actually done this with my fighter and stopped a monster's movement (and turn).

you're comparing "might" not be able to attack to definitely can't attack.

Similarly if you daze a ranged combatant, they have to choose whether to provoke OAs when they make a ranged attack or to fall back on a crappier melee option.

how is this different from immobilize? If you're adjacent to the archer he can't shift and fire he can just fire and therefore provoke an opportunity attack. If you choose to move out of range, he can't pursue you if he's immobilized. You do get +2 on the OA which is a small benefit but not as he'll likely choose the melee option.

Immobilize and Daze are both very good options, though worse than stunned. Immobilize is situationally useful. Daze is universally useful.

totally disagree. daze is equally situational. If a melee creature charges you he gets +1 ATT and you get +2 for CA. this is a tiny benefit compared to the possibility that a melee create can't attack at all.

I'd imagine so - but that assumes you're all that worried about preventing attacks. Focused fire and killing things prevents attacks too, after all

from a purely math standpoint limiting enemy attacks while maximizing pc attacks is the key to winning encounters. PC hit points being double the value of monster hit points taking away a monster attack is equal to granting two pc attacks of similar power. I agree focused fire is a great tool, I just don't see that the +2 from CA even remotely makes up for a lost monster attack. The extra damage accumulated from the CA is good for the party but over the course of a campaign I think you'll find that holding bad guys in adverse situations and/or preventing attacks from being delivered is equally valuable.

There's a shaman power that does back up the argument that you have to declare targets, then resolve:

Effect: Make the attack one more time against the same target or a different one.

I'm unsure of what is correct but resolving each attack seems logical and more fun.

That Effect is unnecessary if 'two attacks' allows you to resolve one attack then decide the next... so either the designer was misinformed on the rule, or the interpretation that you have to declare targets for all the attacks is RAW.

I don't think you can interpolate from a detail being added on the shaman power that it's purposely not added elsewhere because the editing is woefully inconsistent. RAW is based upon what is written not what is implied by an omission. Unless it says somewhere you must declare all targets of a power before resolving then the RAW is actually that you must declare all targets of an attack and some powers allow multiple attacks that are each resolved separately. The uniform damage rule is a little troubling to me and I think it's simply a time saver simplification at the expense of game play/reality. It certainly makes a lot more sense if one guy can be cooked by fireball but another standing just a few feet away can just be nicked. There are a lot of guys who would be dead if grenades always did the same damage to everyone in the aoe.

It was _theoretically_ broken before... if you've seen some of the explanations, it used things like multiple characters to setup a situation in which you hit on a 2 for all the attacks in the sequence, had +100 damage per attack, and had 3 or so rerolls to unroll 1s. At which point you were hitting 800 or so times so everything exploded. At 5 attacks, you can still setup that crazy stuff and it will do the 500 damage... so it's certainly powerful, but in the same situation Confounding would do the 300 damage and stun (save ends)... and Twin Strike does 200 damage... so, eh?

I don't see how it could do 100 damage per attack but I guess I could google optimization threads and find out what was discussed. in any event, if you burn up 3-4 other powers and actions to set up this situation how powerful is it really? I've never once had an attack roll hit on a roll of 2. We had a rogue put the serious hurt on someone with an attack roll of 6 and we thought that was pretty fantastic.

Do make sure when you look at a power that you look at it at more than just immediately when you get it, but also over the course of how long you have it... so level 15 through 28 you'll have this power.

great point, not all powers scale that well.

This is a great thread, thanks keterys.

 

[keterys]

daze is equally situational.

No... it really isn't. It always helps some. Sometimes it helps a lot more than others, but it always improves the party's chance to hit, gives the rogue damage output, and denies certain actions.

Immobilized _sometimes_ either prevents a creature from attacking or makes it take opportunity attacks to do something good.

Both can end up with people stuck in a zone unable to move, though immobilize is slightly better at it.

Immobilize is better at bringing down non-hover fliers.

Daze is better at dealing with enemies who have minor or move actions of note.

Immobilize has best usefulness in the first round of combat when you can immobilize enemies before they engage (or are engaged, by your own melee), but after that its usefulness depends a lot on the combat setup. For example, looking at level 22 enemies for a second, of 10 options (not including the minion who already died),

Rot Slinger (Rot Harbinger) Level 22 Artillery - has good melee and ranged, not impacted
Bluespawn Godslayer Level 22 Elite Brute
(Dragonspawn) - has reach 3, only affected at start of combat, once engaged it will hit someone
Death Giant Level 22 Brute - has reach 2, mostly only affected near start of combat and with a pretty mobile party and/or multi round immobilize
Hezrou (Demon) Level 22 Brute - Reach 2
War Devil (Malebranche) Level 22 Brute (L) - Reach 2, ranged attacks, teleport, not affected
Marut Concordant Level 22 Elite Controller - Reach 2, ranged attacks, teleport, not affected
Astral Stalker (Abomination) Level 22 Elite Lurker - ranged attacks, invisibility action, only slightly affected
Efreet Fireblade Level 22 Soldier - has reach 2, ranged and melee attacks, not affected
Elder Red Dragon Level 22 Solo Soldier - reach 3, hover flight, ranged and melee attacks, not affected really
Thunderhawk (Roc) Level 22 Elite Soldier - reach 2, hover flight, most affected in first round then not too badly hurt

So... immobilize not so good against an entire level of enemies, there.