Power Multipliers and Weapons

[Cadfan]

Don't forget the Warlock's Curse for an additional 1d6 damage.

 

[keterys]

There's more to being a warlock than just damage... and there's a pretty big difference between a two-handed melee ac attack and a range 10 reflex attack.

Much like there's a difference between Eldritch Blast and Eyebite, prompting lower damage in the latter.

 

[loisel]

Don't forget the Warlock's Curse for an additional 1d6 damage.

I'm not. All the other strikers have something similar. I'm just thinking that the warlocks may be lesser strikers than the other kinds of strikers.

There's more to being a warlock than just damage...

Yeah ok, but they're strikers. According to the rules as we know them...

Strikers (like rangers, rogues, and warlocks) deal large amounts of damage to single targets at one time and quickly move about the battlefield.

So, yes, warlocks are supposed to deal large amounts of damage to single targets. This 2[W]=2d6 is not promising.

Seb

Edit: This reminds me of the flavor text for the 3.0 Sorceror that said that you should play a Sorceror if you wanted to have lots of social skills and do the talking for the party; and then you looked at the class skills list and found not a single social skill. Obviously, they thought "high-charisma = the talking dude", and then forgot that you needed social skills for that to work.

 

[Gloombunny]

Aha, you're right. Thanks for pointing that out.

I think it applies to the daily powers though. Brute Strike is 6d6+3 vs. Curse of the Dark Dream, 3d8+4 and has a secondary effect which can be sustained. Not nearly as bad.

Hm. Perhaps Fighter Encounter Powers don't do 2[W]? The DDXP Fighter has Passing Attack, which only does 1[W] as well. If so, that would keep things fairly even. On the other hand, most (maybe all) other encounter powers we've seen do 2[W]. Could this be a mistake?

Edit: Also, let's take the Dragonborn Paladin's Encounter smite attack from KotSF, which does 2d8 base damage. Were he to wield a greatsword or a maul, I'm assuming that would be 4d6. So while it doesn't work out for the fighter (assuming because the Fighter's attack also knocks someone prone), it probably would for the Paladin's attacks, so the question remains.

The paladin's encounter smite doesn't do anything except damage, though. I think Sweeping Strike just has lower damage because its special effect is deemed powerful enough to compensate... after all, the dwarf gets an encounter power at level 3 that does 2W damage but doesn't have a special effect. It's probably the same deal with Witchfire - low damage for an encounter power because of a strong special effect.

 

[Kobold Avenger]

Not all of the encounter and daily powers have been seen, so there really isn't a bunch of good examples to compare them to. We've seen 1st level powers, and in the case of 3rd powers, I'm sure there's 3rd level wizard spells that are more damaging than Flaming Shroud. And we've also haven't seen the full effect of specializing in spell types or implements yet, or if a Warlock Curse scales with level, and everything else that's in the books.

Certainly at 1st level the fighter will probably do more damage than the wizard, but it was always that way in ever edition of D&D.

Classes and powers are designed to work together in 4e, even more than it did in 3e. And causing an enemy to become unconscious from 2 failed saves is quite damaging even if it can't measured in numbers.

 

[Ondo]

Not trying to raise any alarm bells or anything, but I am curious what other people think about this potential trend.

The "potential" that the designers were incompetent? I see no reason to worry about it.

 

[loisel]

Not all of the encounter and daily powers have been seen, so there really isn't a bunch of good examples to compare them to.

That's what I'm hoping. Those classes that have 2[W] encounter powers often also have 1[W] encounter powers at the same level, so maybe we were just "unlucky" and we still haven't seen the 2d10 encounter and 3d10 daily for the lock, and what we saw is the 1[W] power.

It's also possible they replaced 2[W] with 2d6. All I'm saying is, that would be unfortunate. It should be possible to get at least 2d10 with one of the strikers, I think (my guess is the ranger.)

Especially once we have the equipment guide (whatever it's called), which inevitably will have some nice new fat weapon with 2d8 or something.

Cheers,

Seb

 

[AtomicPope]

All we're seeing is a fighter that forgoes the shield and takes up the 2HW. More damage but less armor. It's a good choice when there's two tanks in the party. If the fighter cannot do damage then it's back to 1st, 2nd, or 3rd Edition again.

Comparing the damage to a Warlock in a superficial way isn't doing the system any justice. For starters, we're looking at the most damage we've ever seen for a fighter, in any edition. That doesn't mean that the Warlocks are being built for damage. They could be taking more debuffs then damage powers because the rest of the group can do better damage that way. Also, there's a fighter with the AC of a Rogue in melee. Quid pro quo.

 

[Victim]

The Fey style warlock sounds like it'd be less damage oriented than other styles (like Infernal). When I think Fey, I tend to imagine more trickery, charms, illusions, nature stuff, etc than massive piles of damage.

 

[Byronic]

I think Warlocks might have a feat later on that allows their Eldritch Blast to effect multiple people (or perhaps an encounter or daily that allows them to enlarge the blast). This would raise their damage somewhat, especially if it was a feat.

I'm not entirely happy with them with what we know but I think I'd play a Warlock anyway (even if they are a lesser striker).