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Jan 2, 2012 -- 12:01PM, Zathris wrote:

Jan 2, 2012 -- 8:15AM, SonsofNorthWind wrote:

Alright - you asked for it, it's dance time.  Can your Sigil Carver do this?  **shuffle shuffle ball change STOMP! (pant pant pant)**

Deva ASM + Wandering Swordmage + Mark of Warding + Battle Intuition + Total Aegis.  Go first, move, minor to mark whole battlefield (free bonus: use mobility to not be in the same blast as their ally), standard charge or bash depending on needs.   Taking ASM allows you to punish & lesser 2ndary stat dependency opens up a race choice with great feat support and a fantastic ED in Soul of the World.  When you teleport away, charge back to your victim of choice with your Badge of the Berserker.

No, a Sigil Carver cannot do what a Wandering Swordmage does, but a Wandering Swordmage cannot punish more than 2 of the enemies it marks, nor can it punish enemies that burst/blast you+allies, nor can it arbitrarilly give an ally +6 against an attack *assuming you didn't completely negate the hit*.

Oh, and I can mark in burst 2, then mark in blast 3, then mark/attack in area burst 3 within 10, and have teleported twice to cover new areas, bringing a buddy with me, and getting a free MBA against an enemy (possibly triggering another burst 2 mark). Assuming the average battlefield (based on mods and map tiles provided by WotC), I'm superior at Enemies < 8 in terms of marking in the first 2 rounds (which is why Wandering is a bad PP, class powers allow you to practicaly match the marking potential for 2 rounds). For an abnormal battlefield ... You're more likely to be in a corridor of some sort (dense forest, castle, alley, sewers, cave) than in an open field.

Now, punishment, since you don't seem to get that, either. In the first round of combat both of my II's reverse the attack (ie. theirs is negated, and I get to damage them) this is something only a SSM can do because of TL (which as Marshall said, really should be an ASM power). For the next 3 rounds I will reduce damage on one attack, and reverse another, each round. 5th round I can *only* reduce and negate (oh noes, I'm out of reversals). I also punish any enemy within 5 that hits an ally I'm adjacent to or an enemy that charges me. Possible prevention: 3 Attacks possibly + 3 automatic. Possible punishment: 5 gained attacks from IAs, 10 OAs. Reductions: 4 Attacks. And that's not touching Lightning Weapon + Mark of Storm negating any melee attack against the ally adjacent to me.

ASM can: 1st round: Punish and Reverse. 2nd round: Punish and Reverse. 3rd round: Punish and Reverse. 4th round: Punish and Reverse. 5th Round: Punish and Punish. Possible prevention: 2 Attacks possibly + 2 automatic. Possible punishment: 10. Reductions: 0.

SSM Sigil Carver prevents more attacks, gains more attacks, and prevents more damage.

Wandering ASM just creates a squishier defender that is *potentially* a nuisance to more enemies.

Honestly i don't comprove all of your theory (or real practice), but in case (and i don't doubt it) you are right this Paragon Path deserves an urgent nerf or, in other words, an urgent upgrade to ASM.

Elsewise is a remarkable work what you have done.

Jan 2, 2012 -- 6:58AM, Herid_Fel wrote:

Jan 1, 2012 -- 9:38PM, Mommy_was_an_Orc wrote:

Jan 1, 2012 -- 9:01PM, zelink551 wrote:

They burst you, you OA them into submission and put them in a really **** situation. Game set match.

Is there something that requires a ranged burst attacker be marked and within 5 of the Sigil Carver? If they're outside 5 or not marked, then the OA doesn't work. Or for that matter within 10 of the Sigil Carver? i.e. out of effective Aegis and most interrupt power range?

Most burst attackers can be one outside the range of Aegis of Shielding, which means no Transpositional Lunge...

It's very rare that battlefields are so large that a ranged attacker can regularly be at least 11 squares away from the swordmage unless the swordmage is running away from that target. In that case, it's the swordmage's fault. The swordmage was close enough to mark the target at one point, so your situation is pretty far out of the box.

It actually isn't as much as it seems - if the option is choose between:
Take 2 attacks and not get an attack off and use up the Swordmage interrupt or
Get far enough away from the Swordmage, not take any attacks, and set up the next round for other options.

The 2nd one starts to look reasonably attractive. Particularly when Teleport or Flight or other similar options might be available.

But this is ignoring my first and main point - being a Sigil Carver creates opportunities for unmarked monsters to burst the Sigil Carver and his friend - an opportunity that often won't exist if the PCs are acting in a tactical manner. Zathris' seeming explanation is that burst opponents almost always have a choice of burst 1 on two targets anyway and therefore that's not really a negative. That suggests that in Zathris' experience, he doesn't need to worry about burst opponents hitting two targets at once.

