Slaved said:
So you have 18 charisma, 13 wisdom, and 14 dexterity and you have an illegal feat selection (expanded knowledge energy missile and psionic meditation must be taken as level 6 feats or later for a wilder while privileged energy requires knowing energy missile). Plus I am not really a fan of privileged energy, it might be too powerful and since it cuts the arguement that the wilder is good at any energy he might need at the time it seems to deflate that arguement by trying to use it here.
If you would like to rebuild the character feel free. Although the barbarian I posted had 18 strength, 12 dexterity, 12 constitution, 6 intelligence, 8 wisdom, 6 charisma with 1 point buy point left over for either dexterity or constitution.
No problem. He doesn't need an 18 Cha. He doesn't need 14 Dex. He doesn't need 13 Wis and Psionic Meditation. For this build, he needs Psicrystal Affinity, Expanded Knowledge Energy Missile and Privileged Energy Cold and 16 Cha.
You're grasping at straws.
Slaved said:
11th level wilder with an 18 charisma gives 150 power points. Each manifested power at +4 wild surge uses about 13.2 power points on average. That means that this blast could be done 11 times per day while using the remaining 4 power points on something else.
Actually, such a (wimpy stat for 11th level) Wilder would have 128 PP.
Your point? The Wilder does not need to do this every single round. He can still do this 2 or 3 times per combat (or less), 3+ combats per day and still average more damage than other PCs. Or, he could drop down the surge to conserve points lost to enervation (which allows him to fight even more combats).
The real point is that he contributes and he contributes fast and hard. Most games typically do not have 5+ combats a day where he needs to conserve heavily.
Slaved said:
Close range, concentration based, plus if you enervate then your concentration ends so you cannot transfer it to the psicrystal.
Fair enough. No need to surge it. Just Empower it and blast away at close range (i.e. within 55 feet, a good sized distance in DND) opponents.
It still does huge damage, much more than party Evoker for the cost and helps out the party immensely.
And we have not yet taken in account the fact that with Surge+1 at 12th level, Energy Current can affect 3 targets instead of 2.
Slaved said:
It is a great tactic for power point conservation though! Under the proper circumstances it can definately work wonders. I am going to have to call you again on applying the surging euphoria incorrectly however.
If that is what you are calling me on, I'm not thinking that the Wilder is weak.
Slaved said:
The unfortunate part of this tactic is that it draws attention to the psicrystal.
Does it? Where is the rule that a Soliciting Psicrystal is obviously controlling a power? Hang the Psicrystal from a chain and it looks like an amulet.
Slaved said:
That is true. He is a one trick pony and it is a good trick.
Yup.
Slaved said:
Energy current is your nova? I have no idea what your definition of nova is, but it is different than all of the rest of the definitions provided in this thread so far I believe.
Then those definitions of Nova are in error.
Being able to constantly seriously damage one or more opponents for multiple rounds within 55 feet every single round and not using up a single action or additional PP after the first round to do so is huge.
Evidentally, you will not admit to it, but the facts speak for themselves.
And this is just one build. There are other synergies that can be done.
Slaved said:
Plus, while the energy current and solicit psicrystal is a great combination it has some pretty big issues with concentration checks, short range, limited to energy damage, target selection, extremely risky versus creatures with dispelling abilities, and so on.
Yadda, yadda, yadda.
No tactic is perfect. But the only minor limitation of this tactic is range and the minimum range for this for the 12th level Wilder is 55 feet. That's actually fairly decent range for most DND combats. Your Barbarian has a range of 5 feet with his Greatsword, but I did not notice you mentioning that.
Sure, an opponent might Dispel. This can happen for any spell or power with a duration. So what? Unless the opponent already knows the power or makes a Psicraft check, the DM (if he is playing fair) would not typically perform a Dispel of the Energy Current immediately because if manifested on round one, opponents should not even consider dispelling it until it has done damage on round one and on round two (the current fires each round on the manifester's turn, it is not a continuous attack). The power has a duration, but the effect is not written as lasting between turns.
Granted, the DM could do a general Dispel to get rid of buffs, but while the NPC caster is doing that, the Wilder is smoking him with other attacks.
Slaved said:
Well, I would ask that you make a legal build first and refrain from using privileged energy. The feat does improve your damage per round but it also makes your point about the wilder being able to change energy types moot.
No it doesn't. 95+% of creatures are not immune to Cold. So, it works great the majority of the time and although he does less damage with Fire, he can choose to do so when in the lair of the Ice monsters. On average, the Wilder is still doing huge damage overall. It matters not that once in a blue moon, he has to switch to Fire.
Tell you what. You stay core and XPH only and so will I.
Course, I still have yet to add magic items that are needed to my build. You take your Barbarian's magic items away and his damage drops by nearly half.
This entire conversation between the two of us started with you questioning the 70% damage figure. After that was illustrated as fairly accurate, you then moved on 1st level comparisons between a Wilder and a Barbarian. When that was illustrated as pro-Barbarian, you figured it good. But when we went to higher levels and you tried to show a Barbarian doing more damage per round (only using full round attacks and ignoring a good portion of non-full round attack combat), it's not quite true. When that was illustrated as not quite more damage (not yet even considering Energy Missile) and a build can be made that does a
lot more damage, you are now basically nitpicking.
Do you have any serious Barbarian build that actually does more damage now? At 12th level? Maybe a tripping one with Power Attack?
Cause quite frankly, this Wilder build kicks butt, even dropping Psionic Meditation from it and not often using Surges with the Energy Current. Per level, the 12th level Wilder can still average with Energy Ray: 4.5 points normal, 5.625 normal Empowered, 6 normal Surged, 7.875 normal Surged Empowered, 5.5 points privileged, 6.875 privileged Empowered, 7.33 privileged Surged, and 9.625 privileged Surged Empowered. Quite frankly, this is a lot of options and a range of 4.5 to 9.625 hit points
per level is a significant portion of most opponents hit point's. Even a 12th level Barbarian will say ouch if he takes 54 to 115 points of damage with a single attack (double that for a critical). The 12 level Wizard is toast with one mostly unstoppable attack (and yes, if the Wizard has time to prepare, he can have Invisibility or Mirror Image or something else up to stop an Energy Ray).
The math is against your POV. This is just for Energy Ray one opponent and does not even take into account the additional damage that Energy Missile or Energy Current can easily do.
![:]](http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/devious.png "Devious :]")
