I'm actually waiting for the Stormwind Fallacy to pop up in this argument at some point.
LOL,
I'm convinced the only threads that actually discuss the Stormwind Fallacy are the threads you bring it up in.
Seriously, everyone. Chillax. Mention one OP (?) Daily, and it's like I'm trying to dethrone Caesar. I don't punch the numbers every battle, and for the most part, I don't care if someone does 35 DPR or 70 DPR at 15, so long as no one else in my game is losing enjoyment over it. I can always rebalance things if I think players have optimized themselves out of the reasonable ranges, and up the levels of my enemies to provide a good challenge.
Besides, if any of you were in my game, I'd know better than to try and ban that power... it wouldn't be worth the whining. lol
2.) Am I the only barbarian player who is now split on the "Storm of Blades, Hide Armor Expertise" nerfing? On one hand i now see how it is horribly over balanced, on the other doing the same thing rangers do as an encounter would be a delightful way to shut them up. (Like my parties warlock who got uppity because she did like 90 damage with a daily. My Dm pointed out that with an Action point and 2 encounter powers I did quite a bit more. (At level 9 or 10. And to be fair i crit'd)
To comment I do have to say I throw in a bit with UMCorian. The reaction from the other side of this has felt rather threatening and violent. I understand the fervor guys, but it'll be ok.
To sum this up, the argument has been. "Multi-attack is broken" followed by "no it's not!"
So lets look at Nerf'd storm of blades. 3 attacks. If they all hit (which they should) there average damage should look like this.
3(1(D12)) +3(Str(5)+wpn Focus(2)+enc(+2))=
High=63, Low=52, Average=57.5 Crit... is kinda hard to calculate on this because unlike say a 3[w] attack your making multiple roles. The free slap with Rampage IS quite awesome though.
So Average 60 Damage on a swing. there is a nice encounter thats a fat 3w which sums up to about 27 average. And I take Brutal slam, a smaller 2w damage. so about 21. If I charge optimize I will be doing about (crunches numbers.) 28 damage on a charge average.
So assume a 8 round fight, and that I hit every swing with no crit, and 1 action point expendature.
and lets go for max damage per round so i am not going to be using the 2w encounter.
1 Round I get the 57, the 3w is a free slap against someone swinging at me (and my paragon lets me use it 2x. so lets add those all here to give us the following equation.
57+(27x2)+7(28) all over 7. I come out with 44.14 blah blah blah
So my Barbarians average damage output (without Frost Cheese, that WILL REALLY throw this into a horrible array) is 45. Which is 1 point up from my previous 43.57....
So my barbarian is really coming about neutral to your numbers. A little high, but that happens. Adding Frost to this REALLY will change things up, but i'm also losing about an average 4 damage on my charging. Since we are already in the realm of 300+ damage/encounter the extra 10 or 15 damage I gnab with it from storm of blades isn't going to really effect my average much.
Will he do more? Sure, but he can also do less. Typically though he will be handing out 44 damage per round. if he is raging, he will obviously be doing more, but thats a rage, he's supposed to be doing more.
So barbarian average level 13 damage is 44/round. Thats pretty damn close to your 20/40/60 line up.
True, I get to slober a LARGE quantity of it over one enemy, but I'm a Melee striker, that's what i do.
A big problem I have with that system, btw, is that its hard to measure out the length of the encounter. In an optimized group the encouter is going to be somewhat shorter, but in a casual group it's going to be longer. And that is going to significantly change those numbers I came up with.
it could be that your party is really optimized and thus finishing faster putting out a value that isn't necceserily representative of how powerful they are because it's only taking a few swings into account. In a one round encounter my char could have a 60 average at level 13. and in a longer encounter my average is going to stretch out. Typically my numbers won't fall too low because the charge is at will (I also assumed I charged every round btw) but still.... (also frost cheese will help keep my average up)
To the OP: My personal take on it is 4e has a lot of balancing issues. For example, the Paragon Striker dailies that are like: "Keep attacking until you miss"... are the stupidest, most unbalanced pieces of garbage I've ever seen in any game. Look at Defender/Leader/Controllers Dailies. Nothing even comes close to that level of power. I've outright banned them from my game, even the errata'd form. *Almost* every power that's gold in the Optimization Boards is gold for a reason - it's too OP.
