The greatest of stars: Wizard

[DracoSuave]

You might as well argue about the damage output of a Rogue who inexplicably never gets to sneak attack anyone.

SPAM THAT SLY FLOURISH!


Alright. How AoE works. For this whiner who thinks 1d6 is small potatoes.

Firstly, the bulk of consistancy in damage comes from your Int mod. That Int mod is -very- important in damaging the enemy, more so that other classes.

Let's assume you're in a party of stalwart fellows each with 18 in their primary. We'll make the party a lazer cleric, a sword and board fighter, a maul fighter, and a sly flourish rogue. We also assume your party is terrible at containing monsters, and so you're only able to target two monsters at once. Let's also assume everyone's breaking out their 50/50 attacks, instead of targeting weak defenses. This also doesn't take criticals into account.

The lazer cleric does 1d8+4, and hits 50% of the time. Average DPR is 4.25.
S+B fighter does 1d10+4, average DPR is 4.75.
Maul fighter's doing 2d6+4, average DPR is 5.5
Sly Flourish rogue's doing 1d4+2d6+4+3, average DPR is 8.25

Now for you. Your average Damage per hit would be 1d6+4, ends up being 7.5. Then your average damage per attack (accounting for misses) would be 3.75. And because you're making 2 attacks per round, that makes your average DPR 7.5.

This doesn't take containing monsters into account.

Now, let's look at the level 1 encounter. 5 monsters, 24 hp a piece.

Round 1:
Monster 1 and 2 take 3.75 a piece.
Monster 1 takes 22.75 damage from the melee coordinated strikes, and dies.

Round 2:
Monsters 2 and 3 take 3.75 a piece. (Monster 2 is at 7.5 damage)
Monster 3 takes 22.75 damage from the melee coordinated strikes, and dies.

Round 3:
Monster 2 and 4 take 3.75 a piece. (Monster 2 is at 11.25 damage)
Monster 4 is murdered by your mob.

Round 4:
Monster 2 and 5 take 3.75 a piece. (Monster 2 is at 15 damage, and is clearly bloodied.)
Monster 5 is murdered by the masses.

Round 5 is academic.

By the time round 4 hits, you've bloodied one monster as a side effect of dealing the killing blows on the rest of the mob. You've contributed more damage to the fight than the -maul fighter- and you've helped contain and supress the enemy.

Of course, this is all theory craft and doesn't take the rest of your abilities, your secondary effects, or your feats or equipment into account, nor the shape of the battlefield. However, I will say that containing enemies for AoE should be a focus of a well oiled party, especially when such AoEs carry riders like CA.

 

[Sadrik]

SPAM THAT SLY FLOURISH!

This does not seem correct the rogue hits better than that and the wizard will not always get two creatures in the burst.
Also only 2 out of the 6 wizard at-wills are area effect.

 

[Jhaelen]

This does not seem correct the rogue hits better than that and the wizard will not always get two creatures in the burst.

Neither does the rogue always get combat advantage. And please remind me again why the rogue hits better than the wizard?

 

[Cadfan]

The rogue IS one of the more accurate characters in the game, thanks to the combination of the mobility necessary to flank, daggers for accuracy, piercing strike for accuracy, and the nimble blade feat. And thanks to sneak attack being a flat damage boost that doesn't rely on weapon dice, he can make up the lost damage from using a d4 weapon.

The wizard STILL clocks in just fine, though. The entire party succeeds much better when fights open with the wizard nuking the bad guys, using attacks with Friend of Foe ID while the battle is closely joined, and nuking any enemies that clump up.