How good is the new MM? (Thread split)

[BobTheNob]

Without trying to get into a game of "Your wrong because" forum tennis, I will just give my answer simply as what I think of it.

I like it.

Is it the greatest at-will in the game? No. In fact, it can be argued alot of wizard at-wills are, pound for pound, better.

Does it fill a niche? Yes. All things considered a long range, guaranteed hit, very few creatures resist, moderate to low damage attack is very welcome in any party.

The amount of times we end up with a monster with a scant few hit points left (Im talking 5 or less)? Happens at least once every battle, and yes, we have had situations were players have attacked, had no "on miss" on the attack, and missed...and yes, we often end up with that creature getting to act with a few scant hit points. It really does happen, and the new format of MM is great for dealing with this, especially high threat monsters.

Can guaranteed damage be achieved in other ways? Yes. There is a feat which gives ranged basic attacks dex damage on miss for instance...if you are willing to pay foir the feat that is.

Now the key question : Is it better than original magic missile? Not buying into it. Good luck with your debate guys.

 

[Aegeri]

If you are going to continue to insult me, I'll just ignore your posts.

I am not being insulting by pointing out that your arguments are very weak, especially because you are never assuming good tactics (just damage?). Sliding a marked monster back adjacent to the defender that got moved away (or similar) is infinitely more valuable than 7-8 damage tactically. As an example, you ignore the potential effects of stacking illusory ambush on a creature that is already marked. This increases the penalty of that creature to attack others to -4. With a mage of the illusion school, that penalty against yourself is now -6. Not to mention few creatures will ever be at a 60% bonus to attack a defender, except in exceptional circumstances and those who are will be set back by a -2 penalty considerably.

I'm sorry but by every definition that is very strong control and your argument becomes very weak. Tactically, that's an immensely strong thing to do as it makes the creatures chance of ignoring the mark far less. Even if he could attack another PC if the defender got pushed away, the -4 penalty would be a heavy dissuading force. Not to mention that it makes it exponentially harder for them to hit the defender in the first place.

Basically, your arguments just don't apply to anything I've ever seen in a real game.

Psychic Lock is Paragon. This entire discussion is low level heroic.

But my argument is that MM disappears with effectiveness as levels are gained. You cannot argue that MM is a defining class feature if it becomes useless at epic can you? The point is that all of the other at-wills are going to eclipse magic missile by paragon and epic. As I've already argued, magic missile can barely keep up with other wizard at-wills even before then.

Just as a reminder about what this discussion is about, I'll quote the OP:

In another thread, the discussion came up that the new version of Magic Missile was simply better than any other single-target wizard At-Wills, and the Mage getting it for free was a substantial boost to their power level.

The bold part is truly the crux of the argument and central to your claim that the mage was different in play to the wizard from the previous thread. Right now, I don't think you can defend either point anymore.

I'll ignore your posts until you are civil and you actually stay within the topic of low level MM vs. other low level At Will Single Target Wizard powers.

Except this is not the argument, you just want to make it that. The argument was originally from the previous thread if MM for free was a defining class feature of mages, so much so it made them distinct from wizards. The point I made in the thread was that MM loses most of its effectiveness by paragon/epic tier, while only being moderately effective (but not substantially better than) other low level at-wills. That you've simply chosen to dig up and move your goalposts is irrelevant.

The point here is that your original argument MM is a defining class feature that makes mages genuinely different from wizards falls flat on its face. MM is a moderate benefit in heroic tier and other at-wills - especially once their feat support kicks in really drags MM away from being a worthwhile at-will. It cannot be a huge feature that distinguishes mages from wizards if it doesn't even work very well once you get beyond low heroic level.

Edit: Does this mean you have now conceded that mages aren't different than wizards, and that MM as a class feature is not something that makes mages more flexible than wizards?

 

[DaMidWestNinja]

I think all the stats argument is so funny. It doesn't really matter. The new MM spell is sick. I haven't been able to see it play out at paragon or above. But at heroic is amazing. Basicly you can do all your stats and mumbo jumbo but when it comes down to D&D and rolling the dice how many times do you find yourself just throwing 2's and 3's over and over, even tho its like a 1 in a 5000 chance. I know my players find it happening. Being able to pop 8 Dmg or so on a bloody enemy or a minion and know FOR SURE its gunna hit is a very tactically sound move and very satisfying.


Knowing something is gunna hit or guessing that it SHOULD hit is something totally different.

 

[Saeviomagy]

The control you mention is extremely limited for the At Will Single Target powers. A slide might do something. It usually doesn't. The foes typically can just shift back. If you can slide a foe into a pit, great. But, that's not typical. To take advantage of a one square slide often requires that the initiative order be something that helps (some DMs play all of the NPCs on the same initiative, so it would be more useful there).

I believe (and I could be totally wrong) that most DMs will roll one initiative for each monster type in an encounter. Given that, a favourable initiative is, while not a given, fairly easy to attain. Straight away that opens up huge amounts of possibilities for an at-will slide. Grab breaks, melee escapes, shifts into previously occupied squares, free flanks. Sure pits aren't typical, but interesting terrain of SOME form IS.

