Swordmages simply have a lot of controller in them. My "best" Swordmage Encounter Powers don't even involve me doing much actual damage: Dimensional Vortex and a one-round stun that just does my INT damage. Taking an enemy crit and dropping it on his pal is quite fun and does enough damage usually for me. Stun is also great as it turns off their nastiness for a round.
Swordmage: Isn't it a little bit unbalanced?
- Thread starter Drakan lord
- Start date
Or to make the monster less effective.
That depends on how fast you can put that condition on the monster.
Even if it's 75% more, that's 67 damage. If 27 of this is blocked that's 40% less damage.
And you are missing the overall math.
If the monster lives 5 rounds while losing 40% of it's DPR to the swordmage opposed to living 4 rounds due to being constantly hit by combat challenge, the monster will have done less damage with the swordmage. 5 rounds of 60% damage is less than 4 rounds of doing 100% damage.
E.g. imagine a level 30 monster that could do the 175% of 4d8+20 every round.
The party including the SM needs 5 rounds to kill it while the SM reduces it's damage by 27 every round.
The party including the Fighter needs only 4 rounds to kill due to the fighter hitting it with combat challenge every round.
Against party 1 it deals (66-27)*5 = 195 damage
Against party 2 it deals 66*3 = 198 damage (since the fighter's CC attack is an interrupt the attack in round 4 never goes off)
So the fighter making the monster die 20% faster and effectively even 40% faster (since the last round of the monster it does basically nothing but dying) still reduces less damage to the party than the swordmage simply absorbing a good part of it's damage even if the monster can apply it 66% more often than against the fighter's party.
Now keep in mind that no monster will be doing the best limited damage expression every round and since the fighter must be adjacent might decide to simply hit the fighter instead (making the fighter do nothing toward reducing the damage the party takes during that round). While the swordmage will stay far enough away that the monster has no choice but to trigger his aegis, because it can't reach the SM.
Also since the fighter needs to be adjacent, it's likely that the monster just hits the fighter instead, meaning it doesn't die faster and the damage is still applied to the party' total health pool.
Against which the fighter is just as helpless. More than 2 (with the right epic feat) he can't punish either
Unless during it's previous life the damage it lost to the Aegis was already greater than the damage that it can do with one turn more
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The monster not attacking you is being fully effective, because he's not attacking you. Especially because your shielding aegis will do nothing to effects, auras, automatic damage and similar. Many monsters increase their DPR a lot by these mechanisms, so preventing a small amount of one or two (at most) attacks doesn't really bother them. You have 3 marked, but they know you can do very little about them just hitting your allies. A Marilith, for example, attacks six times just by herself. The Herald of Colorless fire gets 2 burst attacks and a shift in between (noting that the bursts won't target the same PC twice, so one will be subject to a mark).
Point is, the Swordmage isn't preventing anything in reality because the monsters aren't attacking him. He is failing in the role of defender because he's failing entirely to draw a monsters attentions.
For one attack. Now what about his second? Third? Fourth?
If I kill him on attack 1, then his second attacks damage? 0. Third? 0. Fourth? 0.
That's when it matters. That's also when the monster is forced to engage the defender. That means he has to engage your high defenses, lots of HP and healing surges. This is what the swordmage utterly fails to achieve: Being noticed.
40% of its DPR? Have you looked at epic monsters these days? They do far more than 1 attacks worth of DPR. In addition, you have forgot in this post that much of that DPR is boosted by aspects your shielding are unable to effect: The monsters aura, ongoing damage, automatic damage effects and similar.
Additionally if you're a fighter and you hit a monster two rounds in a row ignoring your mark, he loses an entire turn of extra DPR (because he'll be dead). That extra turn the creature gets because in the same situation he isn't being damaged, makes all the difference. Because PCs by epic are really pulling some serious AoE and similar damage as well. By round 3 or so, there isn't much of a chance that most monsters on the battlefield (if they aren't dead) aren't badly damaged already. In fact it's usually the case that monsters at epic tier, due to the power that PCs have, can't live long enough to do much anyway (which is why encounter design and such is so important - but this is another discussion).
