"loseing is not cost effective"

[Obryn]

I think you're doing just fine. Especially with a swordmage... that Frost Backlash is damaging but quite situational. I think you used it well.

Honestly, many players have a big tendency to hoard dailies. Most of the time, you really don't need to - your at-will and encounter powers are going to be your bread & butter.

(Also: Never, ever hoard encounter powers. In fact, use them all in every encounter if you can.)

You can definitely get away without dailies if your group is working together as a team. Some rules of thumb...

(1) Take out the minions with low-damage and area effects. Your strikers are wasting their time if they are working on minions.

(2) On everything else, concentrate fire whenever possible. If everyone is attacking someone different, they will get to beat on you for a few extra rounds.

(3) Unless it's a special circumstance, take out the weaker foes before you take out the tougher ones. There are exceptions, naturally, but in general, you're better off clearing the field before taking on the big bad. (Ignore this if the toughest foes have some really obnoxious powers, like an aura that continually damages you; or if the weaker foes are almost unable to hurt you.) Ideally, just have a defender lock up the toughest foe, and clear the field while that defender is getting pummeled.

(4) Flank. Flank all the time. Knock things down. Blind them. Daze them. Stun them whenever possible. Your rogue will thank you for it, and those +2 to-hits certainly add up for everyone else.

-O

 

[Doctor Proctor]

Also, one other word of advice. Familiarize yourself with the basics of the other classes in your party.

If you have a Ranger, for example, he has the Quarry ability. If he's not using when attacking, remind him to do so.

Clerics have Healer's Lore, which adds their WIS mod to heals, but a LOT of them miss this in the class description. So if you see them just granting surge + 1d6, tell them to look up Healer's Lore and start applying it.

If you have a Rogue, they need Combat Advantage to allow them to get Sneak Attack damage in. Help them get it. Set up flanks, knock down enemies, etc... Sometimes, it might even be good to work out with the Rogue to delay his initiative until after someone else goes in order to better set up flanks. (ie- A Fighter should go before the Rogue because he can move up, attack and then mark a target, and then allow the Rogue to go and get SA because of the flank. If the Rogue goes first, he could be exposing himself to a lot of damage and may just decide to hang back and throw a Dagger, thus wasting a round of SA damage).

As for Defenders, it's simple: Mark, mark, mark, mark. All the time. It's almost universally better to mark someone than to not, so always remember to do it. In fact, I have a standing rule with my DM "Assume that I marked my targets unless I say otherwise" in order to make sure I don't forget. (There are times when it's not good though...like when you hit 8 guys with something like Dragon Breath, you might not want to mark ALL of them. Or when my party and I fought a Gelatenous Cube, I didn't mark him because I had lost a good majority of my HP already when he gobbled me up, and it was better to let him lurch down the hall at the fresher characters.)

 

[Griogre]

As others have mentioned, opening with at-wills for a round or two to feel out monsters you aren't familiar with is a good tactic. Generally you don't want to massive over kill something with an encounter or a daily. This is a good *general* rule.

As mention already if you know you’re in a tough fight immediately kicking off powers that last the whole encounter is a good strategy.

Something not yet mentioned is that as you go up in levels monsters generally get meaner/tougher after being bloodied. Bloodied means a monster is halfway through his hit points. Thus, everything else being equal you usually would like to go through the last half of tough monster's hit points faster than the first half. Many Dailies and Encounters do more damage. Bear in mind focus fire and good team tactics probably matter more. You won't get to see a lot of monsters getting tougher at bloodied until mid heroic though.