reliable how good? Forked Thread: Brutal Strike: not expended on miss?

[Danceofmasks]

Depends on what you consider a buff.
Flanking (CA) is a buff, Righteous Brand is a buff, and neither of those consume extra actions.

Personally, the best use of aid another would be to help a massive debuff, such as knockout (rogue 9), which is in turn a massive buff (helpless+CA) for the subsequent daily.

 

[eamon]

I'd say reliable is better than half damage - quite a bit better, actually (for a fighter). Brute Strike is actually one of the worst examples of reliable powers. First of all, a fighter's job is generally to be threatening and sticky. A bit more damage is nice, but hitting with that sticky effect is much better. I'd pick the chance to actually make that sticky effect hit over half damage almost every time. Secondly, the "buff the daily" effect is actually beneficial to reliable power users, not detrimental. Buffing costs effort, and you can't buff everything, not even every daily power. That means that using a reliable power pays off since you don't need to expend scarce per-encounter or even daily buffing resources, but can instead just rely a bit on time - instead using those buffing resources to buff a striker's blow, or a different non-reliable power. Finally, (just a minor benefit) reliable powers are more resilient when confronted with creatures with resistance to damage (rare) or when used on a minion (though usually there's no point in using a daily on a minion, in specific circumstances, you might, of simply without knowing)

So, unless the power is really only dealing damage and not applying any status effects, a reliable power is simply better than one that deals half-damage on a miss.

 

[Cadfan]

There's another factor people have not considered, the phenomena known as "buff the daily!"

This involves the party working together to make sure a daily hits. Aid another, clerical attack buffs, action point with action surge, elven reroll....all things that go into ensuring the dailies hit as often as possible. Thing is, its much easier to buff the attack once a fight then it is twice. If I miss the first time with reliable, I'm probably going to have a much weaker attack bonus next time. But with another power, all of the power is right up front with a big attack bonus.

So that's another nudge to non reliable attacks.

I mentioned it from the opposite direction. The reason you have to "buff the daily" is because daily attacks tend to read something like this:

Attack: Awesome Strike of Awesomeness
Hit: 3[W]+Str, and the target is inflicted with ZOMG ALL KINDS of status effects!
Miss: Half damage.

So the half damage is nice, but what you really wanted were the status effects, or the benefits to your allies, or whatever. If you lose those, you lose most of the power's value, so you need to buff the power.

But if you're using a Reliable power, you don't have to worry about it. You'll get what you were looking for, eventually. So just keep rolling that d20, and let your allies do their thing.