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Message: <blockquote data-quote="KarinsDad" data-source="post: 5421491" data-attributes="member: 2011">Do you know how MANY feats and magic items a Wizard PC has to have (and one has to have items and feats that are perfectly designed for this, i.e. no toughness or unarmored agility because the PC is focusing on damage) to get to 18 or 20 average damage at low level?D8+5 (the equivalent of Int 20 7 damage for MM) needs +10 to get to 19.5 average damage. That's a minimum of 6 items and/or feats and typically 7.One could technically have this by level 4, but most DMs don't hand out these types of items automatically. Or at least the DMs I have played with. They don't just hand out the best offensive damage items at low level. One acquires in our games a variety of items, not just offensive ones and not just the absolute best ones for damage dealing only.Sure, the player might acquire several of those items by high heroic, but not low heroic. Dual Implement Spellcaster alone requires 2 magic implements and most PCs shouldn't really get a second magic implement until they get a neck item, armor, and maybe a more miscellaneous item. You're talking mid-heroic at the earliest if one reasonably follows the basic DMG model.Yes, techically a DM could hand out perfect offensive items to a player for his Wizard, but I suspect that most DMs do not.Once in a blue moon? Like I said, my low level play experience disagrees with your armchair assessment.And actually, I wasn't specifically comparing it to Ray of Frost (50% chance to hit if the Wizard is lucky), just any of the single target powers. Phantom Bolt for a one square slide. Illusory Ambush for the -2 to hit (which unless the foe is doing a multi-foe attack next round, -2 is rarely going to make a difference, 1 encounter in 5 if the Wizard is lucky). Cloud of Daggers for a little extra damage.But I was talking about situations like the foe is already bloodied and the Striker hits but does not kill him, or the foe was already hit once or twice and the Striker bloodies him heavily. These happen quite often. I pretty much know that with 7 or 8 damage, the MM is going to take that foe out at least 80% of the time (unless it is an Elite or Solo and most of the time, I can figure those out). The Illusory Ambush takes him out 60% of the time.Which is better?It's definitely not something for every single round, hence, the reason I specified one round in three.But if I can drop the opposition from 5 foes on round one to 4 foes on round one? You bet. Drop him, decrease enemy damage by 20% right away, and change the action economy from 5 on 5 to 5 on 4. That will save healing surges and other resources every time.If I use the Illusory Ambush and hit, it too will drop the foe. But, there's that pesky 40% miss chance as well. And when that happens, one or more ally PCs have to waste attacks to make sure that foe is down.Granted, I could do 7 or 8 points and he still has 3 hit points remaining. It happens. But it doesn't happen as often as MM taking the foe out because I have a good idea when it will drop a foe and when it won't. If I don't think it will, I might use a different option, although automatically taking a foe with 15 hit points down to single digit hit points will definitely set him up to be taken down by the next successful hit from most fellow PCs, low damage roll or not.It's a team effort and one of the best ways to work as a team is to focus fire and decrease the number of enemies.</blockquote>

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