Community

Jul 23, 2010 -- 11:50AM, Ultimate_Arcane wrote:

Winged Horde is awesome, but the fact that it doesn't deal quite as much damage as the other spells, that its effect is a little on the situational side, and that you have to take Resounding Thunder, Enlarge Spell (which reduces its damage some more unless its been updated), Arcane Admixture, and Psychic Lock to get it to that point seems a little expensive and counter productive to blasting. Illusory Ambush requires only Arcane Admixture and Psychic Lock for some good control and damage on par with other spells, albeit single target.

I'm not saying you should never take Winged Horde though. I am saying Illusory Ambush strikes me as a slightly better choice for both control and damage. I'd rather deal normal damage compared to my other spells and stab a foe at a -4 rather than hit a bunch of other foes and put them at a -2, deal less damage, and take away an attack they may not use anyway. For killing a whole bunch of minions, that's great. For other things, not quite as good.

Ignore the riders. Illusory Ambush is 1d6+Int. Winged Horde if 1d6-2, no Int. So Illusory Ambush deals Int+2 more damage per hit.
My rough calculations (based on my Sorc's loadout) puts Winged horde at a  +11 at level 11 with a Staff of Ruin +3.

1d6+11 vs 1d6+19. However, the latter is a single target.

Winged Horde at 5x5 is sufficient to cover practically the entire encounter's worth of enemies every single round. If there are TWO enemies within 5 squares of each other, you're dealing 1d6+11 twice. If there are not two enemies within 5 squares of each other, it's because there's only one enemy left.

At level 11, 21 Str/21 Int, with a Staff of Ruin +3:
Illusory Ambush:
Drop resounding and Enlarge for  Expertise and Superior Implement.
This gives a +15 vs 23 NADs. (5(lvl) +1(Acc) +1(Exp) +3(Ench) +5(Int))
1 Target = 15.575 DPR.

Winged Horde:
+13 vs 23 NADs. (5(lvl) +3(Ench) +5(Int))
1 Target = 8.925 DPR.
2 Targets = 17.85 Total DPR.
3 Targets = 26.78 Total DPR.
4 Targets = 35.70 Total DPR.
5 Targets = 44.63 Total DPR.
(Why are they additive? Each attack is independant of each other - the odds of one hitting does not affect the odds of another. So it is safe to treat each as a seperate attack. Adjusted by hit rate, we expect X amount of damage on one target. With exactly the same situation, we expect X amount of damage on another target. So we can sum it to get expected damage.)

So as I was saying - against one target, Illusory Ambush outdamages Winged Horde. Your job is not to blast one target. That's what Rogues and Rangers are for. Since your 5x5 is party-friendly, unless there is only one target alive, you will most likely have 2 or more targets.

In terms of damage output, Winged Horde is superior. If you're only targeting the solo or remaining survivor - by all means, use your other at will.

For sheer quantity of damage however, Winged Horde is tops. The only situation where it isn't the best is when you're fighting a solo. So long as there is more than one enemy, you will have more than one target, and you will be outputting greater amounts of damage while giving your melee teammates unrivaled mobility.

Considering the most common way to get Thunder on all the Genasi powers is to go Malec-Keth, should also factor in that Winged Horde is area burst 2 (resounding thunder) with no damage loss, and can be area burst 3 (enlarge spell) for a minus on the die. A minus that is more then counter-acted by Destructive Wizardry, assuming Enlarging it gives you an extra target (else why would you Enlarge it?). And it is party friendly. When trying to AE a huge area like that, not having to figure in where your allies are is huge.

The whole point of Winged Horde is that at level 12 latest you can make it a burst 3!  Yeah you lose your INT-mod damage, but you get to use all your other mods that you've stacked up.  You will gain more than you lose from Promise of Storm, and elemental echoes.
Before 12 or whenever you can make it a large burst, you will likely use Scorching burst, or Arc Lightning (the new 1d6 x2 targets at-will).

I would never take a 1 target power to replace an AoE because you mine as well just play a different class if you are going to do that.  The point of the build is AoE damage, along with a few tricks to help vs 1 foe.  The psychic Lock is tempting and all, but your feats are too valuable.  A -2AB on a rarely used spell is NOT worth sacrificing +1/2/3 damage per hit from a weapon-focus grade feat.  And WF is one of your lesser feats, one that you would be sacrificing.

You could always take a 1 target power for your 2nd at-will if you decide not to go Janissary.  Of course that means you miss out on Thunderwave to cover you for close powers.

--------
Thanks for the nice stats, Dark_Lambo!

============

Regarding stats, I can see that array being good if you happen to start at close to epic.  However, I just havent been real impressed with crits for this build.

You can take a feat and get a +5% chance of critting.   A crit doesn't do all that much though for this build.  Most of your damage is from Mods and not from dice.  You also have no crit synergy or special on-crit effects.
Even if a crit gave you an extra SIXTY damage vs a normal hit, at an extra 5% chance of it happening, it would be able equal to +3 damage per attack roll.   That is about what a weapon focus would give you. (actually its about twice as good since you only hit about 1/2 the time[simplified])

Your crit sources will be 4 to 6 D12s from Staff of Ruin which is 6.5 damage per die.  Plus, your 3d8 Promise would go from 13.5 average to 24 maxed.  Plus your Winged horde damage goes from 3.5 to um 6.   So I think 60 is pretty generous.  30 to 40 is more realistic.

I know you could take Rings of Devastation, etc, but that is just turd polishing by bumping a suboptimal aspect of your character.

I'd rather have more focused Stats and rather take Quickened Spell to get off an extra Winged Horde in my opening round which by epic should have a 100% chance of doing quite a bit of damage.

Sep 19, 2010 -- 6:36AM, Zen_Brian wrote:

The winning races: genasi article is now up, and I think that the paragon path in it might given the Janisary a run for its money.  While many of its features are very unimpressive, the level 11 feature "Elements Unleashed" is perfect for this build.  It allows you to convert the damage for any encounter or daily attack power to any damage type that your manifestation gives you resistance to.

This means that any stormsoul can freely convert all of their (encounter/daily) powers to lightning damage!  Also any voidsoul could convert to psychic for mass psychic lock abuse, but that's not the point of this build.

The bad news here is that the powers are terrible.  Elemental transposition would be a lot better as a move/minor action than it is as a standard.  And while elemental eruption is cool, it is a close burst 2 that targets all creatures which makes it party unfriendly.  Although its damage is very hard to resist.

Link?

-AHA!-
www.wizards.com/dnd/downloads/dragon/391...

@DarkLimbo

With both enlarge and Resounding thunder, horde would be burst 3, 7x7, not 5x5 like you've been saying. 

Unless you were meaning 5x5 not enlarged,  but in your calculation post a few spots up you included the enlarge penalty, so I'm assuming you meant enlarged.