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Message: <blockquote data-quote="James McMurray" data-source="post: 4578099" data-attributes="member: 743">Reaping Stance, in terms of damage, will outperform supremacy of Steel in most encounters, as it will do much more than 6[W] (it does 1[W] + 10) minimum, more if your dex mod is high (and you won't have it if it isn't). Reaper's Stance is a bad example though, because as stances go it's among the worst. The extra crit range won't matter, because you'll already have that from a feat. Who said anything about autodamage stances every encounter? It's a strange campaign that includes minions in every fight. But speaking of regen, how about Unyielding Avalanche, which gives regen, defenses, save bonuses, and enemy control?The problem is not that the fighter can autokill minions with his stances. If thats all the stance did it would be fine. The problem is that stances which are great against normal monsters are insane against minions, and make the inclusion of non-artillery minions the equivilent of saying "here ya go, have some free xp."Make an epic level Blood Mage / Archmage and tally up your Flaming Sphere damage over the course of a day. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> Even without factoring in minions the average sphere damage per round is 13.5 + implement * the number of creatures you can put it next to with your move action. It's only a waste of time if you actually start attacking with it (unless you got a high roll on your bolstering blood)Scenario 1) An encounter burst is used against two normal monsters. It deals 20 damage, which is 1/4 of the monster's hit points. He is 1/4 of the way to ending their threat and has had no effect on their damage output.Scenario 2) The burst hits 4 of the 8 minions. They all die. He is halfway to ending the threat and has halved the damage output.Minions are not worth 1/4 of a standard monster, at least not if they ever get anywhere near each other.I've had a lot more than 3 fights like that in my epic game, except for the nothing but minions scenario. Minions, prior to my house rule, had practically 0 effect on the fights. Powers that are good against normal monsters (like autodamage stances, come and get it, and bursts) are instant death to minions. the players are not optimized to handle any specific type of threat. The fighter has come and get it and unyielding avalanche so he can keep normal, elites, and solos stuck to him. When he uses them around minions it's gravy, not some sort of loss. The wizard has area bursts with status effects so he can control standard, elites, and solos. When he uses them against minions it's gravy, not some kind of loss.Have you done your own proposed experiment? Try it out. You may be surprised. The so-called "opportunity cost" to kill minions doesn't exist, because you're using the same powers, the same actions, and lowering the threat level of the encounter more than they'd have done if those 4 minions had been a single monster capable of surviving the attack.Note: this is not as true at lower levels. Flaming Sphere and the "enemies only" nukes are among the few things that are very strong at crossing the minion / standard monster divide. And those aren't prolific enough to be a major hassle. In the heroic tier minions are worth at least 1/4 of a standard for a typical party build. They could be worth more than that if you lack a controller, your leader isn't a cleric, and/or they're given ranged weapons.</blockquote>

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