Grading Daily Powers

[keterys]

Plane Sailing covered it well, but daze is basically always useful (grants CA, limits actions) and immobilize is sometimes useful. Sometimes more useful than daze, absolutely (poor melee guy out of reach)... but even the +2 to attack to everyone often makes up for those moments, nevermind when you use it to avoid opportunity attacks, deny elites and solos their reactive or extra abilities, etc.

 

[Korror]

does it say you have to define your targets before any attack rolls are made?

Going off p.269 in the PHB, I think it works like this:

1) I announce I am making an attack
2) I announce the target(s) of my attack
3) Anyone who wishes to apply penalties or bonuses to my attack roll (such as disrupting strike) chimes in.
4) I make an attack roll for each target
5) I roll damage
6) I apply the damage to my targets

Going off this, you must select the targets for confounding arrows prior to making your attack roll.

 

[keterys]

There is some argument on this point, with some DMs allowing you to select targets one at a time arguing that it's not handled like a close or area attack is, but rather a separate instance of an attack each time.

Fwiw, it's my overwhelming experience that you do need to pick targets in advance, so that's the assumption I'd likely operate under.

 

[AngryPurpleCyclops]

Just wanted to say that Spiritual Weapon at 5th level makes Mordenkainens Sword for wizards at 9th look a little sad. granting CA to your mates as against attacking vs Ref instead of AC? Doesn't look like much of a contest

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.

I can't speak for others, but the potential for charge attacks notwithstanding, the big benefits for daze to my mind are
a) grants CA
b) can't take immediate actions (no OA from him)
c) can't do one of his fancy attacks as charge only allows a basic attack

(also, isn't there a rule about charge needing a minimum distance? If you are 1 sq away from him and he is dazed, he can neither attack you nor charge you, and if he moves/shifts closer he then doesn't have the attack available.

Immobilise, on the other hand, seems highly situational to me. Unless you've got one of the following situations:
a) it is flying
b) it is in a damaging area (e.g. wall of fire)
c) it is a melee only creature and you have a ranged-heavy party

it doesn't turn out to be much use - it doesn't hinder combat capability one iota if it is currently engaged in melee, and your fighter, paladin, warlord, rogue and 2wf ranger probably want to be engaging him in melee anyway.

Thanks for this. All good points though I disagree with a few of them at least partly. Both powers are situational to a roughly equivalent amount. Daze points In order:
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.

B) no OA can be important as can preventing him from participating in flanking, but both are also situational.

C) preventing a fancy attack is an incremental gain in many cases. Most monsters basic attack is their standard melee attack anyway so charging actually gives them a small benefit (+1 to hit). If they have an encounter power then dazing them for a round prevents them from discharging it this round but that just flip flops their actions from encounter/at-will to at-will/encounter. Admittedly this can have a significant impact in certain situations (i.e. you prevent the creature from hitting as many pc's with it's burst because the pc's maneuver away from each other during the daze or several other possibilities)

Immobilize in order:
A) stopping flying is very situational agreed but still can be pretty powerful.

B) Obviously if the creature is in damaging terrain immobilize has a huge upside, agreeably situational but being in damaging terrain is not exactly a "rare occurrence" in 4e. I would rate the chance to immobilize someone in damaging terrain as more valuable than preventing OA since as a rule I try to avoid giving up OA's as much as humanly possible.

C) even if you have no ranged attacks at all, you've prevented a creature from participating in combat for a round. There are a lot of creatures that are melee only or have vastly weaker ranged powers compared to their melee powers. Since you get to control who is targeted you'll more often than not pick a creature(s) that suffers significantly from being immobilized.

Yes charge needs to move 2+ squares in a straight line. If you're 1 square away he can't attack you (pretty situational that you'll be exactly one square away) but he can charge another member of the party. Based upon my experiences with dazed creatures charging more often then not it's hard to make me believe this will frequently prevent the attacker from getting in an attack. Most creatures move 6, so in order for there to be no targets he can charge there needs to be a 15 square box centered on the dazed guy that has no opponents in it other than those precisely at range 1. Extremely situational. Also, you're assuming that the dazed creature also is melee only. If he has ranged attacks he still gets his normal attack. You can just as easily shift 1 square away from an immobilized creature as you can from a dazed creature so I don't actually see any benefit to daze in this case.

