Grading Encounter Attack Powers

[Katsue]

That only leaves a 12 for Con, and I can't quite bring myself to start with such a low Con for a Defender, especially if I'm a Dragonborn.

It's 13 Con for the Human/Dragonborn, which brings you up to the magic number 28. (An Elf gets the same for a 16/16/16 Str/Wis/Dex spread) For a Human Fighter, a higher Con than that is probably suboptimal since it cuts into your Will and/or Reflex defences for very little hit point gain.

I would at best start Dex at a 14. That's enough to get Scale Armor Specialization at level 11.

You want 19 Dex at level 21 in order to qualify for Spear or Flail Mastery. Which pretty much means you want 20 Dex at level 30, because otherwise you're wasting bonusses. In fact, if you're using a Flail, you want to pump your Dex bonus even higher, because Chains of Sorrow is outrageously good in combination with Rain of Blows. A spearfighter is probably best off maximising his Wis in order to gain the best benefit from Pit Fighter and to qualify for Polearm Gamble and Uncanny Dodge at level 11.

 

[LittleElvis]

I would bump up the value of Righteous Smite. You could be in a party of 6 and grant 8 temporary hp to each of them, including yourself. That's a lot of hp. At third level, it's about like giving everyone an extra healing surge per encounter (assuming you hit), without anyone having to spend an action to get the surge value.

Invigorating Smite is useful so much less often, to so many fewer members of your party in most cases.

Righteous>>>Invigorating IMO, even with targeting AC. The powers become much less valuable at higher levels, but Righteous Smite is very powerful at lower levels IMO.

 

[keterys]

1) Bait and Switch B
Despite what I said up there, I do recognize that Bait and Switch is a nice power mainly for the attack against Will and the respectable damage dealt. Any movement is icing on the cake.

Since that icing includes swapping places with the enemy and potentially setting them up for something else nasty, it can be sweet icing indeed

2) Setup Strike B+
For all those situations where no other ally is nearby, you need some way of gaining combat advantage or you simply will not keep up with the rangers or warlocks. Setup Strike addresses a critical weakness in the rogue's abilies and thus I rate it highly.

So you consider it better than the 1st level Dazing Strike? I think it's an easy, easy call to keep Dazing Strike over Setup Strike.

3) Topple Over C+
They're prone, so what? Prone is easily reversible and doesn't grant combat advantage without spending an action point. The only thing that saves this power from a C rating is the to hit bonus. Inferior to Setup Strike in most respects.

At 11th level, I calculate it as doing the equivalent of better than a 3W attack with the +4 hit bonus (bumping a 1d8+3d8SA+5 Dex+3 Enh+2 Foc hit at 60% to 80% bumps avg dmg from around 19.2 to around 25.6, while a raw 3W attack would be around 24.6, but I'm handwaving crits). So the hit bonus is quite respectable.

 

[keterys]

I would bump up the value of Righteous Smite. You could be in a party of 6 and grant 8 temporary hp to each of them, including yourself. That's a lot of hp. At third level, it's about like giving everyone an extra healing surge per encounter (assuming you hit), without anyone having to spend an action to get the surge value.

Invigorating Smite is useful so much less often, to so many fewer members of your party in most cases.

Righteous>>>Invigorating IMO, even with targeting AC. The powers become much less valuable at higher levels, but Righteous Smite is very powerful at lower levels IMO.

Anyone else want to weigh in on this? Basically, I completely agree that the bloodied requirement is a huge penalty on the healing effect, but I'd also say that healing 8 is better than temporary hp 8, and that most importantly having a 75% chance to hit against Will compared to a 60% chance against AC is a huge deal since it does nothing at all if it misses.

So something like, let's say you get 24 temp hp out of Righteous 60% of the time = 14.4 temp and heal 12 hp out of Invigorating 75% of the time, so 9 healed... so 5.4 temp vs. 25% more damage and the comfort of more reliable results.

 

[Mengu]

It's 13 Con for the Human/Dragonborn, which brings you up to the magic number 28.