I'm not talking about damage. I'm talking about the ability to trivalize a fight. How about a defender/leader power that halfs all damage of a Solo mob for the entire encounter unconditionally? A controller power that, in a fight with 10 enemies non-minion enemies, takes 5 of them out of the game in a single go, without any need for synergy or maintence?
That's the equivilent of Blade Cascade in its errated form.
Umm, the Wizard says hi. Especially save debuffers and zone abusers.
If you want to compare level 15 Dailies, Prismatic Beams targets each enemy in a close burst 5 and high attack rolls will nail any given target with two separate attacks, 2 separate cases of ongoing damage, and a daze as the cherry on top. Statistically speaking, a Wizard even remotely optimized for accuracy that has even a little bit of set-up from the party leader will be hitting most of the monsters on the field. Layer status effects with an action point (prone, for example) and everyone that got dazed is effectively stunned. Direct comparisons are tough because the Wizard's trying to hold enemies back while the party focus fires on one unlucky guy, but that can certainly trivialize encounters.
Slumber of the Winter Court is another prime level 15 Daily; it has a smaller area (only an area burst 2...unless you have a Staff of the War Mage, which can bump that up to a burst 3), but enemies that fail their first saving throw (against dazed + slow, which is pretty potent) fall unconscious. For 1d4 hours (or if the target takes damage*). Turns a fight against 5 guys into 5 fights against 1 guy, with each of those fights opening with a coup de grace from everyone in the party. So it's tough to really call them 5 fights, eh? More like 5 executions.
*before you cry "broken!" keep in mind that unaffected enemies can easily ruin your fun by damaging their own allies to wake them up.
Point being, the absolute cream of the crop level 15 Daily for a striker is one that might grant 5 attacks to a class that already can regularly manage 2-3 attacks per turn? Yeah...that just illustrates the fact that as a rule, striker dailies are usually not that impressive. Blade Cascade is definitely a good power, but the fact that it's such a rarity just makes it the exception that proves the rule. If you want encounter-changing dailies, you want to roll up a controller (or to a lesser extent, a leader).
EDIT: Consider thinking about it this way: a Ranger is going to be using Twin Strike as an at-will attack, which grants 2 attacks as a standard action. You can make the argument that Blade Cascade is about 2.5 times as powerful as Twin Strike since it might grant up to 5 attacks. Sure, Twin Strike doesn't get your primary ability mod added to damage, but your string of Blade Cascade attacks ends as soon as you miss, and if you miss that first attack then your Daily just did nothing. It's not Reliable, it has no miss damage, and it has no effect line. Twin Strike is 2 attacks regardless of whether or not you hit or miss. Over the long term Blade Cascade will probably average 3 or 4 attacks (let's assume 4, accounting for builds focused on accuracy and leader setup, although that might be generous given that enemies which you'll usually blow this on will tend to be higher level than you). Basically, Blade Cascade is going to be somewhere between 2 and 3 times more potent than an at-will. How is that unreasonable?
Wizards, OTOH, have Dailies that are far more potent than their at-wills. Winged Horde vs Slumber of the Winter Court? Please. Heck, Wizards get zones that either flat out last the entire encounter or can be sustained, and this isn't just the top tier ones. They can completely change the nature of the encounter, and can usually be taken advantage of by not only the Wizard, but his allies as well. Even at level 1 a Wizard can neuter whole swaths of enemies by pushing them into Phantom Chasm's zone with Beguiling Strands, leaving multiple enemies prone (follow it up by moving 1 square away from them and they can't even charge).
I'm not trying to claim that Wizards are superior to Rangers, because the classes do very different things. Just trying to put the relative power of dailies into perspective. Even among striker classes it's difficult to compare dailies; whereas Rangers get a one-shot power that's quite frankly pretty swingy in Blade Cascade, Barbarians get rages which grant sweet encounter-long benefits. At level 15, a Barbarian can pick up Thunderfury Rage, which is a powerful 3[W] blow that knocks its target prone, and then you can hit an enemy that attacks you as an Immediate Reaction. In a 5 round encounter, that's 5 extra attacks on top of the initial hit, with a bigger weapon than the Ranger gets and a chance to make even more attacks if you crit on any of those.