The real advantage of daze is almost exclusively centered in CA. I think this is more than offset by the increased possibility of preventing him from attacking and the times you immobilize in unfavorable terrain.

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

Plane Sailing covered it well, but daze is basically always useful (grants CA, limits actions) and immobilize is sometimes useful. Sometimes more useful than daze, absolutely (poor melee guy out of reach)... but even the +2 to attack to everyone often makes up for those moments, nevermind when you use it to avoid opportunity attacks, deny elites and solos their reactive or extra abilities, etc.

not sure I agree, though denying reactive powers to elites and solos is pretty powerful I also think this is pretty situational.(we haven't faced a lot of solo encounters in any of the campaigns I've played in. So my experience is limited to slaying two dragons in two different campaigns.) I went back at the email my dm sends out after every session with a recap and experience. I would roughly estimate that 85-90% of encounters have targets that immobilize would prevent them from attacking. Their are many monsters where this could be encounter changing in terms of the advantage of immobilize vs daze. Ghouls are a good example. Possibly one of the most brutal 200 exp monsters in the game. Dazing a ghoul has almost no impact (CA) in comparison to preventing a ghoul from engaging with a player.

Going off p.269 in the PHB, I think it works like this:

1) I announce I am making an attack
2) I announce the target(s) of my attack
3) Anyone who wishes to apply penalties or bonuses to my attack roll (such as disrupting strike) chimes in.
4) I make an attack roll for each target
5) I roll damage
6) I apply the damage to my targets

Going off this, you must select the targets for confounding arrows prior to making your attack roll.

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.

 

[Korror]

Renew the troops also seems like at least an A- (I would say A or A+) as it deals 3W dmg and might easily heal 100hp's of dmg without using surge. Pretty mighty. Even a miss is likely worth 50-70HP's of healing without a surge. I disagree that all the damage will be concentrated on 1-2 characters as usually by this level the monsters are delivering some blasts and bursts. The melee types seem to use more surges than the ranged types in 4e but we rarely leave an encounter without everyone getting hit, saving this power until everyone has 15-20 dmg doesn't seem that difficult. Even if it only heals 3 pc's a healing surge plus cha for a fighter is likely worth 26+ for a fighter by level 15+ throw in another 22 or so for the other two and you're looking at 70'ish healing at worst on a hit. Character hit points are about twice as valuable as monster hit points so 70 healing is roughly equivalent to 140 dmg in terms of winning encounters.

An A+ power should be borderline broken (like twin strike) or solid overall and a major boost in every encounter (like beacon of hope). Renew the troops can potentially give everyone a healing surge back but I think the actually healing will rarely get up to the potential max. 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.

Otilukes is ok if it hits but kind of weak when compared to the others at this level. Anything worth putting inside can probably cut it's way out in a relatively short time though this is effectively fixed duration stun that removes a monster from the battle for a while while the party gets busy on other targets. While this is a benefit, it has no real affect on a solo other than delaying the encounter a couple rounds. Very surprising to see it compared favorably to the hands. If you miss, you get almost no benefit, just one immobilized save ends, no damage, no residual. If you hit you basically remove a level equivalent bad guy for 3-6 turns depending on it's att power. I popped open the MM and looked at the table of monsters by level. I looked at githyanki gish and salamanders to see how the sphere might hold up in terms of duration vs a 15th level monster. The gish can break out in about 3-4 rounds depending on if it is willing to expend it's AP. The salamander archer is likely to stay held 5 rounds though a little luck has it out in 4. So roughly half the time the power removes one bad guy for 4 rounds, good not great. Slightly less than half the time vs a soldier because soldiers have high reflex and soldiers are really who you want to grab up a leader or a controller makes a nice second choice. Meanwhile hands is probably putting out enough damage to more than bloody 2 creatures in the same time and once the shell is open hands are still working the bad guys over. More importantly hands almost never fail to deliver. Because they persist you keep getting grab after grab (immobilize after immobilize) which can brutalize a group of powerful melee creatures. It's sort of a toss up which is better if sphere hits because removing a bad guy for a few rounds can help the party get control of the situation but roughly half the time sphere does nothing while hands keep filling the room with the sound of clapping ogre heads...

