Sorcerer doing massive damage - or is he?

[Dayspire]

I'm running a low-Paragon level game (level 12), and I'm a little concerned about the damage output of the sorcerer. I wanted to run this data by other DM's who might be running games around that level, and see if it's about what I should expect.

Take the Chaos Bolt spell. It's an At-Will. At 10th level, he did well over 150 points of damage in a single round, through a little luck (rolling even #'s) and using Focused Chaos (which allows him to once per encounter decide if the # was even or odd). That was for an at-will! In looking at his character through the builder, he has +15 to attack and 1d10+18 to damage for that power alone. One of his daily's, Dazzling Ray, does 6d6+18. Is that par for the course? High? Low?

But wait, there's more. Now he's just received the Wild Mage ability called "Torrent of Power". It's a daily, but what it does is simple: Any time you roll max damage on a single die, roll it again and add it the total. And if it rolls max again? Keep rollin'.

I have three players. The defender is defendering, the leader is healing, and the striker is doing the damage. But at what point - and there has to be one - where you look at the damage total of a level N character and say, "That's too much for that level"..?

 

[Nifft]

Take the Chaos Bolt spell. It's an At-Will. At 10th level, he did well over 150 points of damage in a single round, through a little luck (rolling even #'s) and using Focused Chaos (which allows him to once per encounter decide if the # was even or odd). That was for an at-will! In looking at his character through the builder, he has +15 to attack and 1d10+18 to damage for that power alone.

That sounds like an exception. How many targets did he end up hitting? How many were critical hits?

One of his daily's, Dazzling Ray, does 6d6+18. Is that par for the course? High? Low?

Low-ish. Barbarians can do that (plus Brutal 1) with a 1st level Encounter power*.

But at what point - and there has to be one - where you look at the damage total of a level N character and say, "That's too much for that level"..?

Sorcerers look good on paper, and they have some good nova potential, but you should keep count of how much damage he does each round if you're concerned. I suspect you'll find that on average he's not that bad at all.

Cheers, -- N

*) terms and conditions may apply

 

[mneme]

That 150 damage round sounds sweet -- but it was really 1d10+18 to most (all?) of the monsters; not small potatoes, but keep in mind that it didn't bring any non-minion monsters close to leaving the board--just softened them all up a bit. You can find extensive arguments for why damage to one creature is a lot better, all things being equal, to less damage to a lot of creatures. And keep in mind that he had to expend an encounter power (Focused Chaos) to pull this off -and- hit and keep hitting.

Torrent of power looks great -- but again, it's a daily (if a daily that gives the Vorpal ability in paragon levels rather than epic). And without an ability to cheese it up to do infinite damage, it just does a nice increase--turns d6s into d6+.7, etc.

Dazzling Ray's damage is ok. It does equivalent damage to a l1 daily with superior weapon, and has an OK debuf -- but every melee class has 3W attack that's pretty similar, some of which with stronger riders (like the Avenger 3Ws, or even better, the Barbarian 3Ws) And even fighters get stuff like Lasting Threat -- a 3W reliable attack that marks forever.

Keep in mind that pretty much every striker should be able to manage a nova round in high heroic that can manage 150 damage. After all, at-level monsters have more than 200 damage--it's good if the strikers -can- kill a monster by blowing a bunch of encounter powers in one round, but they should certainly be able to bloody one (and the sorcerer falls down a bit on this, though multi-attack powers like Thunder Leap can help a lot here -- TL does (in your example) 4d6+31 if both attacks hit --to a single monster [plus anything else you catch in the bursts, plus a push, plus the utility of a huge leap if you need it]. But again, that's a daily, and dailies are -supposed- to be aweseome.

 

[Storminator]

Our dragon sorcerer dealt out boatloads of damage. With an action point he was throwing out 50+ in a blast 3*, which far and away dwarfed our other strikers (this is level 5). But he had a glass jaw. A couple of powers could boost his defenses, but he had 6 surges, and was always the first one done.

Oh yeah, and he died. Limited mobility, low hp, low surges, poor defenses, close blast powers... it would have taken a much better player than we had to turn all that offense into great productivity.

He did throw a lot of damage tho.

*terms and conditions apply

PS

 

[Mengu]

150 damage spread across 7-8 opponents is small concern. 1d10+18 at level 10 seems reasonable. 6d6+18 with a daily is a bit of a waste of a daily if you ask me, but when you want damage now, it's a decent option, especially when half damage might be enough to kill a target.

My 6th level barbarian got a crit on a howling strike for 61 damage before rampage the other day. I was a little shocked at the number, and thought it was a little too high. But it wasn't even enough to kill a creature that had already been damaged (but not bloodied) by the party. I ended up using Furious Assault for another 12 damage to kill it (didn't want to risk missing with the rampage).