With the exception of the Swordmage, even an epic monster doesn't get 4 extra rounds of being hit by combat challenge. Noting that I will concede that can happen with a solo, but a solo has the HP to tank the combat challenge. Even high level skirmishers or similar can't. 4 combat challenges is around 160 or so damage - that's a fair chunk of HP. Not to mention a Fighter/Warpriest not only gets CC, he get's an OA so attacks twice every time his mark is violated.
Of which at least 1 or 2 rounds is dedicated entirely to attacking the fighter. All that damage that the swordmage is "preventing" as you claim is actually being directed against your allies who don't have the HP/surges that you do.
You realize this is the entire function and point of defenders: To be hit instead of their allies. The shielding swordmage is failing because the enemies are beating the snot out of his allies and ignoring him.
The shielding swordmage suffers far more than the fighter does. The fighter is at at least making enemies attack him, while the shielding swordmage is failing to accomplish that at all. Bear in mind, that when the Wizard and Cleric are on 20 HP, that monster you've got Aegis'ed is not worried about you reducing his damage when he punches them unconscious. On the other hand, when it's a case of "Do I attack the ally and potentially die doing zero, though I might get my aura that does 10 damage" or "Do I attack the ally and just lose a bit of my already high base damage, especially as I'm doing 15 ongoing with that attack and have an aura that does another 10 damage"?
There really isn't a decision there and that is again my point: There is no incentive to attack the shielding swordmage.
Mirtek said:
You edited this in, but this is absolutely wrong. This fails defender 101. The Fighter being attacked is reducing the damage the party takes. He's making a monster attack him on high, rock solid defenses or die - increasing the chance of missing and doing absolutely zero damage. Even if he hits, the Fighter is tanking that damage through higher HP and surges. You avoid this part of the argument deliberately, but the swordmages reduced damage doesn't matter when the attacked PC has less HP, surges and defenses anyway (and again, that much of the damage that monster will be dealing can't be reduced anyway, like ongoing damage riders).
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Wow, you miss the actual role of the defender completely. In no way, shape or form should the defender take all the enemy hits. He draws their attention to take MORE HITS THAN HIS ALLIES. No defender takes all teh hits, all that means is dead defender.
All defenders impose penalties when their marks don't attack them. A non-adjacent fighter simply imposes a -2 attack penalty, where a non-adjacent Shielding Swordmage nerfs his damage to a great extent. It obviously depends on the rest of the party but a boat load of squishies and a defender is bad composition.
Again you fail to come to terms with the way the game actually works. The fighter is part of the party, no? Therefore the damage he takes IS party damage. A defender will have 9-14 surges usually. Non-defenders 7-10 usually. While defenders are generally more durable than other class roles, the difference isn't that huge. The defender's job is to take more damage than the other party members, and make it attractive for enemies to attack him, but not exclusively. But every party member should be taking hits.
Numerous hits.
Otherwise it's very poor resource management. If the group has to stop for the day because the defender is out of surges while other party members have half (or more) of their's left, that's really bad party resource management. The defender shouldn't run out of surges faster than any other character, he'll just be bloodied and/or healed somewhat more often.
This is correct and it's a good thing I didn't state that. What I stated is that for a marked target, if the marked target doesn't feel the need to attack the defender the defender is failing at their role. He does not (and should not) take all the hits from all the monsters. But he should be sufficiently threatening that the creature in question wants to attack him.
Defenders have considerably more HP, surges and better defenses to accomplish this.
I know how the game works, especially at epic given I've run 2 games in epic. Pre-MM1 a lot of this theory works very well, now with MM3 damage and importantly powers, it doesn't. Many of the assumptions made about the shielding swordmage are working on the fact most epic monsters had like, 1 attack for a pittance of damage. Now they attack multiple times for not a pittance of damage. This makes a big difference.
