why are orbs good again?

[evilbob]

At low levels, keeping cloud of daggers going an extra round each encounter can easily be worthwhile, especially if you have a tide of iron fighter or positioning strike rogue. You can really play ping pong with those two and thunderwave...

So I'm hearing the main reasons an orb is good at very low levels is to eventually get a sleep spell that works really well and to make cloud of daggers do an extra couple of damage 1/enc.

Yeah, I think the staff is really pulling ahead here. The static +1 AC, combined with leather armor prof (+2 for leather), combined with a +4 Int mod means a wizard has just as good (or better) AC than your shield-less defenders. That means you can afford to run up the front line and use thunderwave... Which is ultimately more battlefield control (at-will) than an encounter power to do a couple extra damage.

Yeah, I'm thinking 2nd implement may be the best way to pick up the orb.

 

[Mort_Q]

That means you can afford to run up the front line and use thunderwave... Which is ultimately more battlefield control (at-will) than an encounter power to do a couple extra damage.

Yeah, I'm thinking 2nd implement may be the best way to pick up the orb.

You still need the high WIS to push 'em any distance... but yeah sounds nice.

 

[Lackhand]

So I'm hearing the main reasons an orb is good at very low levels is to eventually get a sleep spell that works really well and to make cloud of daggers do an extra couple of damage 1/enc.

Yeah, I think the staff is really pulling ahead here. The static +1 AC, combined with leather armor prof (+2 for leather), combined with a +4 Int mod means a wizard has just as good (or better) AC than your shield-less defenders. That means you can afford to run up the front line and use thunderwave... Which is ultimately more battlefield control (at-will) than an encounter power to do a couple extra damage.

Yeah, I'm thinking 2nd implement may be the best way to pick up the orb.

In fairness, that extra couple of damage could easily be 4-6 times your wisdom bonus.

That's a lot of damage.
(breakdown: You cast cloud of knives, hitting the enemy for d6+Int. Enemy takes damage on his turn from the cloud (+Wis), does something to the fighter who is there. Probably can't shift out of the knives. Fighter Tide of Iron's the foe out of the cloud over to the rogue who trick-strikes the guy through the cloud over to you (+Wis). Your turn, you Thunder Wave the guy back into the starting square (+Wis).)
Lather, rinse, repeat, because you have an orb -- another 3*Wis, modified by what tactics you have available in party.

My character's wisdom is 16. Mmm, 18 damage.

 

[Ravingdork]

For Sleep, this may or may not be true.

The Sleep spell has two saves: one slow, one unconscious.

Depending on interpretation, the slow save might be considered a different save than the unconscious save and hence, the Wizard may only be allowed to apply the huge modifier to one type of save or the other.

I suspect that WotC will need to clarify this in the future.

Customer service already clarified it. You have to pick one of the two effects that Sleep imparts. You cannot effect BOTH saves with the orb.

 

[evilbob]

In fairness, that extra couple of damage could easily be 4-6 times your wisdom bonus.

That's a good example, but it seems much more situational and relies on your allies tactics and power choice. That's not a bad thing: in fact, you can make it a very good thing. But the static +1 AC is still what I'm comparing that against, and it feels like that's more of a bonus since you always have it for every attack against AC, ever.

I still feel like "getting attacked vs. AC" is something that's going to come up more often per encounter than your very good tactical use above.

 

[evilbob]

Customer service already clarified it. You have to pick one of the two effects that Sleep imparts. You cannot effect BOTH saves with the orb.

Interesting - can you save against slow while still unconscious? I think no, based on my reading - which means the sleep trick still works, I believe. Is this right?

 

[Subedei]

The Staff I agree is a fantastic implement, perhaps even with the Orb depending on what you value.

But let's compare the Orb to the Wand as they are both offensive implements.

The Wand can increase your chance to hit an enemy with one of your powers from 40-50% to something like 75-95%. This is very good. it can practically assure you slap that nice status effect on them when it really counts, so that they wont be able to act for a round, or your enemies will have a better chance of hitting them for a round, or maybe you're just making sure one of your heavy hitting daily or encounter powers doesn't miss.

The Orb increases your chance of downright killing an elite with a single spell from 45% (with spell focus) to about 75 or 80% in the paragon tier. That's really, really, REALLY good.

Why is that? Because applying it to the first save against Sleep means they're very, very likely to fail it, and when they fail it, they're Unconscious, and when they're Unconscious, your entire party can coup de grace them with encounter and daily powers, and then spend action points to coup de grace them AGAIN with encounter and daily powers.

In short, the Orb is so awesome because Sleep is so awesome, and Sleep is so awesome because it takes a difficult fight and makes you automatically win it if they fail their first save because not even solo enemies can survive two rounds of coup de grace attacks.

Against a party of 5, a solo is 100% of the opposition, kill it and you win. An elite is 20% of the opposition, kill it and you pretty much win too because it's your 100% vs their 80% from pretty much round 1.

When I read Sleep+Orb, this is what I see:

Sleep Wizard Attack 1
You exert your will against your foes, seeking to overwhelm them
with a tide of magical weariness.
Daily * Arcane, Implement, Sleep
Standard Action Area burst 2 within 20 squares
Target: One really important creature in burst
Attack: Intelligence vs. Will
Hit: The target has an 80% chance of taking quadruple damage from all of your allies attacks, losing all of its actions, taking a -7 to all defenses, and dying if it takes damage from a single attack equal to it's bloodied modifier until then end of its next turn.
Miss: The target is slowed (save ends).

 

[keterys]

Wisdom is extremely nice for both Cloud of Daggers and Thunderwave - there's already plenty of reason to have Wisdom be your secondary stat increase.

At that point, having orb be one of your two choices is quite valid.

 

[Switchback]

^

But what if you don't like those 2 at-wills? You are basically encouraged into taking Orb and Sleep and fashioning your entire playstyle and tactics around supporting it. Even though your only going to use it once a day on one creature. But for the other 100 rounds of combat or however many you have in that day, that initial choice of wanting that one round to be decisive is leading 99% of the rest of your character choices. It doesn't seem like a good way to design a class with many balanced options.

I wouldn't be surprised if the Orb effect gets changed or errated so that the penalty applies only on one round of a save and not *until* they save.

 

[Subedei]

^

But what if you don't like those 2 at-wills? You are basically encouraged into taking Orb and Sleep and fashioning your entire playstyle and tactics around supporting it. Even though your only going to use it once a day on one creature. But for the other 100 rounds of combat or however many you have in that day, that initial choice of wanting that one round to be decisive is leading 99% of the rest of your character choices. It doesn't seem like a good way to design a class with many balanced options.

I wouldn't be surprised if the Orb effect gets changed or errated so that the penalty applies only on one round of a save and not *until* they save.

I agree it's too strong, and probably makes the game less fun. I wouldn't use Orb on my Wizard.

but I fail to see how your suggestion would fix anything. For the reasons I illustrated above they only need to be unconscious for one round, because that's all the time you need to capitalize on the massive debuff and kill them.