To the OP: My personal take on it is 4e has a lot of balancing issues. For example, the Paragon Striker dailies that are like: "Keep attacking until you miss"... are the stupidest, most unbalanced pieces of garbage I've ever seen in any game. Look at Defender/Leader/Controllers Dailies. Nothing even comes close to that level of power. I've outright banned them from my game, even the errata'd form. *Almost* every power that's gold in the Optimization Boards is gold for a reason - it's too OP.
I'm not talking about damage. I'm talking about the ability to trivalize a fight. How about a defender/leader power that halfs all damage of a Solo mob for the entire encounter unconditionally? A controller power that, in a fight with 10 enemies non-minion enemies, takes 5 of them out of the game in a single go, without any need for synergy or maintence?
That's the equivilent of Blade Cascade in its errated form.
Umm, the Wizard says hi. Especially save debuffers and zone abusers.
If you want to compare level 15 Dailies, Prismatic Beams targets each enemy in a close burst 5 and high attack rolls will nail any given target with two separate attacks, 2 separate cases of ongoing damage, and a daze as the cherry on top. Statistically speaking, a Wizard even remotely optimized for accuracy that has even a little bit of set-up from the party leader will be hitting most of the monsters on the field. Layer status effects with an action point (prone, for example) and everyone that got dazed is effectively stunned. Direct comparisons are tough because the Wizard's trying to hold enemies back while the party focus fires on one unlucky guy, but that can certainly trivialize encounters.
Slumber of the Winter Court is another prime level 15 Daily; it has a smaller area (only an area burst 2...unless you have a Staff of the War Mage, which can bump that up to a burst 3), but enemies that fail their first saving throw (against dazed + slow, which is pretty potent) fall unconscious. For 1d4 hours (or if the target takes damage*). Turns a fight against 5 guys into 5 fights against 1 guy, with each of those fights opening with a coup de grace from everyone in the party. So it's tough to really call them 5 fights, eh? More like 5 executions.
*before you cry "broken!" keep in mind that unaffected enemies can easily ruin your fun by damaging their own allies to wake them up.
Point being, the absolute cream of the crop level 15 Daily for a striker is one that might grant 5 attacks to a class that already can regularly manage 2-3 attacks per turn? Yeah...that just illustrates the fact that as a rule, striker dailies are usually not that impressive. Blade Cascade is definitely a good power, but the fact that it's such a rarity just makes it the exception that proves the rule. If you want encounter-changing dailies, you want to roll up a controller (or to a lesser extent, a leader).
EDIT: Consider thinking about it this way: a Ranger is going to be using Twin Strike as an at-will attack, which grants 2 attacks as a standard action. You can make the argument that Blade Cascade is about 2.5 times as powerful as Twin Strike since it might grant up to 5 attacks. Sure, Twin Strike doesn't get your primary ability mod added to damage, but your string of Blade Cascade attacks ends as soon as you miss, and if you miss that first attack then your Daily just did nothing. It's not Reliable, it has no miss damage, and it has no effect line. Twin Strike is 2 attacks regardless of whether or not you hit or miss. Over the long term Blade Cascade will probably average 3 or 4 attacks (let's assume 4, accounting for builds focused on accuracy and leader setup, although that might be generous given that enemies which you'll usually blow this on will tend to be higher level than you). Basically, Blade Cascade is going to be somewhere between 2 and 3 times more potent than an at-will. How is that unreasonable?
Wizards, OTOH, have Dailies that are far more potent than their at-wills. Winged Horde vs Slumber of the Winter Court? Please. Heck, Wizards get zones that either flat out last the entire encounter or can be sustained, and this isn't just the top tier ones. They can completely change the nature of the encounter, and can usually be taken advantage of by not only the Wizard, but his allies as well. Even at level 1 a Wizard can neuter whole swaths of enemies by pushing them into Phantom Chasm's zone with Beguiling Strands, leaving multiple enemies prone (follow it up by moving 1 square away from them and they can't even charge).
