Grading Daily Powers

[keterys]

I'm not denying the potential damage over the course of several rounds, or the nice temp HP's. I'm just saying, that's not exactly what's expected of the Warlock.

1 shot of Phlegethos = 19.9 expected damage. 2 hits of the Armor = 19 expected damage. The warlock doesn't need to run into melee to use it, but just use it when he's attacked to get solid value (really close damage plus 2 surge's worth of temp hp)

Sustain Minor, means it will typically last until the target you're focusing on is dead

You may have missed the save ends. It's likely to last a round or two at most.

Archery Rangers can snipe.

And they're often the _furthest_ from the target instead of the closest. Assuming Prime Shot all the time is just as valid as assuming the TWF Ranger always has flank, and it's probably best to just ignore both from the equation.

Which brings you down to the TWF ranger not having the same bonus for less damage, even ignoring the feats that let the TWF ranger inch ahead.

Also, I note that you consider target selection a negative. Its not, its a positive.

Requiring 2 targets within 3 to use it at all is a negative. Look at Eldritch Rain for a better option. Now Icy Rays. Or any number of powers that are 'one or two targets, one attack per target' or at _least_ don't require that the targets be so close.

 

[Korror]

Quick thought on the cleric's Guardian of Faith. Without a fighter, this power is not going to do very much damage at all. Since the monsters take damage only if they END next to the guardian, they will always be able to avoid damage as long as they can shift away (assuming they're not caught in a dead end or something). This means that the cleric has to keep sacrificing his move action if he wants to keep forcing the mobs to shift which will not always be possible. What if the cleric needs to move into range to keep an ally up or needs to shift to avoid a dangerous flank? In these cases, the guardian will probably not deal damage or force the monsters to stay mobile.

I think these limiting factors bump the power down to B+/B as it requires unusual circumstances or another specific class to be used for full effect while the other daily powers are effective all the time. I know you have a disclaimer that the powers are always assumed to be used in their most useful circumstances but it seems within reason to downgrade a power that shines once in a while but is only average most of the time. You seem to follow this reasoning with the ranger dailies as well.

Pardon me if I'm off on any details of this power, I'm at work and working off memory right now.

 

[keterys]

I did have it as a B+, but upgraded it last night (I think cause I upgraded Beacon of Hope and Flaming Sphere, the things I was comparing it to). I'm more than content to reduce it.

 

[keterys]

Oh, and I do hope that it's obvious I'm not personally attached to anything, but I do need to debate key points (or even devil's advocate in some circumstances) to get the bets results. Especially if the math I've done strictly disagrees (like the warlock dailies which I peg at sub-par but others peg at better than average).

 

[Mengu]

1 shot of Phlegethos = 19.9 expected damage. 2 hits of the Armor = 19 expected damage. The warlock doesn't need to run into melee to use it, but just use it when he's attacked to get solid value (really close damage plus 2 surge's worth of temp hp)

How are you calculating those expected damage values? If you hit with Phlegethos, your average damage is 3d10+1d6(curse)+4+10(ongoing fire) = 34 points (ignoring crit). On a miss, the average damage is 10 points. Those 34 points are a lot of concentrated damage on a BBG.

Ranger's Jaws of the Wolf (a B+ power), if it hits twice, does 4d8+1d6(quarry)+8 = 29.5 damage. You need 2 feats (bastard sword, Leathal Hunter) to bring it up to the level of Phlegethos (34.5). On a miss it admittedly does more damage than Phlegethos.

You may have missed the save ends. It's likely to last a round or two at most.

I didn't miss it. I just kind of forgot about it.

Oh, and I do hope that it's obvious <snip>

Yes it is. No worries. For me this is just a good exercise to grasp the expected potency for different class powers at different levels.

 

[Cadfan]

And they're often the _furthest_ from the target instead of the closest. Assuming Prime Shot all the time is just as valid as assuming the TWF Ranger always has flank, and it's probably best to just ignore both from the equation.

Fair enough, sort of.

The following ignores criticals, which are ever so slightly in favor of Split the Tree, but not by a lot.

TWF Ranger, 18 str, using 1d10 proficiency 2 weapons, hitting on a 11+:

Expected damage: .5*(5.5*2+4) + .5*(5.5*2+4) + .5*.5*(5.5*2+4) + .5*.5*(5.5*2+4) + 3.5 = 7.5 + 7.5 + 3.75 + 3.75 = 26

Archery Ranger, 18 dex, using a 1d10 proficiency 2 weapon, hitting on an 11+:

2*.75*(5.5*2+4) + .75*3.5 = 25.125.

