Grading Daily Powers

[MwaO]

So immobilize is far more effective in heroic, being extremely powerful when used effectively in heroic, reasonable but not earth shattering in paragon, and honestly not very good at all in epic.

You don't seem to be factoring Cloak of Distortion in the mix - you immobilize an enemy with a mix of melee/ranged outside that 5 square range, and they're severely weakened.

(yes, broken, and most DMs should not let it into their games or take an axe to it, but it is LFR legal...)

 

[keterys]

Nah, it assumes that everyone has it (as opposed to, say, healer's brooch or cloak of survival or...) and that it's trivial to get everyone more than 5 squares from an immobilized enemy, and that's way too big of an assumption.

 

[Plane Sailing]

The problem here is semantical. I fully understand that daze always grants CA and takes away an action even if there's no other benefit. By equally situational I meant that given the weighted impact of each outcome and the probability of each situation they were equally situational. (etc)

APC, I understand that you disagree on the relative benefits of daze and immobilise. I think we can drop the subject now as both sides understand where the other is coming from, and there is no need to attempt to persuade anyone to your point of view. I imagine that you will factor in such issues when you have a look at how other people grade things, and that is fine.

No more discussion on that issue in this thread though - start a separate thread if you really want to discuss it further.

Thanks

 

[AngryPurpleCyclops]

last post Plane, I was halfway done when I saw your admonishment.

It always means the rogue doesn't need flank. It always means that people can ignore opportunity attacks from the target. It always means that sustaining powers is painful and that some other abilities are denied. It always synergizes with other effects like grab or prone. It always provides an increase in average via combat advantage. It always means the target has limited ability to select targets if the party chooses to take appropriate steps. Etc.

All of these are "sometimes valuable". This is the same argument you use to degrade immobilize. You apply _sometimes_ to it's benefit. This simply works both ways. I can see the logic of your side but you keep steam rolling mine. That's annoying. There are times when each is better. I'm really unsure why you can't seem to admit this.

Ignoring the benefits of daze so that it doesn't have an effect is not effectively using it.

Can you not make the exact same argument about immobilize?

And if you're not fighting any melee only creatures? If the Umber Hulk won initiative and is already adjacent to someone, so you need to double move to make it lose the ability to attack and it will _still_ be able to use its confusing gaze unless you're more than 5 squares away?

I can turn this around and point to many situations that daze won't impede the <insert various monsters> either. Once again it's hard for me to understand why you can't accept it's pretty close to even each having their benefits in various situations.

Only certain creatures, only if all allies shift - which makes it both initiative dependent and ally action dependent, and potentially limits your damage output (such as by negating flank for the rogue)

the rogue can be busy attacking a different creature. You keep pointing to situations that detract from the immobilize but there are equally as many that detract from daze. By your own admission above you said it should be used affectively. lets assume you're going to do that with both not just immobilize.

Correct. Making it not useful in those cases... which makes immobilize less effective.

I can change the word immobilize to daze and use this to counter many statements. Please stop doing that. For every use there is a situation that's bad for both. d

No, I am considering it. I'm giving it a different weight than you are. You seem to be assuming that you'll always have the right target selection and tactical situation. Immobilize is _fantastic_ in the first round of combat with the right enemies... with the wrong enemies less so, after the first round or if you lose initiative... even less.

the first part of this is great! I agree we weight things differently. That's fine. The rest is garbage. I'm the one using the power, I pick when and where to deploy it. I can hit a monster in melee with a pc with immobilize and then when the pc goes he can hit the monster and shift away. You keep focusing on the fact that at higher levels more monsters have reach. This is offset by the number of powers that let you shift/teleport multiple squares. rogues, warlocks, eladrin, rangers, warlords, wizards, clerics all have ways to get away from reach creatures unharmed.

I was looking at level 15 powers, so I'd had that level of creatures up to look at for the Bloody Path example. I can certainly bring up more examples, but I hardly think that an entire level of creatures, every single one of them, is 'anecdotal' to the discussion. If immobilize becomes significantly less useful at epic, that is a an impact.

