James McMurray
First Post
What "sacrifices in ability to do anything else" do you have to make?
Orb isn't Broken (probably)
- Thread starter MeMeMeMe
- Start date
If that's true, it's definitely broken. There's no way any single character should have any chance of taking out a solo with a single attack, no matter what the level.
A solo is likely to be the most important foe you face that day, the big bad guy that the GM has crafted his most impressive encounter around.
This isn't a 20-something level daily, it's a 1st level At Will in combination with a basic class feature. There's definitely something wrong here.
It's not as broken with Sleep.
Sleep is a single spell with two effects. The Orb only affects one effect (not one spell).
So a caster can modify the Slow, or the Unconscious. If he picks Slow, the creature might come out of Unconscious quickly. If he picks Unconscious, the creature might come out of the Slow and never fall Unconscious.
I don't think it's broken at all. It's mostly crap at the lower levels, and it isn't even that impressive at Epic level when it's supposed to be broken. A Solo has incredible defenses and great attacks. If you spend time dilly-dallying trying to nail a power because you second-stringed your Int, you are going to suck.
IMO, it's much better to use a Wand to nail a Thunderclap, and then use Orb of Inevitable Continuance to extend the duration one more round. Great Dex gives you great Initiative as well - better for the first strike.
This gives your team the "handhold" they need to latch onto a single Solo and keep giving it overlapping status effects - specifically stun. It does no good for you to keep trying to nail a save (ends) status power round after round, succeed on the 3rd or 4th attempt and THEN try to extend that duration ostentibly to win. It's a team game now. You want to enable your team mates to nail THEIR powers and not worry about retribution.
Example:
Thunderclap into 2 rounds stun, enabling the Warlord or Cleric to use a boosting power to enable your Strikers, who will then layer on the damage and further defense debilitators. Once you get those defense debilitators or attack boosters online, you should no longer have a problem hitting, and then you can just hit the Solo with the rest of your Stun powers (if the rest of the team isn't already).
In my view, the Wand is a MUCH better implement for defeating Solos for this reason (alpha strike principle) and therefore is balanced by having only 1 effect and relying on an atttribute that's redundant on defense.
The Staff is good, too. Not only does it enable the Hand powers (those are excellent by the way) and boost your Fort defense and HP and healing surges, it allows you to cancel an attack on you after you see the attack and damage rolls (so you're sure about whether it's going to do something and how much of that something it's going to do). This is essentially you auto-canceling a single target attack with an immediate interrupt that you can use in every encounter.
Basically, if you want to go Blood Mage, you probably want to go with a Staff.
IMO, it's much better to use a Wand to nail a Thunderclap, and then use Orb of Inevitable Continuance to extend the duration one more round. Great Dex gives you great Initiative as well - better for the first strike.
This gives your team the "handhold" they need to latch onto a single Solo and keep giving it overlapping status effects - specifically stun. It does no good for you to keep trying to nail a save (ends) status power round after round, succeed on the 3rd or 4th attempt and THEN try to extend that duration ostentibly to win. It's a team game now. You want to enable your team mates to nail THEIR powers and not worry about retribution.
Example:
Thunderclap into 2 rounds stun, enabling the Warlord or Cleric to use a boosting power to enable your Strikers, who will then layer on the damage and further defense debilitators. Once you get those defense debilitators or attack boosters online, you should no longer have a problem hitting, and then you can just hit the Solo with the rest of your Stun powers (if the rest of the team isn't already).
In my view, the Wand is a MUCH better implement for defeating Solos for this reason (alpha strike principle) and therefore is balanced by having only 1 effect and relying on an atttribute that's redundant on defense.
The Staff is good, too. Not only does it enable the Hand powers (those are excellent by the way) and boost your Fort defense and HP and healing surges, it allows you to cancel an attack on you after you see the attack and damage rolls (so you're sure about whether it's going to do something and how much of that something it's going to do). This is essentially you auto-canceling a single target attack with an immediate interrupt that you can use in every encounter.
Basically, if you want to go Blood Mage, you probably want to go with a Staff.
James McMurray
First Post
Why would you second string your Int? The goal isn't to get maximum Wisdom modifier with your orb, it's to get maximum effect. That means you need to have Int as your highest stat as normal, and wisdom as your second highest. You'll also want to get combat advantage, the best implement for your level, and the highest Power bonus to hit your friends an provide. If you're struggling to hit with yor orbed spell, you're probably struggling to hit with anything.
That said, the orb is not auto-death against anything of your level except minions, who already die if you can succeed on an attack roll. Any other creature is unlikely to be killed in a single hit, even a coup de grace. You'd have to get your wisdom to 26 to have a chance at giving them -10 to the saves. You wouldn't have to shaft yourself on Int, but you'd have to dump a bunch of other stats, making things like Arcane Reach hard to get. But even -8 + Spell Focus wouldn't be enough, as the toughest monsters get bonuses to their saves.
