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1 year ago ::
Mar 07, 2012 - 7:40AM
#21
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Date Joined:
Sep 17, 2007
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Flame Spiral is a Gold power, but not because it applies multiple times, as it doesn't - rather, because it is as good as your party is at forced movement. It is absolutely trivial to get at least one decent forced movement effect per character, so you unload with Flame Spiral, your party each spends their movers, and boom, you get like five attacks in one round. The wording on it is very, very clear - and very, very powerful if your party isn't made up of purely single-target characters who have poor optimization sense and are major-league douchebags, as it's a guaranteed doublehitter with easy triplehitting and potential to do more if your party helps at all.
Mountain Cleave Rule: You can have any sort of fun, including broken, silly fun, so long as I get to have that fun too (e. g., if you can warp reality with your spells, I can cleave mountains with my blade).
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1 year ago ::
Mar 07, 2012 - 7:45AM
#22
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I think it is gold just because of how long it would take for you to replace it no matter what type of sorc you are (in fact do you ever replace it?).
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1 year ago ::
Mar 07, 2012 - 7:49AM
#23
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Date Joined:
Apr 25, 2002
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Flame Spiral is a Gold power, but not because it applies multiple times, as it doesn't - rather, because it is as good as your party is at forced movement. It is absolutely trivial to get at least one decent forced movement effect per character, so you unload with Flame Spiral, your party each spends their movers, and boom, you get like five attacks in one round. The wording on it is very, very clear - and very, very powerful if your party isn't made up of purely single-target characters who have poor optimization sense and are major-league douchebags, as it's a guaranteed doublehitter with easy triplehitting and potential to do more if your party helps at all.
I think it is Gold even if you don't have forced movement capabilities, simply because in essence, you get an auto-hit effect that does almost as much damage as Lightning Cuts does on a hit to likely 2 targets and/or that protects you from enemies coming up to you.
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1 year ago ::
Mar 07, 2012 - 7:52AM
#24
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Date Joined:
Sep 17, 2007
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I think it is gold just because of how long it would take for you to replace it no matter what type of sorc you are (in fact do you ever replace it?).
Absolutely irrefutable answer: No, you don't. Ever. It's Hail of Steel, except obtained at level 3, with a multitarget effect, with an extra attack in all situations, more easily usable, and if Hail of Steel was used on a party entirely consisting of Strikers.
Seriously. Look at the two powers and tell me they aren't similar. Their focus is inverted (instead of many from one, one from many), but their effect is similar, except Spiral is better.
Mountain Cleave Rule: You can have any sort of fun, including broken, silly fun, so long as I get to have that fun too (e. g., if you can warp reality with your spells, I can cleave mountains with my blade).
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1 year ago ::
Mar 07, 2012 - 7:55AM
#25
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Date Joined:
Jun 17, 2010
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Are we really saying that people shouldn't bother looking for things beyond a power that would get errata'd into a limitation on how many times it goes off if they ever bothered to look at the class again?
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying Flame Spiral isn't good, I'm just saying that I'm a little hesitant to slap on the Gold label and not bother with any other sorcerer builds.
Maybe it's a bit scrubbish, but some fair treatment of non-Flame Spiral builds seems appropriate for a handbook like this. Has the same feeling as putting a Wizard handbook together that says "Well, instead of being a blaster, you should ignore your class and MC Fighter for a KAMcharger because it's higher DPR."
There shouldn't be just one answer considered, just because it's hugely overpowered.
D&D Next = D&D: Quantum Edition
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1 year ago ::
Mar 07, 2012 - 7:55AM
#26
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Date Joined:
Sep 17, 2007
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Flame Spiral is a Gold power, but not because it applies multiple times, as it doesn't - rather, because it is as good as your party is at forced movement. It is absolutely trivial to get at least one decent forced movement effect per character, so you unload with Flame Spiral, your party each spends their movers, and boom, you get like five attacks in one round. The wording on it is very, very clear - and very, very powerful if your party isn't made up of purely single-target characters who have poor optimization sense and are major-league douchebags, as it's a guaranteed doublehitter with easy triplehitting and potential to do more if your party helps at all.
I think it is Gold even if you don't have forced movement capabilities, simply because in essence, you get an auto-hit effect that does almost as much damage as Lightning Cuts does on a hit to likely 2 targets and/or that protects you from enemies coming up to you.
The unbelievable thing is that you don't even need many capabilities. Like...just take Infernal Slave. Done. You get three shots out of Flame Spiral (base hit, slide hit, start of monster turn hit) and you didn't even have to sacrifice something huge. Themes aren't a big deal for sorcerers, and you're not going to find something better than a huge ****off slide that gives you an extra attack and some extra damage. If you don't want to do this, Lightning Weapons own for Sorcerers (dat dragonshard), so just take it and Mark of Storm and you get your triplehitter, too. This goes on and on...there's way more setups for Flame Spiral than I care to count. It absolutely is the most powerful Sorcerer power, except maybe, maybe Lightning Daggers.
