Typo or deliberate?

[Dannyalcatraz]

I figured you don't get the minor action attacks if you miss with the initial hit.

Actually, I'm not 100% sure whether you do or don't, but I assumed that you do: some of the spells in the game that have "sustain minor" are AoE attacks, and need not do damage at all to be sustained.

And in that case, even if you get to sustain for four rounds, because of the lack of miss damage it doesn't really outdamage Flames of Phlegethos,

Which is why I had that qualifying "almost any other" language in there.

Armor of Agathys is better if you move adjacent to three or more enemies over the encounter

That is SOOOO conditional- my Dwarf Starlock spends a lot of time in or near the front row, and have only encountered thet kind of situation once in the year+ I've been running him.

Your Glorious Sacrifice deals about equal damage, and a Hellfire Blast with even two targets outdamages pretty much all of these.

YGS targets Fort- got a lot of those already. HB is unknown to me- where is that one?

 

[bganon]

That is SOOOO conditional- my Dwarf Starlock spends a lot of time in or near the front row, and have only encountered thet kind of situation once in the year+ I've been running him.

Really? I haven't played a Conlock, but AoA only hits enemies, and it hits them on the start of their turn... I'd think this'd be pretty hard for monsters to avoid. Usually the complaint I hear about it is that it doesn't have the implement keyword and scales like crap. I guess experience trumps theorycraft, though.

HB is unknown to me- where is that one?

HotFK. It's pure DPR in a blast 3. Hexblades have some nice dailies, though they're almost all close bursts or blasts.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Really? I haven't played a Conlock, but AoA only hits enemies, and it hits them on the start of their turn... I'd think this'd be pretty hard for monsters to avoid.

Its not so much that they avoid the attack, its that I'm rarely adjacent to more than one or 2 foes in a given combat. The ones who DO come close are usually brutes I'm better off getting away from and pounding from a range...like a big freaking troll who thought I looked tastier than the fighter (who was surrounded by smaller foes anyway). While I have the second highest HP total in the party, I don't have the best AC, even factoring in my bonuses from ShadowWalk. I stay close to him for something like AoA to work, he kills me in 2-3 turns and goes on to work on my buddies. Instead, I teleported out of range and nearly killed him solo in a similar timeframe.

With Crown of Stars, once I use it, I'll be able to choose foes at range

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Of course, nothing is static: I'd really like to have a vs Will power- so besides retraining to CoS or remaining with Dread Star, I'm also giving Curse of the Dark Dream another look-see- but there are other things at work in the PC concept as well.

For instance, your mention of Hellfire Blast, with which I was unfamiliar. Even though its a vs Ref spell- which I have a few of- and short range, it has good damage and its a Fire attack... And his 5th level power is Crackling Fire, which gives targets Vulnerability 5 to Fire and Lightning attacks.

Much thinking to do.

 

[KarinsDad]

I think the entire power is bizarre.

Why exactly is someone blinded if they are bloodied? Well, because the designer wrote it that way. To ensure that someone gets blinded, wait to use it until his is already bloodied. But if you wait to use it, then you'll do less damage in the entire encounter because you are using fewer sustain actions.

Err, what?

It really sounds like whomever wrote this was either smoking something in his or her cubicle, or was totally bored and wanted to throw out something wacky.

 

[bganon]

Well, this power is from the same article that gave us Sacrifice to Caiphon, Twofold Pact, and Student of Caiphon.

It's actually one of my favorite articles; nice fluff/mechanics combination, lots of ideas, and starlocks needed the support. But it also clearly had some abusable stuff where not all the implications were thought through.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Update: Crown of Stars is worse than previously imagined. According to what my DM got back from CustServe, you don't get a sustain minor attack, you get to sustain minor, then you can attack with it if you have an attack action left. You're better off using an At-Will!

 

[D'karr]

Update: Crown of Stars is worse than previously imagined. According to what my DM got back from CustServe, you don't get a sustain minor attack, you get to sustain minor, then you can attack with it if you have an attack action left. You're better off using an At-Will!

CustServ is notoriously unreliable with any "rules" questions. You might get someone today that tells you A, and get someone tomorrow that tells you B.

I would take anything from Custserv, related to rules, with a great big bag of salt.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Again, I'm not the DM, so I'm bound by whatever he decided to go with.

 

[MrMyth]

Update: Crown of Stars is worse than previously imagined. According to what my DM got back from CustServe, you don't get a sustain minor attack, you get to sustain minor, then you can attack with it if you have an attack action left. You're better off using an At-Will!

I recommend you ask your DM to check with them again, since odds are high he will get a different answer. That one is 100% incorrect, and you could pretty conclusively prove this to be the case by comparing it with the wording on many other Sustain Minor powers.