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.

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.

 

[Sitara]

On pain of Death is superior to Radiant Delirium. I mean, its 5 damage (save) is very powerful, especially at the level you get it. Great way to open up a battle with a boss.

 

[keterys]

Radiant damage is an advantage on its own, due to its benefit against undead (extra damage, denying regeneration and other powers, etc)

Other than that, the +4 to hit equivalent plus action denial from radiant delirium is more valuable than a d8+modifiers damage. That said, I doubt I counted it as d8+modifiers and instead counted it as just a d8, so I should possibly bump up On Pain of Death as a result. Makes it more like 10 damage instead of 7 damage, equivalent.

 

[keterys]

Daily 15 Powers

Okay, took a bit to do the spreadsheet to calc some expected damages over a range of targets so I could maybe compare some of these. I'm kinda assuming a midline of character optimization... damage dice are going to matter a lot than multiple attacks more to a character who is only +8 damage modifier at level 18, but more attacks kick butt for someone with +30, so different characters have some different needs in that respect.

*CLERIC*

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

Holy Spark Weapon attack vs. Will makes it very accurate - if you hit it's pretty decent, especially if you time it right to hit several enemies before your target even acts. On miss it's pretty lousy, and its damage effect is tempered a bit by enemies being able to avoid it after the first time.
Purifying Fire is a nice sized area of enemies only for considerable damage. The healing from it is pretty fiddly, but this is a dependable and solid performer.
Seal of Warding is a good sized close burst, enemies only, vs Will, for impressive damage. The zone's difficult terrain might be problematic or helpful and that's a little harder to control since you have to be stuck in the middle of it, but ranged cover and difficult terrain on demand might make the zone valuable. Even if not, it's a great damage close attack.

*FIGHTER*

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

Dragon's Fangs is boring, but solid damage.
Serpent Dance Strike is a little tricky to use well, but it's good for some shifts, attacks on a couple of enemies, and knocking prone is pretty helpful - especially for a fighter who can mark targets then be in a spot they can't attack/charge to easily.
Unyielding Avalanche is a little crazy really - standard 1W stance, but also with slow, which is fantastic for a defender... but with +1 AC and saves? Great! And... Con regeneration? Hard to say no.

*PALADIN*

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

Bloodied Retribution is mostly a self-healing surge (with no bonus to it, and not even a free surge). 4W vs. AC isn't horrible, but it's definitely substandard damage compared to other level 15 dailies.
Break the Wall vs. Fort and short range with lackluster damage. The penalty to defenses is definitely good stuff, but it's a low penalty and save ends so unlikely to last long on enemies you need it for the most. I guess considering it +10% to your allies' damage for one round is not a bad way of thinking about it.
True Nemesis is vs Will, which is good... it is low damage and short range, but it puts a sorta 'Super Mark' on the target. This power will see its best effect when combined with a second defender who can actually mark the target, making the target screwed if they can't hit both.

*RANGER*

A- / Blade Cascade
A- / Bleeding Wounds
A / Confounding Arrows
A / Stunning Steel

Blade Cascade is actually outright rotten damage under most circumstances, but gamed properly (don't bother unless you hit on a 2 or 3, preferably with a reroll available, pretty much) its burst potential is extremely high and it's a power multiplier due to the number of attacks. A pet TacLord and a source of a reroll will definitely help here to optimize its damage and up its personal grading. I know this one will be surprising to some... it actually averages less than the Fighter's Dragon's Fangs under most circumstances, though, and that has to count for something.
Bleeding Wounds is deceptive - it's actually a bucket of potential damage once you do the math and very flexible about where you place it. Its expected damage and versatility is higher than Blade Cascade under normal circumstances, but it doesn't peak nearly as close.
Confounding Arrows is okay damage in a versatile package, though it's slightly tricky to use. Its main strengths are in Dazing even on a miss on up to three targets, and in extremely high chance to stun (save ends) a single target.
Stunning Steel is a weapon attack vs Fort that stun (save ends) on each of two attacks, allowing two targets to be stunned or one to be almost certainly stunned. Its damage isn't amazing, but it's certainly respectable enough given the very powerful effect.