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@Mand: Oh, absolutely. It's worth discussing what powers other than Flame Spiral to take if you can't use it or don't want to use it for some reason. I'm just saying, if there's ever a power that's deserved a Gold rating, Flame Spiral is it.
Mountain Cleave Rule: You can have any sort of fun, including broken, silly fun, so long as I get to have that fun too (e. g., if you can warp reality with your spells, I can cleave mountains with my blade).
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1 year ago ::
Mar 07, 2012 - 7:58AM
#27
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Date Joined:
Jun 17, 2010
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It absolutely is the most powerful Sorcerer power, except maybe, maybe Lightning Daggers.
And the fact that it's a level 3 encounter doesn't raise red flags for you?
D&D Next = D&D: Quantum Edition
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1 year ago ::
Mar 07, 2012 - 8:08AM
#28
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The other problem is getting the RAW interpretation of Flame Spiral past your DM. I feel that RAI the power never intended you to get your mods to the 1d6 (I can't prove this, just my gut feeling), and that, if they ever went back and looked at it, that 1d6 would get labeled extra damage. So I feel like you have to include other powers/builds, for that reason.
Maybe I'm the only one who feels using Flame Spiral as a multiattack power is sketchy, but it just seems kind of obvious to me it was never intended to be an additional attack (but just 1d6 fire splash).
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1 year ago ::
Mar 07, 2012 - 8:09AM
#29
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Date Joined:
Sep 17, 2007
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It absolutely is the most powerful Sorcerer power, except maybe, maybe Lightning Daggers.
And the fact that it's a level 3 encounter doesn't raise red flags for you?
Hell no. Have you seen a Ranger's power list? A Barbarian's? The best powers are almost always the low-leveled ones on Strikers, because they are ever-easier to recycle and you can swap one in to take the place of a crap PP power. Strikers aren't controllers or leaders, who get their super hax tools at later levels (with the honorable exception of Warlocks and, to a lesser extent, Monks and Rogues). Their best tools emerge in the Heroic Tier and stay that way for a long long time. I don't know about you, but you'd have to pay me to get me to swap out Thundering Howl on my Barb, even with Storm of Blades and Hurricane of Blades overshadowing it a bit. I can Power Jewel it, Salve of Power it, use it with a Sorcerer because we're striker bros 4 lyfe, and just have a ball in general with that lowbie power. Every class has its flagship powers. I couldn't care one whit that the Sorcerer's is Level 3, considering at that point the Ranger is laughing all the way to the bank with his quad-hitting nova turn, the Warlord is toting Vengeance is Mine and Warlord's Favor/Strike, and the Wizard wins an encounter per day with [Insert Daily Here].
EDIT: Just to reiterate: I am not saying that the other powers should all be rated red or not even mentioned at that level because of Flame Spiral's existence (Lightning Cuts is, itself, a ridiculously great power, for instance). I'm just saying that, in the same way we hand out 'take this and don't look back' as advice at Ranger level 15, Warlord level 17, Fighter level 7 and so on, we can say the same for the Sorcerer, with maybe a 'pick up something else from this level at 7, it owns' caveat.
Mountain Cleave Rule: You can have any sort of fun, including broken, silly fun, so long as I get to have that fun too (e. g., if you can warp reality with your spells, I can cleave mountains with my blade).
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1 year ago ::
Mar 07, 2012 - 8:11AM
#30
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Date Joined:
Apr 25, 2002
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It absolutely is the most powerful Sorcerer power, except maybe, maybe Lightning Daggers.
And the fact that it's a level 3 encounter doesn't raise red flags for you?
I think it is very competitive with the top-tier powers of other classes. Look what a 13th level Sorcerer with implement focus, 18 Dex/Cha, does with it when there are 3 targets within 2 of you:
Standard: Flame Spiral - targeting 3 targets.
AP: Cyclone Pull centered on yourself
Here's what ends up happening:
Flame Spiral
Cyclone Pull - on a hit, enter space for Flame Spiral damage
At start of their turn, Flame Spiral damage again.
That's potentially effectively 4 sets of damage to 3 targets from 2 standard action powers - that's good potential Nova damage if it were just against a single target. A Wild Sorcerer can essentially do this trick at 3rd level with Bedeviling Burst and rolling an even to-hit roll.
Also, this should point out another option for Elementalists - they should pick Paragon Paths on the basis that they're not going to use the encounter power - they then swap it out using Reserve Manuever for Flame Spiral.
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