That's it. Meanwhile,

1. "Must be adjacent to target" is as much a targeting restriction as "targets two foes within 3 of one another, the former is arguably the more restrictive of the two, and it carries the most risk of personal harm.

2. If you change the axes to longswords and include the extra proficiency bonus, it actually makes things worse, because Miss: Half rewards high damage and low accuracy disproportionately in comparison to other power attributes.

Expected damage: .55*(4.5*2+4) + .55*(4.5*2+4) + .45*.5*(4.5*2+4) + .45*.5*(4.5*2+4) + 3.5 = 7.15 + 7.15 + 2.925 + 2.925 + 3.5 = 20.15.

3. If you give the TWF ranger proficiency in bastard swords and the archery ranger the boosted hunter's quarry, you get 25.845 for the archery ranger, and

Expected damage: .55*(5.5*2+4) + .55*(5.5*2+4) + .45*.5*(5.5*2+4) + .45*.5*(5.5*2+4) + 3.5 = 8.25 + 8.25 + 3.375 + 3.375 + 3.5 = 26.75.

which still fails to create a lead of an entire point of damage.

Eventually, as you add feats (or as you increase the AC of the target, the opposite being true as it decreases), the TWF ranger will pull ahead due to the availability of four damage boosting feats (bastard swords, weapon focus, two weapon fighting, lethal hunter), and the lack of damage boosting ranged feats. The archery ranger still receives benefits from feats, of course, they just won't be damage boosts.

Requiring 2 targets within 3 to use it at all is a negative. Look at Eldritch Rain for a better option. Now Icy Rays. Or any number of powers that are 'one or two targets, one attack per target' or at _least_ don't require that the targets be so close.

But 2 targets in 3 spaces of one another is a trivial thing to find in an encounter with multiple foes, and you get to pick the targets you most want dead. So you can pick off bloodied foes, or foes with low AC. Choosing to go after foes with low AC makes it even easier for you to beat the expected damage of the melee Ranger, as the lower the AC becomes, the more Split the Tree moves ahead.

 

[keterys]

How are you calculating those expected damage values?

Unfortunately I don't have the Phlegethos math on me, but I tend to assume a 60% hit rate and fluctuate level for usage a little to see if it changes drastically (like the armor is better at low level when the temp hp are huge) - like fire resist impacts Phl. more (not a ton, but it comes up at all and resist weapon doesn't) and JoW scales better with stat upgrades and enhancement bonuses.

I can say that for ongoing damage I was getting 1.4 rounds of average duration for dailies with saves, which I think was based on using an elite as the average target of a single target aily. Chance to save is, needless to say, pretty high even on a Normal.

The number I gave for Phlegethos vs. Armor I did in the car earlier just as a quick thing to dash off, though, and it is actually slightly low (I made some type of error in the car) from what I can see, but 3d10 + 4 * .55 + 34 * .05 + 7 (ongoing) = 19.98 is probably what I did actually.

On that note, may be interesting for me to run the daily 1s through something a bit more rigorous to compare them more easily. I don't want to do that for each cause honestly it takes time and there's a lot of powers to go through

 

[Mobius777]

I've really enjoyed thes threads on Daily, Encounter, and At-Will Powers. Great work!!!

I'm not a major power-gamer, but in 4th edition it is essential to have some idea of the effectiveness of each power.

If ever you have the time/interest to grade more powers (maybe Level 5 Daily Powers or Utility Powers), I'll be reading the ratings with great interest.

 

[Mengu]

If ever you have the time/interest to grade more powers (maybe Level 5 Daily Powers or Utility Powers), I'll be reading the ratings with great interest.

Yeah, I think we need to do level 5 dailies and level 2 and 6 utilities, which will cover everything through level 7 for now. We ought to give keterys some time to do the hard work, and then bombard him with comments as usual.

 

[keterys]

Sorry, I'm really busy - full time job of course, but it hit a spike of activity last week, DMing 4 games, playing online, etc. So I pretty much have to do things in chunks. I delayed the daily 5s slightly cause I wanted to be a bit more rigorous on the math for the lower level powers because I think I was letting high level math (that is, high stat mods, damage bonuses from items, powers, etc) influence my thinking excessively on the low level powers.

I think I'll just go with the gut feeling and finish the daily 5s ASAP (but not until after the maptool/online game tonight cause that's lots more data entry and such), and revisit things with the math redone later.

The math model I'd started was to identify archtypes and levels to run #s on to compare, where I'll have 2-3 types of each character at levels 3, 7, 11, 15, 19, 25, 29 for benchmarks, so I'll know that a level 7 power is replaced at 23 so gets 7,11,15,19 benchmarks (which is quite a spread!)