Strikers do lots of damage. But non strikers shouldn't be too terribly far behind them. At 6th level, our warden regularly does as much damage as my barbarian's non-charge attacks.

Monsters have a lot of hit points, so we need a lot of damage, to take them out in a reasonable time frame.

 

[Holy Bovine]

Low-ish. Barbarians can do that (plus Brutal 1) with a 1st level Encounter power*.

Oh yes, yes they can (I once did 13d6+18 (w/ Brutal1) at 2nd level with an at-will and 2 encounters in the same round it was glorious but I only killed 1 guy!)

Sorcerers look good on paper, and they have some good nova potential, but you should keep count of how much damage he does each round if you're concerned. I suspect you'll find that on average he's not that bad at all.

Cheers, -- N

The Storm Sorceress in my game regularly does more damage than the Suicide Ranger but not by much (at a guess maybe 2-4 points more per hit). Her big advantage is being able to stay out of melee range for a lot of the fight but once she gets cornered she hits the floor pretty fast.

 

[Nifft]

The Storm Sorceress in my game regularly does more damage than the Suicide Ranger but not by much (at a guess maybe 2-4 points more per hit). Her big advantage is being able to stay out of melee range for a lot of the fight but once she gets cornered she hits the floor pretty fast.

That surprises me a bit.

Rangers are multi-attackers, and can benefit hugely from a Leader's damage-boosting effects, and from static damage bonuses (Iron Armbands of Power or Archery, magic weapons, Weapon Focus, etc.).

Sorcerers are more stand-alone. They don't attack as many times, so they don't get the same static multiplier advantages that a Ranger does.

What level are y'all? What kind of Leaders do you have?

Cheers, -- N

 

[Black Knight Irios]

Regarding the question of brokenness:

LVL 12, +15 AB, 1d10+18 = 23,5
An average lvl 12 NAD = 12 + 12 = 24, so he needs a 9 to hit.
dpr w/o crits: 0,6 * 23,5 = 14,1 dpr
CharOp says you should do your level +3 dpr if you're not a striker. A striker should do 2*level +6. A broken striker should do 4*level +12 damage.
The average striker kills a monster of it's level in 4 rounds. Your sorcerer with crits factored in does something around 16dpr. That's pretty low.

That Chaosbolt round did some 150ish damage against multiple foes which is not that impressive b/c spread damage is worse than focused fire in most cases. Your sorcerer is actually not that impressive.

And if your defender is build to defend, he's probably not one that deals some nice damage and a healy leader doesn't buff damage that much (probably), therefore, be happy that your sorcerer deals at least some damage.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

That surprises me a bit.

Rangers are multi-attackers, and can benefit hugely from a Leader's damage-boosting effects, and from static damage bonuses (Iron Armbands of Power or Archery, magic weapons, Weapon Focus, etc.).

Sorcerers are more stand-alone. They don't attack as many times, so they don't get the same static multiplier advantages that a Ranger does.

What level are y'all? What kind of Leaders do you have?

Cheers, -- N

OTOH the sorcerer can usually get hits on a couple targets. Its not quite a sweet as TS, but then there are those times when you hit 3 targets (or rarely more). Superior minion clean-up capability isn't a bad thing either if you happen to be in a situation where you need it. The level 8 Dragon Sorcerer that was in my game for a while was pretty nice. He put out great damage overall but the stabby rogue could really cripple a single target. Overall rogues, rangers, and sorcerers are pretty close in damage output (barbarians are a bit more situational and harder to compare but seem pretty close too).

 

[Holy Bovine]

That surprises me a bit.

Rangers are multi-attackers, and can benefit hugely from a Leader's damage-boosting effects, and from static damage bonuses (Iron Armbands of Power or Archery, magic weapons, Weapon Focus, etc.).

Sorcerers are more stand-alone. They don't attack as many times, so they don't get the same static multiplier advantages that a Ranger does.

What level are y'all? What kind of Leaders do you have?

Cheers, -- N

8th level. I think it comes more from tactics and AoE placement than anything else. There are 2 leaders (cleric & inspiring warlord) who regularly boost the paladin & ranger when possible. The main issue for the ranger is the player running it doesn't take advantage of things like CA and staying near the warlord to get those bonuses. Also the ranger spends a lot of time on the floor unconciuos (in the average 10 round combat she is probably down for 3 of those rounds). She just can't seem to keep from leaping way ahead of the rest of the party to be the first to engage the enemy - she does some damage then is knocked out in the second round (this has happened more times than I can count, she seems to think that if she doesn't strike first she will never get to attack - I have another player who has a bravura warlord who suffers from the same delusion). The sorceress in question has picked up about every AoE sorcerer power there is and does a really good job holding/delaying actions to get the most enemies into her AoEs. I think the ranger could do more damage if she would hold back like the sorceress and let the defenders & leaders take the first wave of attacks and get the bonuses you are talking about - it just hasn't happened in my games.