Why is Firestorm the best 19th level control spell?

[Mongolia Jones]

No, Clerics do not have control anywhere near Wizards. Wizards have ranged 2 close blast 4's that push 5+ at will!

This is true, but Cleric can control just about as good as a wizard, although a wizard can do it more often.

If you read through the cleric lists, you will find plenty of powers that blind, stun, immobilize, daze, and push enemies. And they can do most if not all of these controlly things in an AoE form, without hurting allies, and sometimes getting a nice group buff out of it to boot.

Every level of encounter power they have an ability that will take at least one enemy out of the fight for a full round. You get to daze enemies as an encounter power at level 3.

Yes, I get it, wizards have more control powers, infact, thats just about all they have.

I just wish wizards can group buff half as well as clerics can group control/strike.

Prismatic Beams(AoE against three defenses! With status effects and two ongoing damage types.), Wall of Ice. Both better control than Seal of Warding.
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AoE against 3 defenses is not necessarily better than an AoE against one defense, it's an illusion.

If you attack 2 defenses with 22 points damage each attack (44 total) vs attacking one defense with 34 points damage, one could conclude that the double attack vs 2 defenses is better.

But if you delve deeper you will find that thats not necessarily the case, especially in 4e.

Browsing through the monster manual you will see that the fort defense is the superior defense. More so because most fighter and brute types have very high fort saves (sometime up to 3 to 8 points higher than will defense) not to mention that brute/fighters make up most combatants in DnD battles.

Therefore since one of the attacks of Prismatic Beams targets fort defense, it will hit less often, therefore your DPS is gimped somewhat.

The cleric power Seal of Warding attacks Will defense. You will hit more times for full damage because it's a great defense to target.

And for the best part of all, with Seal of Ward, even if you miss every attack roll vs. every enemy in the AoE, you still get the difficult terrain and cover for every party member (effectively +2 to defenses).

If you miss with Prismatic Beams, you get.... umm.... nothing.

 

[Goumindong]

Now you're just flat out lying. There are not a significant number of cleric attacks that have control, they almost all fall on the same level or are encounter level strength for wizards (while taking up a Cleric Daily) and half of them are melee attacks forcing your cleric to dump the charisma in favor of strength which makes its other two pushing powers not nearly as strong.

 

[Goumindong]

Neither. The questions are:

1) Is forced movement control? Personally, I think "yes."

Then:

2) Which of these to classes have access to better forced movement abilities?

If
A -> B
B -> C

Then
C =/= A
may or may not be true

Try again.

 

[Mongolia Jones]

You're doing it again. You ignore that Shield of Faith is a daily and Shield is an encounter. You ignore that Sanctuary forces the target to not attack anyone or the effect ends and both are standard actions instead of interrupts.

And i was wrong, the cleric shield equivalent is level 10.

Clerics simply are not better at control than wizards, they aren't close to better at control than wizards and the overlap is minimal.

When there is a benefit that makes a wizard power better than another, you ignore it. When there is a penalty that makes a wizard power weaker than another, you harp on it.

Also, that cleric power will only grant a second second wind, not third.

1. I'm not ignoring that Shield is an interrupt and you can use it per encounter. I still think that a +2 AC to every member all encounter is superior to +4 AC/ref for a single guy for one round or less.

2. Yes Shielding Word is not as good as Shield. But then again, the cleric has better level 2 utilities than level 10 Shielding Word too. Also, the OP was comparing level to level powers, and thats where I kept my comparisons. Your suggestion that Shield is superior to any cleric power of similar level is ludicrous.

3. So, for the 2nd time... I did not ignore Shield

4. The cleric power grants a 2nd second wind if you have already used a second wind that round. Therefore I called it a "third" wind. My mistake, I thought you would have picked up on that.

 

[Plane Sailing]

What spell are you talking about? I haven't found it yet.

You're in this thread, are you not?

I don't know why you are trying to argue that "wizards are better controllers than clerics are".

The point of this thread is (glances up at title) the Firestorm spell. Best way of doing damage to multiple foes (not even taking into account that it doesn't hurt allies) at that level, and it is a cleric spell.

We've also mentioned astral storm vs meteor swarm for the 29th level area damage spell.

In both cases the cleric power spanks the wizard damaging burst power at appropriate levels.

 

[Theziner]

Oppertunity cost of shield vs shield of faith

If your going to argue that cleric shield utility spells are better than the Wizard's Shield spell then you have to take into account the oppertunity cost involved.