It's not worthless by any means, and it does strike me as being stronger than the wand or staff. But it's not broken. At least not any incarnation I've seen of it.
That said, the orb is not auto-death against anything of your level except minions, who already die if you can succeed on an attack roll. Any other creature is unlikely to be killed in a single hit, even a coup de grace. You'd have to get your wisdom to 26 to have a chance at giving them -10 to the saves. You wouldn't have to shaft yourself on Int, but you'd have to dump a bunch of other stats, making things like Arcane Reach hard to get. But even -8 + Spell Focus wouldn't be enough, as the toughest monsters get bonuses to their saves.
It's not worthless by any means, and it does strike me as being stronger than the wand or staff. But it's not broken. At least not any incarnation I've seen of it.
James McMurray
First Post
I'm not sure this is true. Sleep doesn't have multiple effects, it has a single effect which applies multiple status conditions. Is there a FAQ or a page reference for this?
Rith the Wanderer
First Post
Customer service has stated that you have to choose either the slow save (one effect) or the unconscious save (one effect) to apply the subtraction on.
Versus a solo, even the people second stringing their int will still be granting a success on a 16 or higher on the save roll. So with sleep, they can either have a 75% chance to sleep the solo, and then next round (and every round after that) they get out on a 7 or higher(70% of the time). Or they can save it for when the solo fails the first roll (30% of the time) and then give the solo a 25% chance to get out of the unconscious, on the off chance that it fails. This is not a broken tactic either way
On solos the only good use of the orb + sleep is to have a Trickster ED (at level 30, mind you) auto fail the first slow save, and then apply the unconscious penalty.
It is much, much more useful to attach it to a stun, which doesn't allow a coup de grace, but it keeps them in for an average of about 3 rounds. This is good, but still not ridiculous.
Roxlimn: Although I agree with you that the staff is a good choice for a blood mage, destructive salutation is an amazing spell to slap the orb encounter on, because you are going to hit someone with the stun (hopefully someone important) and then you can slap the subtraction on it, and if its an elite or normal hes going down for enough turns to probably kill all his buddies.
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Effect in this case does not mean "Effect" (which is a game term that Sleep does not have), it means "effect" in the English meaning of the word. Slowed is a different effect than Unconscious. It's also a different Condition than Unconscious.
There is no "spell effect" terminology which indicates that changing from Slowed to Unconscious is staying within the same effect. So, one is forced to use the English definition of the word effect.
It is part of the same spell, but it is not part of the same effect. Spells can contain multiple effects.
James McMurray
First Post
Customer Service also said that Wall of Fog is both an attack and not an attack. I'm not sure how much confidence I have in them to resolve rules issues. 
My Blood Mage uses an orb, but I don't have the constitution to get a good benefit from the staff. I have to rely on mobility, defensive spells, the cleric, and the paladin to keep me churning out the damage. Then again, I don't try to do it with ever spell either. Usually just the ones that are going to hit at least twice, like Blood Pulse and Flaming Sphere. We're still 8 levels away from Destructive Salutation, so I'll have to let you know how that works out.
My Blood Mage uses an orb, but I don't have the constitution to get a good benefit from the staff. I have to rely on mobility, defensive spells, the cleric, and the paladin to keep me churning out the damage. Then again, I don't try to do it with ever spell either. Usually just the ones that are going to hit at least twice, like Blood Pulse and Flaming Sphere. We're still 8 levels away from Destructive Salutation, so I'll have to let you know how that works out.
Rith the Wanderer
First Post
Customer Service also said that Wall of Fog is both an attack and not an attack. I'm not sure how much confidence I have in them to resolve rules issues.
My Blood Mage uses an orb, but I don't have the constitution to get a good benefit from the staff. I have to rely on mobility, defensive spells, the cleric, and the paladin to keep me churning out the damage. Then again, I don't try to do it with ever spell either. Usually just the ones that are going to hit at least twice, like Blood Pulse and Flaming Sphere. We're still 8 levels away from Destructive Salutation, so I'll have to let you know how that works out.
Haha, if it works out like it does on paper (thats a funny term for an essentially paper and dice game, but you know what I mean) it should be quite fun for your blood mage.
Customer service does indeed mess things up a lot, but I usually tend to accept there rulings unless there is a contradiction, especially when they cite passages out of the books. This one I think could actually go either way, the orb writing says "that effect" and I think slow and unconscious are distinct effects. However, the sleep spell says the target "becomes unconscious" after it fails its first save, which I also think could easily be read as the slow effect becoming an unconscious effect. Which would be the same effect(?).
I think that's probably why someone asked the customer service reps.
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