Grading Daily Powers

[Korror]

Any creature can cross it without a chance of being immobilized, as long as they don't end their turn in it. It's a 5x5 area, so you need to be able to move at least 11 squares to get across it entirely, of course, so if your speed is 3 or less then you won't be able to cross it in one turn, even running... but otherwise it's potentially very easy to avoid the immobilize effect.

Anyone have much play experience with Web and can say how effective it is, as long as the initial immobilize hit doesn't land? That is, for targets initially outside the web or for targets moving through it?

I realized that I was forgetting about the ability to take a double move, doh. If monsters didn't have the ability to do that, then web would be an amazing power than it is as it would always immobilize anything slower than speed 10. Still at least it provides an barrier to speed 5 creatures who are unwilling to run or who are starting more than 2 squares away. It would be a lot more effective if there was a way to inflict mass slow or mass daze on a group which would render them unable to to safely move through the web.

On closer review of the wizard, I'm still wondering how effective he is in his role of a controller. Our party's wizard has been nothing more than an wimpy striker with above average minion killing capacity and rarely disrupts the monsters plan of battle.

 

[Korror]

*ROGUE*
C+ / Clever Riposte
B- / Deep Cut
C+ / Walking Wounded

Clever Riposte: Pretty clever form of protection and amusing that it works on ranged and area attacks (making for odd tactical advantages by hanging out in the middle of where good areas should be situated), but it's not a ton of damage and it's fairly easy to just attack anyone else. The attack itself is lackluster.
Deep Cut: vs. Fortitude. If it hits, that's a ton of ongoing damage potentially, but likely it won't last long.
Walking Wounded: vs Fortitude, can also be done ranged. If it hits, it's potentially good for laughs at least even if it's pretty easy to avoid triggering it.

Looking at the math for Clever Riposte and Deep cut, it seems that the rogue would have to be the focus of 3 attacks before the two evened out. The ongoing damage (assuming 16 str) from Deep Cut will do an average of: 8 + 4 + 2 + 1 + .5 + .25 .... which sums up to ~16 damage. Assuming 20 dex, clever ripose will do 5 damage per attack which will quickly add up. The rogue could combine this with Riposte Strike if they ever were isololated and forced to fight alone.

However it's always a bad idea to give your opponent (or your DM) choices as they will pick the one that harms them the least. The rogue was never the first target of monsters in my game who prefered to eat the wizard or the cleric hanging in the back. Walking Wounded has the same issue of giving your opponent choices as the creature won't trigger the effect if its not in its best interest to make a sudden dash. I'd lower the grade on both Clever Riposte and Walking Wounded for this reason.

 

[Korror]

Spiritual weapon requires a standard action to cast, and every round, a move action to move and a minor action to sustain and attack. Weapon of the Gods is a minor action to cast, and lasts till the end of the encounter. Put it on a Rogue's weapon, and since the rogue will typically be maneuvering for CA, -2 penalty to AC can become more useful. And to add insult to injury, the damage is radiant. This makes undead uncounters considerably easier, since not only can the cleric be doing Radiant damage, but he can let someone else do it too.

I did the math to see how Weapon of the Gods compares with Spiritual Weapon. Assume that a given enemy grants CA half the time to a PC who is seeking to gain it.

Expected damage of Weapons of the Gods: .65(3.5 + ally damage).

I admit that the +3 to hit is only a crude estimation as we should really calculate the probability of the AC penalty + CA existing at the same time to find the average bonus to hit which is made tricky since a hit with weapon of the gods makes it more likely that the next attack will hit. In any case, I'm pretty sure that the true bonus lies between 2 and 3 so we'll assume the upper level for now.

Expected damage of Spiritual Weapon = .6(5.5 + ally Damage).

A 2-handed maul fighter with 18 str, a +2 weapon and weapon focus is going to be doing 14 damage per hit which gives us 11.7 expected damage for Spiritual Weapon and 11.375 expected damage for Weapon of the Gods. If we adopt the pessimistic view of Weapon of the Gods' to hit bonus, the expected damage drops to 10.5. If we give Weapon of the Gods to a twin strike using archery ranger then it clearly out damages Spiritual Weapon. In addition, Weapon of the God is esentially a free action which gives it a head start on Spiritual Weapon.

I admit to being surprised to how good Weapon of the Gods appears to be. I suppose that I overlooked it before because it wasn't very flashy and enchanced a party member rather than being an awesome attack for the cleric. I would guess then that Weapon of the Gods is better as long as you have a ranger or 2 handed fighter in the group while Spiritual weapon is better if you have a rogue or warlock.

 

[keterys]

And weapon of the gods only gets better if you have multiple people targetting AC. If you've got a twin strike ranger, 2h warrior, and a rogue, then that -2 AC really starts to kick in

Especially if it's used with something more serious, like another daily. Like Cascade of Blades.

 

[Mengu]

Especially if it's used with something more serious, like another daily. Like Cascade of Blades.

Blinding Barrage or Cloud of Steel with a Weapon of the Gods would be quite good too. Obviously the Ranger has the most multi-attack options though. Sweeping Whirlwind for instance would be pretty fantastic.

 

[Korror]

I admit that the +3 to hit is only a crude estimation as we should really calculate the probability of the AC penalty + CA existing at the same time to find the average bonus to hit which is made tricky since a hit with weapon of the gods makes it more likely that the next attack will hit. In any case, I'm pretty sure that the true bonus lies between 2 and 3 so we'll assume the upper level for now.

If we separate the bonus from CA and Weapon of the Gods, the math becomes a lot easier and it's pretty easy to show the AC penalty from Weapon of the Gods is around 1.5555 (repeating). Assume a 50% chance to hit or miss, the AC penalty has a %50 chance of being applied. On the second round, the chance to hit is .6(.5)+.5(.5) or .55. On the third round, the chance to hit is .6(.55) + .5(.45) or .555 and so on. A 50% chance of combat advantage evens out to +1 and thus we can assume an average bonus of 2.5555. If you combine the bonus then things get more complicated but I don't see the need to do so when we're already making wide assumptions about being able to attack every round and the 50% chance of combat advantage.

 

[Branduil]

Any plans for analysis on the level 9 dailies any time soon?

 

[keterys]

Plan is Monday. Yeah, I'm being slow.

 

[Goumindong]

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.

But flaming sphere got an errata change that made it take up a square. The guardian requires an attack roll to do its per round damage, doesn't have AoO's or anything other than its square that its blocking.

Its good in that you can stick it right in front with your line while a flaming sphere will be dealing damage to friendlies, but in general, even with a fighter, flaming sphere is just plain better. Guardian is something you should only take if you don't have a controller in the group.

ed: About the only thing you can do with it is stick it near a squishy to get everything to scatter the next round. But since they can attack, then move, and since 1d8+wis is not exactly impressive(even after an attack roll) its not something that makes a strong deterrent.

 

[keterys]

Fair enough. Looks like downgrade Guardian to B+... and upgrade Web to C. If no objections, I'll do that when I put in the Daily 9s.

Also... the 2 warlock daily 5 powers that have a hit, no miss, and sustain (save ends)... may be a bit better than I thought. It's unclear if you need to hit to sustain and it's unclear if you can save against the effect before it's sustained (and thusly triggers) at least once. Which would make a big difference. I'll leave them as is, for now though.