I don't know what magic number you're talking about but the typical build we use are with 22 point buy.

You want 19 Dex at level 21 in order to qualify for Spear or Flail Mastery. Which pretty much means you want 20 Dex at level 30<snip>

For the most part, when we are (or rather, I am) looking at how useful these powers are I compare them at their level not at level 30. The next few levels may weigh in a little bit on the decission and value of a power, but what ability I can use at level 30 is typically the least of my concerns.

 

[Fedifensor]

I went into this in an earlier response, but just on the basis of one ranger using Confounding Arrows it compares nicely, and that's not the full extent of possibilities for it. I don't want to set it as high as I did, but I also would never want to design something that had a greater bonus to attack, etc.

My point is that it's very party-dependent. The pregens at the LFR preview I played at Origins definitely weren't designed for the power, with only the warlock getting a real benefit. Everyone else was melee oriented except the wizard (who was poorly designed by not having Scorching Burst or Thunderwave).

Light blades and spears are -1 damage per W, so I get that... but what's wrong with flails?

Lower attack bonus than blades, less impressive feat choices than blades or hammers, not as many good choices for magic weapons, and the 19 Dex requirement for Flail Mastery is a killer. They're good for one thing - attacking people with shields (at Paragon tier and higher). Otherwise, you're usually going to be better off with a different weapon type.

I was totally going to have Righteous higher, but hitting Will is good stuff too. At the level you get it (even though it will definitely decrease in usefulness after that), it also heals a little less than a surge's worth any combat you're bloodied... and defenders get bloodied a lot.

It takes time to get bloodied. Furthermore, if the Defenders are being hit a lot, that's an even bigger argument for a power that grants temporary hit points...you won't have to worry about them stacking with other sources of temp HP if the targets burn through them.

Orb only works on at-wills... or did they errata that?

Not yet, though it should be just a matter of time - the duration extension is nearly useless on at-will powers. Regardless, the Orb of Inevitable Continuance can also extend a power by a turn, and it's not limited by the type of power.

It's very much an area burst 1 that screws opponents for a round if it hits. It just doesn't do anything else. So I have to weigh it not only against 'Well, what if a damaging power means that you'd actually kill the target a round faster' but also that it's not useful against minions, one of the top AoE targets.

Repeat after me - "there is more to wizards than damage potential and killing minions". Neutralizing opponents for a round as a controller is not a bad thing, especially if your objective is more than killing the bad guys. If you have to get to the magic gizmo, and you can immobilize a large portion of bad guys and make them whiff their attacks, it's a lot easier to achieve your goal.

If you just want to kill minions, you have Scorching Burst, and your other encounter and daily powers.

Yeah, I like fire shroud a lot... but I suspect I rounded down for targetting Fortitude. I hate doing that, but for an AoE that implies you're in melee range, I think I have to.

If you can hit more targets than you can with another power of the same level, then you'll end up with as many or more total hits even if you're attacking a higher defense.

While I agree, it is the largest and most usable (Area > Close, Burst > Blast) area attack at that level range. I could see lowering it, but being able to potentially hit an entire room's worth of guys early on with it is pretty good stuff.

I'd lower it to a straight B, personally. Fire Shroud does more damage and can hit more foes, and Color Spray just stomps it into the ground with the added daze effect.

I'll upgrade Maze of Mirrors, but I'm not sure I see it as being equal to Color Spray. Daze is more effective for enabling your allies (bonus to hit, sneak attack, moving without provoking, etc) and removing options, though the expected damage denial is in Maze's favor... and I don't consider close blast 5 worse than area burst 1.

Not having to step to the front line to use the power is a big plus in my eyes. Now, for a daily, I'm willing to put myself at the forefront of the battle. Otherwise, unless I'm playing a high defense build (like the Iron Mage), getting that close seems risky to me.

 

[keterys]

Repeat after me -

"Dead Men Tell No Tales!"

Or, rather. "Death is the best control".