Lets look at the positives and negatives of the Wizard's Shield spell vs the Cleric's Shiled of Faith.

Shield
Positives - Immediate Interupt, Encounter power, +4 ac
Negatives - Personal, only until end of next turn.

Shield of Faith
Positives - Close burst 5 each ally in burst, +2 ac untill end of encounter
Negative - Standard Action, Daily power

Both are very useful to their respective classes but are useless to each other and here is why.

Wizards need to act first. Period. Delaying their control for one round to cast a buff on the first turn could ruin any chance of getting off good control before the rest of the party swarms into melee. Shield works for them because its fast, its reusable and lets them get to doing their jobs. Shield of faith or any of the Cleric Utilities would be a bad choice for the Wizard.

Clerics can afford a standard at the beginning of the encounter to buff. Its in their job description. They are there to keep the party alive.

So when people compare Wizard's utilities vs Cleric's utilties they need to keep in mind that the power level of each individual power as a whole has been optimized for the class specificly. It works with the type of role and pace each class keeps. So you can't numericly compare the powers without taking into account more factors than most people spout out when trying to prove their fallicious points on how clerics are better than wizards. The classes balance in the big picture dispite any discrepancies of one single power.

 

[Mongolia Jones]

Now you're just flat out lying. There are not a significant number of cleric attacks that have control, they almost all fall on the same level or are encounter level strength for wizards (while taking up a Cleric Daily) and half of them are melee attacks forcing your cleric to dump the charisma in favor of strength which makes its other two pushing powers not nearly as strong.

Clerics can AoE control at levels 1, 5, 9, 15, 17, 19, 25, 29.
Clerics can AoE strike at levels 1, 9, 13, 15, 17, 19, 23, 25, 27, 29.

And every one is a Wisdom attack power... so you can go to town with your Cha stat.

Seems like a significant number to me.

Plus you are implying that the Cleric control/strike dailies (like Fire Storm in the OP) are worse than the Wizard encounters? Who's the one lying now?

 

[Lucas Blackstone]

I've come to the conclusion that Wizards are still better controllers then Clerics. Frequency of control in conjunction with better control powers overall but not in every single instance.

I also agree with the people who think that Clerics have too much control ability in comparison to the Wizard's low amount of "leader-esque" abilities.

 

[bardolph]

I've been trying to figure it out, and I can't. Clerics have hands down the best control spell at this level. Evard's can potentially keep people tied down if you keep pushing them back in, but its huge area makes it unwieldy, since it affects your allies. The rest of the spells really don't even come close. Firestorm does more damage, more ongoing damage, it has the largest area, and it doesn't affect your allies.

What does the community think about this?

I would call Firestorm a terrific spell, but I wouldn't call it the best "hands down" control spell.

Evard's Black Tentacles creates difficult terrain, can immobilize, and can repeat attacks with a minor action.

Cloudkill can move (up to 6 squares per turn).

Fire Storm does spectacular damage, but the persistent effect doesn't offer much in the way of "control."

As a straight-up attack, Fire Storm is a definite winner, but the Wizard spells offer more combinatorial effects.

 

[Mongolia Jones]

If your going to argue that cleric shield utility spells are better than the Wizard's Shield spell then you have to take into account the oppertunity cost involved.

Well said Theziner, your comparisons of Shield vs Shield of Faith are right on.

You mentioned opportunity costs and it got me thinking. You are right, a wizard has to control, it's his job, so a power like shield works for him because it keeps him controlling. On the whole though, the typical Wizard has to choose between control powers and damage avoidance powers or he has to burn 2 powers in a single round to get both at the same time.

But if you look at the Cleric, he can have his cake and eat it too.
1. He has the best all out AoE damage strikes in the game, period.
2. He doesn't have to choose between doing damage and healing, there are plenty of powers that do both at the same time. Some even do damage, control, and buff all in one power.
3. All his AoE's work around friendlies
4. All his AoE's can be buffed using a single damage buff feat: Astral Fire.
5. He has a free feat at level 21 compared to the wizard.

The typical wizard will take at least 2 damage buffing feats if not more (i.e. cold, thunder, fire, etc) plus the Spell Accuracy feat to stay competitive.

Heck, just having 2 or 3 extra feats is a major advantage. Calculate the opportunity cost in that.