That's relatively rare in my experience. 

Jan 3, 2012 -- 10:40AM, Mommy_was_an_Orc wrote:

But this is ignoring my first and main point - being a Sigil Carver creates opportunities for unmarked monsters to burst the Sigil Carver and his friend - an opportunity that often won't exist if the PCs are acting in a tactical manner. Zathris' seeming explanation is that burst opponents almost always have a choice of burst 1 on two targets anyway and therefore that's not really a negative. That suggests that in Zathris' experience, he doesn't need to worry about burst opponents hitting two targets at once.

That's relatively rare in my experience. 

I have played with LFR Sigil Carver's at mid-high Paragon and into Epic.  I have not seen this problem much.  The only real time it has come up is when PCs are in the "penalty box" at the start of combat, and often there isn't much choice anyway (i.e. the available starting locations are all in burst formation). 

IME, the bigger issue is that combats are so spread out at higher levels that PCs just aren't next each other that much so the limitation on the defense bonus and OA to adjacent allies is a huge one.  Now Sigil of Safety on the other hand had at least a 90% rate of being triggered every combat.  It is great and I think Sigil Carver overall is very good, but at higher levels I have not see the ally adjacent buffs to be terribly significant.

Daren 

Jan 3, 2012 -- 12:54PM, Zathris wrote:

My Sigil Carver Doesn't Get Hit™ so adding myself to a possible Burst/Blast situation only results in possible enemy punishment and attack negation (Because of Staggering, Slide 6 will negate most blasts, and potentially bursts via LoS or Range issues) and a +2 Defense bonus for my ally.

I admit the slide from ES provides me a tactical option that a standard SM lacks, but by the time Punishing Sigil comes online, any SM can hit the "nigh unhittable" benchmarks, and a Sigil Carver absolutely should; standard Catch-22 methods aren't sufficient to entice enemies to attack your allies when punishment is "I get to attack you, maybe twice, and make you miss". Someone wanted to issue a challenge in which no boundaries were stated (Deva, Wandering, Soul of the World) so I will respond with what is by my measure the ultimate defender in 4e. If "get out of range of the SMs punishment" is the most attractive option, then I don't believe there's any room to improve.

Clarification: I didn't issue a "no boundaries" build challenge.  I thought that putting the power Aegis of Assault by itself up against Aegis of Shielding + Punishing Sigil + slide-enabled OA + additional encounter interrupts + cooperative party wasn't a legitimate good faith effort at comparison, so I tossed out a build that filled in a few of the missing factors on the side of ASM.  I picked a Swordmage PP that takes advantage of the ASM's lack of a compelling need for high Strength and a race that complemented that PP's stat needs perfectly, which also happened to yield one of the stronger EDs in the game 5 levels after the comparison began.  Perfectly legit pure Swordmage.

Specific issues still required for level playing field:

1. If any SM can reach nigh unhittable by 16, why is Wandering Swordmage's reduced Con a squishiness issue?   If no one wants to swing at the Swordmage anyway due to their crazy defenses, Wandering Swordmage ends up with a huge burst to mark enemies with on turn 1 and therefore aims for a build designed for greater tactical mobility, at-will penalty stacking on-turn (gith sword/psychic lock, Mark of Warding, etc), and artillery smothering, as opposed to Sigil Carver's smaller zone of control enforced with at-will off-turn Punishing Sigil slide (Lightning Weapon, Mark of Storms) and additional uses of encounter interrupts.  Both have their moments. 

2. I'm not familiar with your specific build, so I'm not sure where you're getting ES from.  If you're thinking SSM|Lock -> Sigil Carving Darth Vader variant, you're opening a can of Hybrid worms that provides fantastic competing PPs like Hexer (Con Vestige) or LNS (Cha Fey) for the ASM|Lock while dramatically increasing the power of its mark punishment.  If you're thinking Half-Elf... well, I'm assuming you're not, because the lack of an Int bonus might be acceptable at many casual tables but is unlikely to be considered optimal. 

Jan 10, 2012 -- 7:25AM, Kare wrote:

Hey,

I didn't read the whole 121 page thread, but is there some plan to update the equipment list to include 'alternative rewards' that would work well for swordmages?

JMH 

There are no such plans. Alternative rewards are entirely in the hands of the DM. Although item rarity has affected how magic items in Fourth Edition work, I'm going to keep going with the assumption that players have at least some control over common and uncommon magic items, while DMs control rare magic items, artifacts, and alternative rewards.