Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Aegeri" data-source="post: 5392031" data-attributes="member: 78116">Edit: Reading my posts I haven't been clear. I am assuming the swordmage is the primary defender. Swordmages will be excellent secondary defenders since forever and this is not disputable. In fact, even with the changes to damage I love to rant so much about with another defender, the swordmage is a perfect secondary defender. So take my comments below in mind with a primary defender context (not as a secondary defender supporting another).No, because the only way to do this is to kill the monster before it ever inflicted damage to begin with. As a DM I am firmly convinced the absolute best condition PCs have access to impose on monsters is Dead. Nothing annoys me more than a monster being dead. If a monster isn't dead, I can annoy you and ruin your day in billions of ways. That Klurichir on 7 HP that isn't dead who is preventing the unconscious wizard being healed after dropping him, with the Marilith going next gets that Wizard Killed at epic. Encounters at epic can be really tight now and often will come down to several bad decisions or rolls (just like heroic and paragon incidentally).Limited powers can be +25% to +75% over that, with damage riders and effects. It is little wonder that the defender most often dies to Brutes (previously too inaccurate to bother them) the moment any kind of disadvantage is put on them.So it's not that impressive. In addition, that's the damage all five monsters were doing. When the Shielding Swordmage was actually useful at epic, that was the best damage one monster could do. The rest feebly chipped away.It's the concept that "Everything you aren't paying attention to ignores you and tears the party to pieces, while not dying any faster" that you are missing. They can absorb your damage reduction and not care one lick about what you are doing. The point of the Swordmage before was you could mark the [rare] monsters that actually did anything nullifying them due to the DR. Now, everything does damage and lots of it.I guarantee you, that in my games a PC prefers a defender who kills a monster than one who leaves it alive. A live monster on 1 HP is as dangerous as one on 100 HP - unless it will die before it can make its attack from a mark (forcing it to attack a PC). By epic that "Bottom" for a regular monster is whatever damage a defender does: When you're a swordmage doing zero damage, that monster can attack with impunity.It may not seem a huge deal, but it really can matter when epic monsters are getting at their most tricksy.  Given that the damage prevented from killing that monster is going to be "All" or "A tiny amount" when you're not killing them, the "All" wins every time <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=":)" />Yes. A Herald doesn't have many HP and a well built fighter should be able to deal 50+ damage with a single hit (plus possible conditions that will render an entire part of that power useless, for example preventing it from shifting due to being prone). That's a good chunk of HP and with decent focus fire at epic, that will kill those monsters off very fast. On the other hand, preventing damage against one ally doesn't save the others (as you can't react more than once to the same trigger, even with Rapid Aegis).I have actually seen a decent Swordmage dismantled repeatedly in epic tier after MM3. You really have to appreciate that everything kills you and the only way to stop this is to kill them first.It's not a poor example, for the main reason Daemons are literally the best, most diverse and well thought out antagonists at epic tier. Therefore, a lot of epic games if you want to use published monsters often between levels 20-30 are going to be demons. This means Balors, from the likes of MV are going to be more likely to be faced than other creatures (until Wizards gives us more equivalence in epic tier threats from levels 20-30).Even so, the damage that many monsters at epic pull out from:Automatic damage (Auras), Power effects (No attack roll), Debuffs (Astral Kraken's Madness Power) and such forth mean that mitigating a small amount of the overall monster DPR isn't cutting it. And yes, it is a small amount. They are not MM1 monsters. They are really cutting DPR levels to match well optimized groups of PCs.I use demons a lot because quite frankly, Wizards haven't given DMs much option besides "Make your own stuff" outside of them for epic tier. They're just the best supported and hence, the most common examples I can think of.He's not worried, he'll get within 4 (he flies 12 at-will btw) and then use his reach 5 whip attack to potentially bring the mage (or anyone else squishy) adjacent for 2d10+10 fire damage + 15 ongoing fire - you're left with a choice of ignoring this attack or aegis' it too. The mage takes 10 (or 20) auto from the aura on his turn, but even before then he attacks with lightning sword (same standard action) for a potential 6d10+11 lightning damage (with extra on a crit). Then he drops his action point and beheading blades the Wizard (and you). With Soul Stealer, he then sits and waits for the healer to raise/heal the wizard, getting an additional Lightning Sword attack for free with another 6d10+16 damage with a huge bonus to hit (Soul Stealer is adorable). Probably knocking the Wizard back down and again, you either have no Aegis at this point or the Wizard is dead.The fighter on the other hand has contributed to killing the Balor, whom if he's on low HP has never got a single one of those attacks off. Especially if this has been an AP saved for the second beheading blade. The thing is though that through all of this theorycraft there is an important point: At no point does this creature feel the need to attack you. It won't suffer very much and is only richly rewarded for this course of action: It either takes out your controller in a bloody inferno, suffering no ill effect except needing more damage that it has plenty of to hit your average controller level HPs into the negatives.Now a Battlemind threatens that Balor with a potential sixty damage if he hits the mage. Maybe more if the Balor gets unlucky (completely ironic here I realize) and gets a crit. The fighter threatens that Balor with an attack that might completely stuff his turn: He might not get to move (OA), he might get knocked prone and slid out of range of the mage by the CC attack (IA) and all kinds of giant mess. Frigid Blade isn't controlling him anywhere near as much (especially as he flies, but also he has a ridiculous reach attack).Now again he's one example: But the point here is that you try this scenario with this Balor and try the original MM1. You'll notice that the Shielding Swordmage completely and utterly trivially shuts down the MM1 Balor, while is utterly ineffective in many ways to stop the MV Balor from completely having his way with your Wizard. Bear in mind, you've also needed both of your immediate actions to stop two (he's an elite!) of the monsters in that encounter from .... it's not actually clear what you have done. In the playtests I've tried, the Shielding Swordmage utterly fails to stop monsters doing anything because I simply ignore him. That's because I don't fear him killing my critically wounded monster before they can finish off a PC or get a big risky attack in.To make my point clear: Give that Balor a MV Marilith as an ally - this is far from absurd in any manner as well. Now look at the damage output of those two monsters by themselves. Compare them to the same damage output for those two monsters by themselves from MM1. You'll see the difference.He has 20 fire resistance (though you've probably got billions of ways of dealing with that), but you will need to account for it. This is absolutely true, but bear in mind that MM3 creatures can deal with all of this far better. Also I totally hate to point this out, but a Balor has blindsight and a common ally of a balor, the Klurichir, prevents you regaining HP in an aura. There is really nothing you can't make a squad of demons to beat. Nothing, it's why they are the only true epic tier monster in 4E that deserved earns the tag "Epic".Note that your point is 100% valid, it's just that I feel a fighter/warden/paladin who is damaging his opponents: Cutting out that "If I have less than X HP I cannot attack this wizard or risk death" decision is huge for me as a DM at epic. To be honest though after thinking about it all day since this morning, I actually think that the Shielding Swordmage will be a lot better against solo monsters than non-solos. This is because that "Do I take the risk on this attack provoking the defenders mark and killing the monster" isn't an issue on a monster with that many HP.Edit: Also if you think I focus on demons a bit much, it's again because Wizards haven't really given me many high level monsters to work with. It's not that they are bad, I mean the glass people from MM3 have a soldier that laughs at the Sword mages damage reduction (it reflects all damage done to its allies, or something equally silly IIRC). It's just that I can't make a 20-30 epic tier campaign around them because there isn't enough of them. This is a largely irrelevant tangent.</blockquote>

Verification