*ROGUE*

C / Bloody Path
B+ / Garotte Grip
C / Slaying Strike

Bloody Path is certainly fun and it is a way to move speed without provoking any OAs, which is okay... but it's immensely dependent on enemy positioning and damage output. Thankfully monster basic attacks are often very good damage and sometimes have special effects, but their chances to hit themselves are often unimpressive.
Garotte Grip is autohit and minor if you can setup grab in some manner, so it may often be worth doing that instead of just using it as a standard attack. Its damage is not that special, but gaining cover and body shield is quite cool. Unfortunately, the chance of sustaining it three times for the coup de grace is extremely unlikely to be of great use.
Slaying Strike is deceptive. It looks like it must do a lot of damage and hey that's a big crit range, and certainly it's easy to find a bloodied enemy... but Ws aren't that great for rogues in general, a single attack is just worse than multiples, and a rogue crit on a bloodied target has significant chance of blow-through. Tack on that a character will likely have an expanded crit range for much of the time they possess the power and it's very disappointing output compared to other daily 15s.

*WARLOCK*

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

Curse of the Golden Mist is pretty awful in one sense - it's only really worth using on a creature that is flat out more useful than the caster, and ensures that the game is now going to be more boring for the caster and target... but it technically can have semi-broken results when used against solo creatures. For instance, the poor Tarrasque is completely screwed by a repeating Will attack to render it useless. I'm currently grading it Not Applicable with the suggestion that no one take it or base any power balance off it because powers shouldn't just be a more powerful version of it, either. They just should be designed completely differently.
Fireswarm can be high damage potential if you can position enemies well for it and/or get a nice string of hits, but it's slow and steady damage and replacing actions (sustain standard) you could otherwise eldritch blast (or whatever). At least fire and poison both will dodge a lot of resistances.
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.
Thirsting Maw is a pretty cool concept, but it's short range, vs Fort, the target is likely to save pretty quickly, not much going on if it misses, and the amount you heal is quite low.

*WARLORD*

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

Make Them Bleed is basically a very lackluster attack and 'ongoing 5 damage (until the enemy dies)'... and the ongoing damage is very cool in that way, but damage up front is just flat out better and since it doesn't stack in any way it's actually not even all that much damage over the course of the entire fight (barring a crazy 20 round fight, in which case it will catch up to the damage that some daily 15s do in one action.
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.
Warlord's Gambit is generally rubbish, since it's a lousy attack tied to giving the enemy a bonus if it attacks you. The bonus has a significant penalty, but the enemy gets to decide when to trigger it pretty often. That said, this power could see good use with multiclassing for a defender who wants to be attacked anyways. I'd like to see that an inspiring warlord with paladin multiclass could get good use out of it, but his Int would probably suck for how close the allies would have to be to get the free basic attack.

*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.
Blast of Cold is moderate AoE damage with an immobilize which can be good... but slow on a close attack is pretty dubious and it's just save ends so it doesn't have the persistence of many dailies at this level. It is enemies only, though, so this has nice synergy with putting it right on top of your defender.
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.
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.
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.

 

[keterys]

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.

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

Stunned
Dazed
Immobilized
Prone
Weakened

 

[Korror]

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?

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

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 and certain monsters are going to be very vulnerable to Garotte Grip becauseoftheir low STR scores. 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. The strongest monsters can count on a bonus anywhere from +13-15 which still gives the rogue good odds of maintaining the grab for 1-2 during which attacks directed against him have a good chance of hurting his poor target further. 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.

(I'm not quite sure of the numbers for a rogue's fortitude defense, I pull them from a build posted online and did some quick conversions to get them at level 15. They also included a belt of vim which may not be an option in every game)