I agree but i think you're still weighting this with no consideration for the fact that by your own admission we're going to use the powers effectively more often than not.

but we are looking at level 15 powers, so it can only go so low

Not really accurate. I commented on this phenomena before we moved to level 15 and the tangential discussion that arose is really about the relative worth of debilitating powers regardless of level or across all levels. I fully agree that there are things that make immobilize less effective at epic. Not to the degree you're trying to imply simply because we're controlling where and when we use our powers and by your own admission we're not apt to do ourselves the disservice of wasting it.

Why would the effect last 3 rounds? It's got a save bonus, among other things. As noted, if you get initiative over it, in the first round of combat, you can immobilize it before it engages. If not, then it's likely already too late due to it having reach 3.

at high level a lot of creatures can easily get away from reach 3. This is simply false and very misleading. The effect could be orb'd to a -10 or more. if you're a melee creature being immobilized and orbed is a kill where as daze is a major hindrance but not apt to take you out of the combat completely. Orb and immobilize is therefor better than daze in most circumstances not involving teleport. Orb/immobilize a dragon and stay outside his breath weapon and melee range... seems better than having him move in and action point the breath weapon.

Indeed, same as above, no advantage immobilize.

Ditto.

again wrong on both counts. I'm using my powers effectively I promise you. I have init roughly half the time on the BBEG... how about you? I almost always have init on at last a few creatures in an encounter, how about you?

I didn't pick a level to shaft immobilize - I picked a median level for the powers we're looking at pretty randomly

we've been looking at dailies from 1 to 15... I brought this up before we reached 15 i believe. I certainly thought it right away if I didn't say it. But I have a feeling in my posts about levels 1 or 5 I probably mentioned something about "why does everyone seem to think daze is so much better than immobilize"?

So immobilize is far more effective in heroic, being extremely powerful when used effectively in heroic reasonable but not earth shattering in paragon, and honestly not very good at all in epic.

Finally we're at least finding some middle ground. I agree with this assessment for the most part. I think it's better than you imagine in epic because pc's can get away from reach 3 creatures a lot easier than you're giving then credit for and it can lock someone down in epic with orb. immobilize can have another use entirely. If you immobilize the ranged creature and the fighter moves adjacent he can't make any attacks without giving away OA. The fighter doesn't even have to mark him.

In retrospect the various effectiveness across tiers was probably a big part of why we couldn't find a middle ground sooner (does this mean you'll be going back and re-evaluating the heroic powers and upgrading immobilize? . I've only played in heroic so my experience/perspective is heavily weighted. I admitted right away that teleport totally hoses immobilize and dazed has added benefits as you get more creatures with minor powers at higher levels. I still find them comparable at worst in most encounters and immobilize far better in most encounters I'm familiar with. The ghoul encounter for example. Turn undead pushes them out of melee range and immobilizes them. what could be better short of disintegrating them

APC, I understand that you disagree on the relative benefits of daze and immobilise. I think we can drop the subject now as both sides understand where the other is coming from, and there is no need to attempt to persuade anyone to your point of view. I imagine that you will factor in such issues when you have a look at how other people grade things, and that is fine.

No more discussion on that issue in this thread though - start a separate thread if you really want to discuss it further.

Thanks

Dropped. I wrote most of this post before I came back and saw you had posted this.

 

[ChristopherA]

I thought your ratings were quite good. I thought I’d try to rank the powers in order according to my impressions, and see how it compares. Here is level 1, I was pretty close:

A Flaming Sphere
A Bastion of Defense
A Armor of Agathys, Beacon of Hope, Blinding Barrage
B+ Lead the Attack, Jaws of the Wolf, Freezing Cloud
B Radiant Delirium, Sleep
B Split the Tree
B Avenging Flame
B On Pain of Death
B- Flames of Phlegethos, Trick Strike, Pin the Foe
B- Guardian of Faith (I’m guessing, I’d have to see it in action)
C+ Brute Strike, Paladin’s Judgment
C+ Comeback Strike, Cascade of Light, Curse of the Dark Dream
C Hunter’s Bear Trap, Dread Star, White Raven Onslaught
C- Villain’s Menace, Acid Arrow
C- Sudden Strike, Easy Target

