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I'm not planning on playing a summoner, but I was wondering: Is it possible to make an effective summoner wizard? It seems like all the somewhat decent stuff is a daily power, so you're stuck being a summoner half-time at mos.
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Dec 4, 2015 23:33
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Druids get the best summons.
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Dec 4, 2015 23:37
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The Belgian posted:I'm not planning on playing a summoner, but I was wondering: Is it possible to make an effective summoner wizard? All the good summons are dailies, and from experience, no, it's not terribly useful having a summoner Wizard, because IME they tend not to actually get round to summoning stuff until a bit too late in the fight because they're using their control encounter powers early, and so they play like Wizards without dailies. WHich is still good, but not Wizard-good. Druid summoners work, but the best summoner wizard is one that refluffs everything to be summons.
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Dec 5, 2015 00:21
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What are the really lovely classes? I know Vampire is one.
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Dec 5, 2015 05:06
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Binder is the big go-to "this is total poo poo" class, I think. Nearly all the bad classes are going to be Essentials classes, because gently caress Mike Mearls. Essentials: Blackguards aren't bad, they're just not very good. They are built on the tanky Paladin chassis, they're just not very good at Striking (their role). They make a good off-tank, I guess? Bladesingers are loving weird and are quite bad unless you use specific gimmick builds. And those gimmick builds turn them into Strikers, not Controllers like they're supposed to be. Pretty much all Essentials tanks (Cavalier, Knight, Berserker) suck at being sticky, which is what makes a 4E Defender worth a poo poo. Executioners are just kinda blah, though they have nice fluff abilities and stuff. Hexblades vary in crappiness depending on which pact, but really none of them are going to be as effective as a regular Warlock unless you exploit a specific gimmick mechanic. Hunters are pretty decent in heroic tier and then become crap. Scout is just a crappy Ranger with even less to do than say "I use Twin Strike again." Sentinels are lousy Leaders, but because they can dip basic Druid stuff they're not irredeemably bad. Slayers are insanely boring and not particularly great Strikers unless you go gimmick. Thieves deal good damage but are insanely boring like Slayers. Witch is just a subpar Sha'ir (though to be fair, Witch came first). Warpriests are just like, why is this even a thing. They're not bad, just pointless when you have the base Cleric. The original Assassin is hilariously squishy defense-wise and its extra-damage Striker mechanic, shrouds, is horribly designed. They're like Avengers mixed with Rogues mixed with garbage. Also, Power Point-using psionic classes aren't necessarily lovely in terms of being effective (Psions are arguably the absolutely most effective "shut the enemy down completely" Controller) but they're just not well designed. I appreciate that they were trying something different but it comes down to sticking with one or two of your low level At-Wills (PP classes get higher-level At-Wills instead of Encounter powers) and burning all of your PPs on cheap casts of that. Seekers are a not-good class that got some late support from Dragon magazine that made them less not-good. I dunno much about the late stuff other than it improved them, but no idea by how much.
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Dec 5, 2015 05:32
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This probably sounds like I'm dodging your question but I think a lot of it depends on what you mean by 'bad'. Blackguards and Vampires are actually not terrible in play but they're not fun to play or level and typically require particularly strange char-op techniques to even be serviceable. In fact I'd say that's my criticism of a lot of Essentials design. Even the good classes benefit a lot from complex char op requiring lots of system mastery which is the exact opposite of what those classes are supposed to be. Take even a 'good' class, like the Slayer. It benefits from all kinds of poo poo that makes your basic attacks better. It benefits a lot from a charge kit, which is not something a new player would ever really know about. Compare that to a vanilla Warlock. I think the Slayer is probably a better striker than the Warlock but I also think the Warlock is a lot more fun to play even if you have almost no understanding of the game in either case. Burglar's summary is good and I think even the 'good' Essentials characters can be pretty dull to play. Thief is probably the most enjoyable of the lot. Maybe Nethermancer, even if it's not particularly good.
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Dec 5, 2015 07:12
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The only one I personally disagree on is the essentials tanks. The Cavalier is lovely, but the Knight and Berserker can be very good if you build them right, though I know mine is a minority opinion in CharOp.
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Dec 5, 2015 10:58
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A lot of what Essentials brings to the table are great options to pick up for the older actually good classes, through powers, feats, and various multiclassing options.
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Dec 5, 2015 11:05
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thespaceinvader posted:The only one I personally disagree on is the essentials tanks. The Cavalier is lovely, but the Knight and Berserker can be very good if you build them right, though I know mine is a minority opinion in CharOp. The problem with Slayer/Scout/Knight/Beserker/etc is not that they are bad but that they are boring.
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Dec 5, 2015 17:53
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Yeah, the berserker works quite well. Wouldn't want to play one for 30 levels though.
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Dec 5, 2015 18:09
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OneThousandMonkeys posted:A lot of what Essentials brings to the table are great options to pick up for the older actually good classes, through powers, feats, and various multiclassing options. My Lovely Horse fucked around with this message at 18:48 on Dec 5, 2015 |
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Dec 5, 2015 18:16
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The Hexblade is a success from a flavor perspective, but in actual gameplay it falls into the "Okay but boring" camp. It also misses out on most of the Warlock feat support because it doesn't interact with pact boons the same way as the base warlock, and it has it's own differently named ranged attack instead of Eldritch blast because sure, why not.
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Dec 5, 2015 18:33
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Really Pants posted:Druids get the best summons. thespaceinvader posted:All the good summons are dailies, and from experience, no, it's not terribly useful having a summoner Wizard, because IME they tend not to actually get round to summoning stuff until a bit too late in the fight because they're using their control encounter powers early, and so they play like Wizards without dailies. WHich is still good, but not Wizard-good. Thanks! I know next to nothing about druids. I'll have a look into them.
