Worst 4th Ed Class

[evilbob]

Hmm. I tend to horde even Encounter powers until mid-fight, because I feel I am "Wasting" them if I use them early and it turns out the guy I targeted was a minion/not very tough/whatever. I like to "size up" the enemy before dipping into expendable resources. Maybe this is poor tactics; I don't know.

Well, this isn't really a thread about tactics so I'll try not to dwell, but if you're melee or more powerful when you're bloodied then you certainly have good reasons to hang back. But if you're ranged and especially if you do AOE, there is absolutely no reason to ever pull punches. I mean, how much easier is each battle every time you drop a foe? What if that had been 1 round earlier? Or 2 rounds? What if that foe had never even gotten an action? If the minions are cleared out, then your defender/strikers know they don't have to pull punches; they can get into better positions; you're all taking less damage than you would have so your leaders get more to do, too. Blowing powers early to help turn the battle is always a good idea to me. The only downside is how 4.0 turns into "grindspace" when everyone is down to at-wills - but that most likely would have happened anyway (game flaw, not tactics flaw).

(And for those who think "but what about the next encounter?" all I can say is that if a single wizard daily clears an entire encounter for you, then what is lost? That just means everyone else can save their stuff for the next one!)

 

[Kinneus]

He's actually more useful OUT of combat due to a lot of knowledge skills and a high Charisma coupled with social skills -- he's our party spokesman and negotiator.

Why does the wizard have the highest Charisma?
That may be your party wizard's problem right there...

 

[Lizard]

Why does the wizard have the highest Charisma?
That may be your party wizard's problem right there...

Because our gaming group builds characters first, optimized killing machines second... which is why my Ranger has Cha 14, Intimidate, and ST:Streetwise, or why the Paladin is maxed out on Bluff and has a Str of 10. (You don't even want to know about our 3e parties; we did everything "wrong". If I posted our 3e characters from various campaigns to the character optimization boards, I think heads would explode... )

So, yeah, our Wizard isn't optimized (Thunderwave with a Wisdom of 10... sigh... and he WON'T retrain it because "It's still useful!"), but neither is anyone else, and since we're all equally poorly designed, I think the evaluation is fair. The fact wizard leads the poll by a dramatic amount is pretty telling; it's NOT just my group.

 

[Plane Sailing]

His "battlefield control" spells are rarely a meaningful hindrance

This is a problem we've noticed as well - the encounter powers which inflict a condition "until the end of your next turn" often have a minimal effect on a fight which lasts 12-15 turns (which most of ours do).

Ray of Enfeeblement looks like a nifty encounter power (1d10 and weakens opponent) except that the opponent is only weakened for 1 round, which doesn't amount to a whole lot of control. "Save Ends" rarely makes things last more than 2-3 rounds, and I wonder whether quite a lot of those wizard encounter powers would make more sense as "save ends" rather than 'until end of your next turn'.

Ah well

 

[evilbob]

...I wonder whether quite a lot of those wizard encounter powers would make more sense as "save ends" rather than 'until end of your next turn'.

This is sort of funny, because I've recently come to the conclusion that "until the end of your next turn" is actually better than "save ends." Anything with "save ends" means that you have a very good chance (and on elites and solos, it's practically a given) that it will end on the monster's turn. Given that the monster's turn will happen before your next turn, something ending "on your next turn" will often happen for longer than something where a save will end it.

Certainly, with things like "ongoing fire 5" there's no difference, and having a save is better because that means they might fail it. But this is particularly evident in powers that allies can take advantage of, like where you can give a monster a stunned condition. This is MUCH better to last until the end of your next turn (when you and all your allies can take advantage of it at least once) vs. until the monster's next turn, which could mean as little as no one gets to take advantage of it.

Throw in the debate about whether or not you can delay your turn to cause "until the end of your next turn" to last even longer, and you've got a lot of evidence against "save ends" being more useful.