The power ratings will depend in some ways on the style of the campaign. Perhaps you fight solo monsters more often than I do. I was surprised that you rate Villain’s Menace so highly, since in playing I’ve found it to be quite weak. If you factor in how bad it is to miss with the power, you really need to get in at least 4 attacks with the attack/damage bonus before Villain’s Menace is clearly superior to Brute Strike. But Brute Strike is just so much more convenient and easy to use. In order for Villain’s Menace to be really effective, the fighter has to attack the same monster every round for several rounds, and the rest of the party has to refrain from killing that monster. At least in my group’s style of play, daily powers are most valuable when used in tough fights that you couldn’t win without them, and a power that can help the party quickly kill a dangerous threat is what everyone really wants. Low-level fights only seem to last about 6 rounds. If you can afford to leave a monster alive for the entire fight in order to maximize the effect of your daily power, maybe the monster wasn’t really worth spending a single-target daily on anyway. And during this time, the fighter can’t react defend the party against different tactical threats. I guess this power would be a lot more effective if you fought a lot of solos and tough elites.

The usefulness of a power like Comeback Strike, which lets you spend a healing surge, would vary a lot based on how restricted you are by healing surges. If you can rest whenever you want, Comeback is clearly better than Brute Strike. If healing surges are precious, and you can get clerical healing after the fight, spending a healing surge is not so great (I explain this more on one of my blog entries).

I agree with an earlier poster that, at heroic level, Bastion of Defense seems generally more useful than Lead the Attack. But Lead the Attack is one of those weird powers that gets better and better as you gain levels.

I think Acid Arrow is overrated compared to the other wizard powers. Sleep seems better – if you target multiple monsters, there is a good chance one of them will fall asleep and die soon after. Acid Arrow is just a pedestrian attack with a weak and hard to use area effect. It seems more than two steps inferior to a potent area effect spell like Freezing Cloud.

__________________
Come read my game design/analysis blog at: http://gamedesignfanatic.blogspot.com

 

[keterys]

Yeah, I'm not sure what to do/say on the solo/elite equation where certain powers completely thrash a single combatant, but require that enemy persist. When I started playing solos were actually fairly common, but since I started the game and fought about four in like four adventures, then I think I've only fought... two... since then. In like another thirty adventures.

 

[Evilhalfling]

Phb2

B Echos of Guardian
B+ Slayers Song
A+ Stirring Shout
B- Verse of Triumph

B Aspect of Might
B+ Oath of Final Duel
B Renewing Strike
B Temple of Light

B Bloodhunt Rage
A+ Macetail Rage
A+ Rage Drake Rage
C+ Swift Panther Rage

A Faerie Fire
A Fires of Life
B+ Savage Fenzy
B+ Wind Prison

A Angelic Echelon
A Binding Chains
B Purging Flame
B Summon Angle of Fire

A- Blessing of 7 Winds
B Cleansing Wind of North
A Spirit of Healing Flood
A Wrath of Spirit World

A- Chromatic Orb
A Dazzling Ray
B- Dragonfang Bolt
B Lighting Breath

B Form of Willow Sentinel
A+ Form of Winter’s Herald
A- Form of Relentless Panther
B+ Form of Fearsome Ram

Standouts: Stirring Shout, Form of Winters Herald, Macetail Rage and Rage Drake Frenzy
Discussion ?

 

[Stalker0]

I know less people are checking this out, but if anyone has any feedback on the daily 15s please try to get them in soon so I can factor things in easily.

Keterys I think the thread has gotten so large that's its intimidating for new posters (I know I rarely join a page 5+ thread unless i've been involved in the discussion).

It might be time to post a new thread with all of the results you've collected, and then start hitting the 15+ level powers.

 

[keterys]

Maybe each level gets its own analysis and feeds back to an original - that might be simpler to tackle.

EvilHalfling your grades seem... very high. I unfortunately haven't analyzed the powers to a great extent, but I can say that the invoker dailies, for instance, are not all that impressive. Not bad, certainly, but saying Binding Chains or Angelic Echelon is roughly equivalent to, say, Spirit of the Healing Flood seems a bit odd.

 

[Stalker0]

Maybe each level gets its own analysis and feeds back to an original - that might be simpler to tackle.

I think the organization is fine, its just time to clean up the discussion, post the results, and then do more discussing. I wouldn't break up your threads more than you already have (daily, encounter, at will).

You have 7 pages worth of discussion that goes into your results, that's very good. If the next thread builds up another 7 pages of discussion, boil it down, and do it again. Having a big debate on all the powers of the game is a big job afterall!!