Mearls on Controller design and At-Will balance

[keterys]

Areas have their own limitations (at least the ones that are not 'enemies only') - if they're not close to competitive otherwise they just won't see use.

 

[Mort_Q]

Other than orb broken-ness...

Not to go off topic, but is it really that bad? I have found (only a Wiz 4 mind you) the Orb to be mostly useless.

 

[DracoSuave]

True, but such an analysis also undervalues coordinated fire, and the fact that n monsters consume (n^2-n)/2 times as many resources as a single monster does.

 

[keterys]

Not to go off topic, but is it really that bad? I have found (only a Wiz 4 mind you) the Orb to be mostly useless.

It requires attempting to break it to a certain extent, but it's fairly trivial to break it at higher level, especially when combined with almost anything else that imposes save penalties. At 11th or so you can make it impossible for a normal creature to save out of a condition, for example. That's... poor, but really it doesn't come up that often so it's not a big factor and why I felt reasonable excluding it.

 

[brehobit]

Areas have their own limitations (at least the ones that are not 'enemies only') - if they're not close to competitive otherwise they just won't see use.

Sure, no doubt. But the limitation is generally has been very minor for us. Our wizard has always had a way to hit at least one person with the burst and not target any allies. But I'd say 80% of the time he's hitting 2+ and 20% of the time 4+. We do move a bit to help him out, but that's teamwork.

And the ones that do target only enemies are just huge. That level 3 close burst 3 for wizards that hits only enemies is just crazy powerful. Divine glow for clerics (level 1 encounter) is also very very nice.

The ones auto-hit everyone in 1 square or a zone are also grossly powerful. Auto-hit generally needs to be treated as about 2x damage...

 

[Nahat Anoj]

If people wanted to boost the power and controller-ness of wizard at-wills, they could do a lot worse than just giving the wizard the benefits of Master's Wands automatically. So any wizard using Magic Missile gets to push 1, regardless of implement.

I think that's what I'm going to do in my games, actually.

And it took Mearls this long to realize that the Controller was the anti-Leader role? I've known that since before Races and Classes was published. (You can see a similar dichotomy between Strikers and Defenders.)

I think this is the first time he's mentioned it. I'm pretty sure he was aware of it before the PHB hit the shelves in June, either as a design guideline or, at least, had some kind of dialogue going on in house about it. It probably just happened too late in the book's writing cycle to really emphasize.

Indeed, take a look at the Master's Wands you just mentioned. These could be viewed as equipment based fixes for wizard at-wills, so on some level Wizards was aware of what was going on well before AV was published.

 

[Nahat Anoj]

I still feel the wizard at-wills don't need any help. I think the invoker at will is only a very very small delta (generally less than slow or prone) so not a big deal...

4e really undervalues area attacks. Sure they are weak against solos. But they are huge the rest of the time.

I don't think 4e is undervaluing anything. Vanguard's Lightning has the same AoE, the same range, and the same damage as Scorching Burst, in addition to the extra effect of hindering OAs. Thus, it has some use against minions, standards, elites, *and* solos.

EDIT - I just saw your post where you say you think the 4e developers also overvalue area attacks. I understand what you mean now. I still think that if Mearls thinks Vanguard's Lightning is the baseline for controllers, then Scorching Burst should be augmented, however.

 

[eprieur]

We had a wizard initially but we found it pretty weak overall. He was doing ok vs minions but we had a few cases of AE hitting the party that turned out to be pretty bad overall.

When he used flaming sphere at a start of a big fight he ruled that fight, but that was probably more having to do with the fact that if any lvl 1 daily is broken it's that one.

As soon as he started using at-wills mostly he sucked. Bad hit rate, low damage, slow that barely matters past round 1-2 of a combat, etc. Imo that's the sad truth of wizards.

Let's look at some numbers. Assuming a 20 int (60% hit rate) wizard with +1 damage bonus due to feat (either from staff focus or some other feat), you have the following dpr numbers for at-wills at lvl 1:

Magic Missile: 6.75.
Ray of frost = 5.8
Cloud of dagger with wisdom attack (14 wis) = 7.8
Scorching burst, assuming 2 targets which have to be pretty close and ideally in a position to not hit a friend with the spell: 11.65. And I want to stress the fact it's not trivial to always hit 2 good targets with the burst as far as I'm concerned. Monsters will want to melee you and get close to you.

Now let's look at the invoker: Avenging Light: 7.1 dpr off the bat, 8.9 dpr with the constitution bonus (16 consti, say a dwarf invoker).

Divine Bolts is basically a garanteed 2 targets which mean you are pretty much doing 11.65 dpr as long as you have 2 monsters within 10 range of you. This seem overall much better then scorching burst. Not counting the fact that Vanguard's Lightning is a direct upgrade and that the best controller spells they gave to controllers that I saw yet is Grasping Shards. I mean just better then ray of frost imo. Same range, same controlling effect but you get to clear the minions.

Playing an invoker tomorrow I would take grasping hands and probably divine bolts with a 20 wisdom built. As a human maybe I would add in avenging light with maybe 14 con or something similar. In those instances basically your at will are simply better then wizards and as for grasping hands it's probably better at control then even wizard's encounter at least for low level.

Just for comparaison as a striker you are looking at doing 12dpr or so with good builts minimum so doing 11.65 with divine bolts is nearly striker damage. I think wizards have decent encounters and good dailies (at least for doing damage, probably not for control though) at least early on but their at wills are very bad and since you rely on them a lot in the early levels that a major problem that the invoker doesn't seem to have (at least not as much).

 

[RigaMortus2]

My view is that the role of controllers should be area (mobility) denial and imposing conditions on the opponents. I don't want my wizard to fill the same damage-dealing role that my party's rogue and warlock fill. I want to limit what the enemy does and allow the strikers to be more effective in their role. Icy Terrain is great for my 2nd level wizard because I can knock things prone and let the rogue go nuts.

I don't think WotC should have pigeon-holed classes into certain roles. Rather, I think they should have their specific builds fit a role. A Wizard should have the option to be a controller or a striker (imo) based on the build and selection of powers. In fact, I sort of see Wizards more as strikers than controllers. I see them as nuking everything, with "controlling" as a minor aspect (if only held out from previous editions based on their spell list).

 

[Rechan]

Let me clarify. When designing powers, adding something to an attack (say slow) means you will have it deal less damage to keep it balanced. The bigger the bonus the more the damage is cut or level raised.

4e doesn't cut damage enough for area attacks.

Whatwhatwhat?

The Area attacks in the PHB are weak. Look at Icy Terrain. 1d6 damage over a small burst (same as Scorching burst). The knocked prone is nice, but still, that's weak.

Doing penny damage to several people is nice in theory. But in play, it's hard to get more than 2 foes in an attack, unless it's a Burst2.

I firmly disagree; I think the area effects are some of the weakest powers.