Mind you, that's all situational (although fairly common situations), and hard to quantify vs 8% more dead.

 

[Aegeri]

Don't forget the most basic of all tactics in 4E since its release: Sliding/pushing/pulling an enemy back towards a defender.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I just don't even understand this argument at all. It makes no sense.

I'm a level 1 Wizard with 18 INT and 14 WIS. Lets assume my CoD hits 50/50 (Ref is generally a point behind AC, so level 1 monster has Ref 14 and I'm getting +4 to-hit without ANY investment). My DPR is 1d6+4 = 7.5 = 3.75 + 3 = 7.75. The DPR for MM is 6.0 for the same character. They both auto-kill a minion and ANY bonuses I get to-hit whatsoever increase my DPR appreciably. Yes, you are doing a bit more guaranteed damage, but that helps you most in the unlikely circumstance where the monster falls at 6 hit points only ON YOUR TURN, which you are unlikely to know for sure. With a 20 INT MM does another point of damage, but is STILL behind CoD for this character.

In fact MM is behind CoD in DPR for ANY Wizard/Mage you care to invent unless they have a 20 INT and dump WIS to 12 or less. This is not common. I would literally only use MM vs CoD if I knew the target was a minion or somehow was sure they had low single-digit hit points.

This is ignoring of course all of the at-wills that kick CoD's butt up down and sideways. There are at least 3 of them that are just hands down better, but any Wizard who thinks he's gaining anything by using MM except once in great while is crazy. To say it comes up even once a fight is probably overstating things when you consider you have 2 other at-will powers and thus almost certainly one area attack and one that can be pretty much anything you want.

 

[KarinsDad]

I just don't even understand this argument at all. It makes no sense.

I'm a level 1 Wizard with 18 INT and 14 WIS. Lets assume my CoD hits 50/50 (Ref is generally a point behind AC, so level 1 monster has Ref 14 and I'm getting +4 to-hit without ANY investment). My DPR is 1d6+4 = 7.5 = 3.75 + 3 = 7.75. The DPR for MM is 6.0 for the same character.

CoD in this example is DPR 1d6+4 = 7.5 = 3.75 + 2 = 5.75.

Technically, the DPR is 6.25 due to crits with a 55% chance to hit. But, the Wizard is giving up +1 to hit and damage from a 20 Int for his more important area powers.

 

[Locutus Zero]

I feel like if you are calculating a wizard's dpr you are doing it wrong. Wizards are meant to kill minions and control other enemies. If your goal is to deal damage, there is a whole other group of classes for that.

 

[Neonchameleon]

I feel like if you are calculating a wizard's dpr you are doing it wrong. Wizards are meant to kill minions and control other enemies. If your goal is to deal damage, there is a whole other group of classes for that.

This.

I'm currently playing a human wizard. He has one spell that's repeatedly won battles. Storm Pillar. Urban environments (cramped battlefields) + storm pillar = win. His other two At Wills are Freezing Burst and Thunderwave (he also used to have Chilling Cloud instead of Freezing Burst - but the fighter has cold resistance). Would Magic Missile be better single target DPR than anything else he has? Yes. Has he ever wanted to cast it? Only when the bad guys are too far away. Beating up on that last one monster is about the only time he's wanted it.

Meanwhile he's thrown people off cliffs with Freezing Burst, blocked columns of reinforcements with storm pillar, and thrown someone the far side of a door and slammed it hastily with Thunderwave. By the time Magic Missile is worthwhile in the average fight, they are already in a mopping up exercise. It's the early rounds that matter. (And if I were calculating just on DPR, I'd be playing a sorceror). Hmm... the one time I'd probably want Magic Missile would be against a Solo. And there I'd be far better with a debuff (Chilling Cloud if our tanks could hold it still) because a -2 to hit would be giving 5 monster-equivalents a -2 to hit. And that is easily worth about the average five points of damage the Magic Missile would do. The only reason my wizard would even consider MM is if he picked up a Masters Wand of Magic Missile (and frankly he'd rather have a Masters Wand of Thunderwave).

Oh, and KarinsDad, a Wis of 13 is required for the Enlarge Spell feat. Which rocks so hard that it's well worth giving up that 20.

 

[KarinsDad]

Meanwhile he's thrown people off cliffs with Freezing Burst, blocked columns of reinforcements with storm pillar

Storm Pillar doesn't block anything except for its origin square. Sure, your DM might play the NPCs as if it's going to kill them, but he shouldn't. An NPC should rarely touch more than one square of it. Granted, it will stop minion reinforcements one way or the other.

And one of the tenants of 4E is to have larger areas to fight in and not cramped spaces. If your DM is giving you a lot of cramped areas and 5 foot wide corridors to fight in, then yes, Storm Pillar becomes a lot more useful.

Oh, and KarinsDad, a Wis of 13 is required for the Enlarge Spell feat. Which rocks so hard that it's well worth giving up that 20.

Why would you need to give up the 20 Int for that?

Int 20 costs 16 (with a +2 racial boost)
Wis 13 costs 3

A first level Int 20 Wizard PC can easily get a Wisdom of 13.

There's a lot of ways to get many of the feat requirements that a player of a Wizard wants, even with a 20 starting Int.