You've missed the point entirely but:
1) The fighter is not as easily hit as other members of the party - this is one of the key concepts. A Marilith will miss a fighter of the same level pretty often, doing much less damage. That same creature against your Wizard is going to shred him.
2) The fighter threatens considerable damage - therefore killing and outright preventing all further damage from that creature. Incidentally a battlemind can do the same thing and so can a warden. The Paladin can not only threaten a monster with damage, but with hospitalier can heal allies considerably for every attack the monster makes that isn't against him while still doing damage.
The difference actually is, because a larger total amount of HP and even 3-4 more surges means the defender is a lot more resilient. I'll tell you now that since MM3, I've gone through all the surges of a defender in 5 encounters consistently. Pre-MM3, I think I was lucky if I reduced him by around 4 surges or so. Also, that defender did an absolutely fantastic job and saved the party time and time again. The most critical one ever was finishing off a Herald of Colorless fire before it used its main attack to kill the Cleric on round 3 of a combat. The Cleric was 2 HP off negative bloodied, but being hit for a CC and OA (Warpriest Paragon Path btw, which is really really amazing for fighters) was the end of that (actually didn't need the CC, but he had the option).
I am absolutely unconvinced in a tough combat the shielding swordmages mark will make a difference.
Yes and what I've argued already in this thread is that this happens under MM3. Monsters have:
A) More than one attack per round, either minor actions, tricksy things or just a standard that lets them.
B) They can impose strong ongoing damage conditions and have high damaging auras - of which auras got buffed through the roof when damage was allowed to stack.
Incidentally your final points are also perfectly spot on. But this is why defenders have the best HP, surge values and importantly: Defenses in the game. Half of epic tier tactics for a DM 101 is about avoiding the defender and getting stuck into the other characters. If the swordmage cannot present a threat that isn't ignorable - IMO the shielding swordmage certainly can't.
Also. I am completely willing to get my maptools on and we'll go through what I think is a solid "average" adventuring day at epic. I am making and going to release an entire epic module on this forum, just for other DMs to look at and people to use if they want. So I'd love to playtest it with people interested.
But I am willing to prove my point in an actual game environment, that isn't specifically designed to bother the swordmage to begin with (but rather challenge a variety of parties at least competently: A difficult task for an epic adventure I concede).
Just as an aside, defenders are controllers who cross dress on village street corners and want people to hit them. The difference between a controller and a defender in many ways is actually pretty slight. Both want to directly affect a monsters ability to move and attack your allies. They do it in different ways of course, but a defender is a very similar kind of concept to the controller and both want to do the same thing: Prevent a monster from acting as it pleases.
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This is a good discussion-I hope that it does not become too heated though. Liking a fighter's defender mechanic more than a swordmage's does not make the shiedling swordmage suck. It is merely different.
Another point is that epic play is not a good measure. Epic is poorly supported, and most of us don't play there.
The main problem with the swordmage is low damage. Our DM showed little interest in attacking my shield mage, even when I was surrounded, having purposefully entered a vulnerable position in a vain effort to draw his attacks. I have to play more to draw a firm conclusion, and see how my DM handles tactics in the new campaign. I have only had one game and two combat encounters. My sense right now is that I must increase my offense.
Another point is that epic play is not a good measure. Epic is poorly supported, and most of us don't play there.
The main problem with the swordmage is low damage. Our DM showed little interest in attacking my shield mage, even when I was surrounded, having purposefully entered a vulnerable position in a vain effort to draw his attacks. I have to play more to draw a firm conclusion, and see how my DM handles tactics in the new campaign. I have only had one game and two combat encounters. My sense right now is that I must increase my offense.
No, it's channeling the hp drain through the best pipe (as the fighter with his higher surge value needs to spend less surges to recover it and likely has a higher pool of surges available for the day), however these hp are still lost to the party. Whereas 27 damage prevented is 27 damage prevented.