It should be abundantly obvious from my many ratings that I consider dazing or reducing hit extremely good, better than a few points of damage here or there. But I'm telling you straight out that if this spell did even 1d4 damage with no Int bonus it would probably be generically a lot more useful. At least you'd get enhancement bonus, etc

 

[Mengu]

Anyone else want to weigh in on this? Basically, I completely agree that the bloodied requirement is a huge penalty on the healing effect, but I'd also say that healing 8 is better than temporary hp 8, and that most importantly having a 75% chance to hit against Will compared to a 60% chance against AC is a huge deal since it does nothing at all if it misses.

As I mentioned earlier, I value Righteous Smite more than Invigorating Smite, despite the lower chance to hit.

Earlier in the combat, bonuses to hit are more plentiful as the cleric, warlord, or rogue will using their encounter powers for early adventages. If the Paladin can benefit from one or more of these, he can pull off an early Righteous Smite with decent reliability. Later in the encounter, you are basically fighting the Leader to beat him to the punch of healing bloodied people, but the Leader won't stand still, he'll be healing bloodied people. Now you have to wait for that healing to deplete. By that time, the number of enemies left will be fewer, which means they'll be generating fewer attacks. So they might get one, maybe two people down to bloodied, and that's going to be the extent of healing you can provide.

I'd say in a party without a Leader, Invigorating Smite may be a bit better, but if there is already a leader (which should be the case in most balanced parties), Righteous Smite is more beneficial. Whenever you are facing an enemy Controller, the enemy controller chews through those temporary hit points very quickly, and everyone will be glad they had them. Same can be said when facing lots of Minions or Skirmishers, this would be the way the Paladin as Defender could keep the back line safe for a little while.

 

[Katsue]

I don't know what magic number you're talking about but the typical build we use are with 22 point buy.

A 1st level fighter with 13 Con has 28 hit points, which gives them a healing surge value of 7. And the numbers I quoted are eminently doable with 22 point buy.

For the most part, when we are (or rather, I am) looking at how useful these powers are I compare them at their level not at level 30. The next few levels may weigh in a little bit on the decission and value of a power, but what ability I can use at level 30 is typically the least of my concerns.

Well then, take into consideration the fact that Rain of Blows, when you meet the requirements for the secondary attacks, does more single target damage than any other Fighter power of any level. Does that make it seem worth putting +1 into Dex at 4th level?

 

[Korror]

Since that icing includes swapping places with the enemy and potentially setting them up for something else nasty, it can be sweet icing indeed

Like what though? You only switch places so you can't use it to push them into something nasty and if you want to use it to group up monsters for some good wizard blasting fun, you have to start out flanked. I do agree that's its a nifty power but I see its use being more to slingshot yourself behind enemy ranks than to set up the monsters for anything.

So you consider it better than the 1st level Dazing Strike? I think it's an easy, easy call to keep Dazing Strike over Setup Strike.

Why not keep both? My rogue isn't up to the level where he's started replacing things yet but I like to have lots of ways to make sure I still get SA damage.

At 11th level, I calculate it as doing the equivalent of better than a 3W attack with the +4 hit bonus (bumping a 1d8+3d8SA+5 Dex+3 Enh+2 Foc hit at 60% to 80% bumps avg dmg from around 19.2 to around 25.6, while a raw 3W attack would be around 24.6, but I'm handwaving crits). So the hit bonus is quite respectable.

+4 hit bonus means a starting STR of at least 16 right? I can't see that being practical as that would preclude a starting 18 DEX. Maybe a dragonborn rogue could start with 16 STR but it seems excessive for rogues who really want their primary stat as high as possible.

Also once you're at the point where +hit is so valuable, you might be better off with Bait and Switch since most creature's will defense is 2-4 lower than their AC. The additional +1 to hit from starting with 18 DEX/14 STR instead of 16/16 coupled with attacking a monster whose AC >= Will + 3 will give you more than 4.5 increased average damage to say nothing of moving the monster around.