Is this magical item balanced?

[Rechan]

I'm looking at Weapon of Myrdoon's Shard (Dragon 364).

Lvl 4, +1 item. Spear. Crit: +1d8 lightning damage. Powers: At Will: Make a melee attack with reach +1 greater than normal. Attack is lightning damage. Daily: Free action, Use power when hit with weapon: push 2, target and each creature adjacent take 1d8 lightning damage.

Compare that to the level 5 lightning weapon. +1, 1d6 crit, powers: at will, convert all damage to lightning. Daily: when hit with this weapon, target and each enemy within 2 squares takes 1d6 lightning.

It looks like the only thing limiting the Myrdoon's Shard is that 1) it's a spear, not any weapon, and 2) each adjacent creature takes the damage, rather than any enemy within 2 of the target.

Is that enough to balance it? What if a player used the ritual feat to swap the properties of the spear into a different weapon?

 

[CardinalXimenes]

Close- the Weapon of Myrdoon's Shard lets you make a melee _basic_ attack with reach +1 greater than normal. That alone makes it a lot less preferable than the level 5 lightning weapon, which works just fine with powers.

 

[James McMurray]

You can't transfer the property to anything that isn't a spear, since that wouldn't be a valid target for the enchantment.

 

[Rechan]

That alone makes it a lot less preferable than the level 5 lightning weapon, which works just fine with powers.

Except that I started a thread a week or so ago asking the benefit of being able to do energy damage instead of untyped damage.

The consensus appeared to be that there's no real benefit beyond: monsters with vulnerability (which, I can't name one that's vulnerable to lightning), or feats like Raging Storm that give you a +1 damage.

 

[Ximenes088]

Except that I started a thread a week or so ago asking the benefit of being able to do energy damage instead of untyped damage.

The consensus appeared to be that there's no real benefit beyond: monsters with vulnerability (which, I can't name one that's vulnerable to lightning), or feats like Raging Storm that give you a +1 damage.

The Wintertouched/Lasting Frost rogue/TWF ranger would disagree about the value of having frost damage on-command. Feat combos of equal succulence for other energy types may not exist yet, but given the progress of things, I'm sure they'll be along. Psychic, force, thunder, and cold all have sweeteners already.

In terms of the actual abilities, having a Close Burst 2 enemy-only minion-eraser once per day does sound very slightly better than a push-2 burst 1 nonselective hit. Particularly since you can put Lightning into your favorite weapon type, whereas the former must be a spear.

 

[Engilbrand]

For the record, I love the spear. I've used it as a major artifact in my game. The Warlock player fell in love with it and actually uses it when he can. It's rather humorous.

 

[MrMyth]

Let's compare:

CRIT:
Shard: +1d8
Lightning: +1d6
The spear has the clear advantage here.

AT WILL POWER:
Shard: Make a basic attack, gain +1 reach and make it lightning.
Lightning: Make all attacks lightning damage.
Reach when needed is nice... but I use powers much more than basic attacks. Now, as you mentioned, the actual benefit of lightning damage is somewhat debatable - but I think, at its core, it is a stronger ability, and will become more so as we see more monsters with vulnerability (or resistance to physical damage), more powers that boost energy damage (Genasi Stormsoul, for example), and so forth. I'd say, right now, these powers are even in actual practice, with the Lightning weapon being stronger in theory.

DAILY POWER:
Shard: Push 2, lightning damage to target and adjacent creatures.
Lightning: Lightning damage to target and all enemies within 2.
The shard has a smaller range and can hurt allies, but does more damage and has a push effect. Nice... but the Lightning weapons larger range is, for my money, much more important. It makes the weapon a minion-killer, even as it inflicts some pain on others. Now, the Push on the Shard is good for getting the enemy where you want them to go (along with any other fun from Push effects), but I'd say the advantage here goes - if only slightly - to the Lightning Weapon.

So, on the whole, they come out pretty much even. Given the Shard has a weapon restriction and the Lightning Weapon doesn't, I can see why they made it one level lower.

 

[Rechan]

(or resistance to physical damage),

Just because it's energy damage, I don't think that matters when it comes to physical.

Powers and attacks with a weapon have the weapon keyword. Monsters have 'Resist Weapon bla', whether that damage is energy or untyped, it's still WEAPON damage.

 

[CardinalXimenes]

Yes, but you only ever apply the lowest resistance to multityped damage. It's one reason that WotSTs and swordmages profit by using an energy-type weapon.