Since striker AC can easily match fighter AC (especially factoring in the -2 for the mark) it's not the goal to simply draw attacks to yourself.
Like said above: it's still a drain on the total party resources. It's a drain that hurts a little less, but a drain all the same.
Unless the defender happens to be con-based and the striker is not, considerably equals 32 hp more hp at full health. While that also means an increased surge value (coupled with the higher number of surges available), this doesn't give a defender much more direct staying power than a striker (around one hit more is needed to drop a defender instead of a striker)
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You don't really need to increase offense that much. Even a Shielding Swordmage can do credible damage with very little "work". If you're an Eladrin, Eladrin Soldier is a given (as it is for almost any Eladrin that uses a weapon) and you may ant to work on getting Iron Armbands of Power at some point.
The problem with surrounding a low-level Shielding Swordmage isn't that the Swordmage isn't worth attacking, it's that it's stupid to surround the Swordmage because he should have Swordburst as an at-will. That d6+modifiers suddenly becomes 4(d6 + modifiers) or more which, while not single-target, is more damage than single target strikers are doing.
Swordmages, especially Shielding, aren't great damage monkeys, but they do have other abilities and powers to make up for it, including not needing to be adjacent to enforce their mark. Things like imobilization make fighters and wardens become simply -2 to attck debuffers, and that's a low-level status effect.
The problem with surrounding a low-level Shielding Swordmage isn't that the Swordmage isn't worth attacking, it's that it's stupid to surround the Swordmage because he should have Swordburst as an at-will. That d6+modifiers suddenly becomes 4(d6 + modifiers) or more which, while not single-target, is more damage than single target strikers are doing.
Swordmages, especially Shielding, aren't great damage monkeys, but they do have other abilities and powers to make up for it, including not needing to be adjacent to enforce their mark. Things like imobilization make fighters and wardens become simply -2 to attck debuffers, and that's a low-level status effect.
I am aware of that and it's not the argument. It's the timing of the damage (before the attack) and the overall effect (eliminating the monster and preventing effects).
I am restricting my examples to epic
Also, I personally believe you should be able to get away with almost anything in heroic and it's really late paragon the damage starts to kick in. Then again, heroic monsters are getting pretty ridiculous these days, so I'm not really sure what to think.
This is precisely my point. A shielding swordmage can't do a lot of damage on his own turn - but he does have some substantially good controller effects - so if he can't control or force a monster where it has to attack him, if given a choice it won't.
Mirtek said:
But if it leads to the attacked character still dying, it's a completely hollow victory. I can name so many cases where finishing off a chronically wounded monster with a mark (or the battlemind going LIGHTNING RUSH, HIT ME !!!) has made a huge difference. A hospitalier for example can not only prevent damage (in the form of healing), he does it every attack and if it hits or misses. Plus he doesn't give up doing damage at the same time.
Compare a Shielding Swordmage with a Paladin Hospitalier in preventing damage. The shielding swordmage is ignorable completely, the Hospitalier cannot be ignored (unless you're a Klurichir, then you don't care).
I actually disagree, because most strikers - aside from Barbarians and such - are pretty squishy (noting that Avengers are technically trying to be secondary defenders). In such a case as this, it's not the -2 penalty but whatever the mark punishment is that draws the attack away from the striker. This again, is what the swordmage cannot accomplish, because MM3 creatures are doing damage through: Base damage, effects (ongoing) and auras.
It is incidentally why as a DM to effectively make epic challenging, remembering things like effects and auras are so essential. They make up a big and important part of epic monsters DPR.
Not only this, but if you Con-jack anything but a Battlemind you don't have higher defenses, you have a high AC and Fortitude. You likely have a VERY squishy defense (or two!) enemy controllers/artillery/certain lurkers can abuse mercilessly so most defenders will be sporting 10-11 surges to start with.