I'm not trying to claim that Wizards are superior to Rangers, because the classes do very different things. Just trying to put the relative power of dailies into perspective. Even among striker classes it's difficult to compare dailies; whereas Rangers get a one-shot power that's quite frankly pretty swingy in Blade Cascade, Barbarians get rages which grant sweet encounter-long benefits. At level 15, a Barbarian can pick up Thunderfury Rage, which is a powerful 3[W] blow that knocks its target prone, and then you can hit an enemy that attacks you as an Immediate Reaction. In a 5 round encounter, that's 5 extra attacks on top of the initial hit, with a bigger weapon than the Ranger gets and a chance to make even more attacks if you crit on any of those.
Both are nice abilities for sure. But be realistic. You are talking about an ability that only damages for 2d6+mods and 2d6+mods and makes it so the enemies only get to attack and not move. Bottom line, at 15, that's not going to be one-shotting even regular mobs without any follow-up abilities.
You are really selling SotWC for more than it's worth IMHO. An area burst 2 that hits your allies as well? Without friendly fire, just how many enemies do you think you are going to get with that? And the enemies outside of that burst will, as you said, will quickly be waking up their companions.
Is it bad? Hell no. Is it good? Extremely. Is it what I'd expect from a Daily? Yes. Is it going to destroy half of an encounter without needing synergy from anyone or anything else? No.
Blade Cascade, with only a minimum amount of optimization and not terrible luck, will frequently take half of a Solo Mobs life, and almost always, one-shot an elite. I just feel it does way too much.
You are really selling SotWC for more than it's worth IMHO. An area burst 2 that hits your allies as well? Without friendly fire, just how many enemies do you think you are going to get with that?
3-4, every time I've seen it used. And they won't, because either the sleeping people have already died, or the wizard used Mass Charm to push them somewhere else.
Is it bad? Hell no. Is it good? Extremely. Is it what I'd expect from a Daily? Yes. Is it going to destroy half of an encounter without needing synergy from anyone or anything else? No.
Er, nope. That's exactly what it does.
Also: Visions of Avarice. Wall of Fire. Consecrated Ground. Moment of Glory. Any of the Warlord "everybody make an MBA powers out-do Blade Cascade...", and those aren't the encounter breaking powers controllers have.
Your non-striker players are either really nice to you, or you're unable to recognize when control just ended the battle, or you're stuck in the old old days of "fighters can't have cool toys".
"Nice assumptions. Completely wrong assumptions, but by jove if being incorrect stopped people from making idiotic statements, we wouldn't have modern internet subculture." Kerrus
Practical gameplay runs by neither RAW or RAI, but rather "A Compromise Between The Gist Of The Rule As I Recall Getting The Impression Of It That One Time I Read It And What Jerry Says He Remembers, Whatever, We'll Look It Up Later If Any Of Us Still Give A Damn." Erachima
Bit of a followup... I have the following paragon level PCs in LFR
A cheesy 120 effective DPR (~first 3 rounds, then drops off to "only" 80) level 19 superstriker.
A 50 DPR level 14 striker, with no real spike capability
A 0 DPR, 14 strength level 11 Warlord.
Which do you think is the most powerful on that list? (for the level of the PC)
It's the Warlord. By far. The Warlord ends fights in the 1st round, before they've even started.
The 120-DPR superstriker just ends up unconscious, unless someone is kind to me and plays a warlord or other good leader. Of the three PCs I mentioned, the 1st is actually the weakest.
"Nice assumptions. Completely wrong assumptions, but by jove if being incorrect stopped people from making idiotic statements, we wouldn't have modern internet subculture." Kerrus
Practical gameplay runs by neither RAW or RAI, but rather "A Compromise Between The Gist Of The Rule As I Recall Getting The Impression Of It That One Time I Read It And What Jerry Says He Remembers, Whatever, We'll Look It Up Later If Any Of Us Still Give A Damn." Erachima
