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Nov 5, 2012 -- 11:08AM, thespaceinvader wrote:

E: I'd also add that Misshapen is quite nice for Brawlers, certainly better than you've implied up there.  Simply having a melee 2 pull-and-grab is really quite nice for them, but having a 2[W] OA is also nice, as is the U6 for someone who will be taking escape attempts vs Fort, and can grab on OAs...

Except it isn't a 2w OA...

It is a 2d8+stat melee attack that is neither implement nor weapon. So most of the time, it will be inferior to the Brawler at-will of choice, Grappling Strike in chance to hit and how much damage it does, simply because you won't get enhancement bonuses, shard bonuses, weapon property options, etc...

Nov 6, 2012 -- 3:39PM, Alcestis wrote:

[@Mommy: Not as powerful an option. Also puts you a few feats behind in an extremely feat starved build. The build is a theory posted by someone who has never played a breather and you think it is a better option... why? And your response to Zelink is ridiculous. It isn't 60 damage minus 8 THP. It is 5-6 damage vs 6-7 THP every time in early Paragon. So except for your first breath, you take zero damage. This is a silly debate, it is literally the difference between bloodying yourself on a nova round of a breather or taking no damage at all.

So point out a link to a fully-statted out build that shows how your numbers work. I'm trying to rely on your numbers and the paragraph above is an example of why my responses sound ridiculous.

A paragon build ought to be able to do at max 5 nova blasts. As you can do:
Standard(target an ally)
Minor(target an ally)
Move(target an ally)
AP(don't target an ally)
Free(target an ally)

That means taking roughly 6 hp 4 times in a nova round at say 14th according to your numbers. That's 24 hp of damage compared to 6 damage even if you have Sensate. A 14th level character should have 90-99 hp - that's not bloodied, that's less than a healing surge difference for what I'm assuming is your top-tier damage build...

At the point where I see something that allows me to actually examine the numbers broken out for me, then I'll consider making it gold. Until that point in time, it is staying Sky Blue.

Nov 7, 2012 -- 12:56AM, Alcestis wrote:

It is 30 damage compared to 6, though where you got 6 I am not sure.

:/

Nov 6, 2012 -- 3:39PM, Alcestis wrote:

It is 5-6 damage vs 6-7 THP every time in early Paragon.

It is only 24 damage if you're doing an AP Nova with 5 dragonbreath attacks. You deliberately don't recharge, then recharge with the free dragonbreath gained by the AP. And if you're Infernal Slave, you do this:
Minor: Hellfire Touch
Move: Dragonbreath(recharge) - slide one of the targets into position to catch someone else in the last 3 breaths. Do an extra 10 fire/necrotic damage to one target.
Standard: Dragonbreath(recharge)
AP: Dragonbreath(don't recharge)
Free: Dragonbreath(recharge)

So as an example, let's say you would have had 2 targets. Instead of attacking those 2 targets 5 times, I hit them 4 times each and hit an additional guy 3 times. And I got some not-half-bad focus fire on 1 of the targets.

I only did the 3 recharges, so by your numbers, that's 18 damage or so. Does that hurt? Sure. But I did probably a total of +40 damage more on 3 targets than you did on 2. Likely taking out 1 and bloodying the other 2 vs you taking out both. If I'm in an incompetent group, your damage is likely a lot better. If I'm in a competent tactical group, I just gave them a couple of targets to quickly take out.

This gets a lot better if you don't even have 2 targets to burst - Infernal Touch means having 2 targets instead of 1. Now in set piece combats such as LFR, that's not likely to happen. In a group where the DM knows you can do what you do and has in-game reasons why many likely targets would know that you can do that(you're Paragon and therefore a relatively famous adventurer or frankly, just decides to metagame against you to stop the campaign from being overrun) - and therefore spreads everyone out to cause you problems with multi-targeting?

That's where Infernal Slave, from a campaign PoV against a tactical or metagaming DM, starts to have a lot better effects.

Nov 7, 2012 -- 12:56AM, Alcestis wrote:

DB is something around 2d6+3+2+1+7, on the low end (Rod+DS+Sorc+Con mod). That is 20 average damage, take half, resist 10. Whoops you don't recharge on an average roll or lower. So you need to up the damage so you can reliably recharge, or ditch the take half. So now it is 20, resist 10, so you're taking 50 damage.

Nov 6, 2012 -- 3:39PM, Alcestis wrote:

It is 5-6 damage vs 6-7 THP every time in early Paragon.

So your build is typically not recharging because you're not piercing your resist? No, you said an average of 5-6 after resistances to impact your 6-7 temp hit points. With halved and resist 10, that means your build is doing 30-32 average damage. I will take the half hit points option, thank you very much because 6<10 and 30-32 >>>20 and doesn't have recharge issues unless the build rolls in a way that you'd get screwed up also.

This is precisely why I'm asking for a link to where you're getting the numbers...

Nov 7, 2012 -- 12:56AM, Alcestis wrote:

But in Paragon taking 30 damage on round 1 and 20 damage per round after is simply not sustainable with the number of healing surges Sorcs have.

What if I have a Virtue of Valor Bard in the party who grants 10 temp hit points to 1 ally per round when they bloody or kill an enemy? Now I can full-out Nova for 14 damage, then standard and do 2 dragonbreaths per round and take only 2 damage per round after that. Is that sustainable? What if I have a Wis Cleric with Healing Lore who heals an average of about +10 per surge compared to the average leader and actions that grant either temps or surgeless healing? These aren't even CharOp quality leaders, these are just almost out of the box leaders with no special capabilities.

Again, I'm not arguing that Sensate is bad or not usually the best option for most Breathers. I'm arguing that it is not the strictly mechanically superior option because it is dependent on the group you are in. Have a DM who spreads out opponents? Infernal Slave helps fix that. Have a party with a Leader who grants lots of temps? Sensate is nowhere nearly as efficient.

I changed the rating to spell out the why it is not Gold and put it as Gold for LFR.