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Dec 5, 2015 18:48
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Most controller summoning dailies get an opportunity attack, and a negative effect if you don't use your turn commanding them. Druid summons, on the other hand, get no OA and (mostly) useful actions they can take if you don't command them. So you can sling some druid spells while your summons go do their own thing. That's the main reason druid summoning is superior.
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Dec 5, 2015 19:37
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Really Pants posted:Most controller summoning dailies get an opportunity attack, and a negative effect if you don't use your turn commanding them. Druid summons, on the other hand, get no OA and (mostly) useful actions they can take if you don't command them. So you can sling some druid spells while your summons go do their own thing. That's the main reason druid summoning is superior. Didn't they later add similar instinctive action equivalents for the Wizard summons? Some of them were quite good. They still kept the negative effect if you didn't command them, but it was counterbalanced by some pretty impressive actions they take on their own. The succubus was simply absurd, I think it used a dominate effect all on its own. That might have been the commanded action though.
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Dec 5, 2015 19:40
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Obligatum VII posted:The succubus was simply absurd, I think it used a dominate effect all on its own. That might have been the commanded action though. Succubus uses it's dominate thing if you don't command it, but the summoner becomes dazed. It's quite strong. And yea, a lot of the more powerful wizard summons have instinctive actions.
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Dec 5, 2015 19:59
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Unknown Quantity posted:So how would I go about said control-blasting Invoker then? Like I've got Human since I figure I can leave con at 16 for now, and Superior Implement Proficiency (Accurate Staff) and Battlewise.
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Dec 5, 2015 20:06
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thespaceinvader posted:The only one I personally disagree on is the essentials tanks. The Cavalier is lovely, but the Knight and Berserker can be very good if you build them right, though I know mine is a minority opinion in CharOp. My main beef is that Berserkers (and Swordmages also have this issue) generally neglect their Will ability scores, which means they can't get Superior Will. And if you are the party Defender, you really want Superior Will. I'd basically houserule that a Defender could buy that feat even without the 15 WIS/CHA because goddamn it is insanely important for a Defender if you fight anything that can Daze or worse. Fake edit: I guess Paladins don't have to worry about it so much since their mark goes off without any action on their part, but they're gonna be rocking WIS and/or CHA anyway. Dick Burglar fucked around with this message at 21:04 on Dec 5, 2015 |
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Dec 5, 2015 20:59
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Hey guys, question, I want to learn more about writing adventures, and what makes a character feel like they have agency. Creating NPC's that are varied and interesting would also be a plus.
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Dec 5, 2015 21:03
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Dick Burglar posted:My main beef is that Berserkers (and Swordmages also have this issue) generally neglect their Will ability scores, which means they can't get Superior Will. And if you are the party Defender, you really want Superior Will. I'd basically houserule that a Defender could buy that feat even without the 15 WIS/CHA because goddamn it is insanely important for a Defender if you fight anything that can Daze or worse. If you're willing to start with 18 Str, you can put a few extra points in Wis--enough for Battle Awareness in heroic, and Superior Will the second you hit paragon. Or take a Str/Wis instead of Str/Dex race, and you can take Superior Will right away.
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Dec 5, 2015 21:03
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Unless you buy your WIS to 14 at Heroic, you're not gonna have the requisite 15 by Paragon. Getting 13 for Battlewise is easy, but 14 requires dumping your secondary (AC-granting) ability score which means you're less effective. Classes like Paladin and Combat Superiority Fighters don't have to make that sacrifice. (Edit: a better example would be Warden, since Paladins and Fighters use heavy armor anyway.) Also, on the note of houserules, how do people use Battlemind's Lightning Rush? RAW, it can provoke an OA since it just lets you move, rather than shift or teleport or whatever. And when you're using Lightning Rush, you're already breaking the flow of combat since it's an Immediate action. You're going to further break the flow when you have to figure out who gets OAs on you and whether they hit/how much damage you take. It just seems bad. Do people houserule it into a shift, or is that too powerful, or what? Dick Burglar fucked around with this message at 21:08 on Dec 5, 2015 |
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Dec 5, 2015 21:06
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Obligatum VII posted:Didn't they later add similar instinctive action equivalents for the Wizard summons? Some of them were quite good. They still kept the negative effect if you didn't command them, but it was counterbalanced by some pretty impressive actions they take on their own. Yeah, the succubus is what got me thinking about summoner wizards. The problem being that all the summon powers of note are daily, so you can't build a full-time wizard summoner.
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Dec 5, 2015 22:36
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The Belgian posted:Yeah, the succubus is what got me thinking about summoner wizards. I think the idea is you do 1 summon per encounter rather than summon-spam.
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Dec 5, 2015 22:37
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Dick Burglar posted:Unless you buy your WIS to 14 at Heroic, you're not gonna have the requisite 15 by Paragon. Getting 13 for Battlewise is easy, but 14 requires dumping your secondary (AC-granting) ability score which means you're less effective. Classes like Paladin and Combat Superiority Fighters don't have to make that sacrifice. (Edit: a better example would be Warden, since Paladins and Fighters use heavy armor anyway.) Yes, you should further break the flow. Nested actions are a thing in 4e that you have to deal with. Wait till you get to Epic and you start seeing Climactic Chords all over the place. And yeah, it's tough getting that Wisdom, but I usually managed to fit it in by Paragon - and it's not impossible to deal with it otherwise. For my money though if I was houseruling, I'd put in a general rule allowing people to downgrade conditions one step at some major cost. So Dominate>Stun>Daze>No minor action, or somesuch.
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Dec 5, 2015 22:40
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OneThousandMonkeys posted:I think the idea is you do 1 summon per encounter rather than summon-spam. Yeah, once you get your full set of three dailies you're pretty much meant to pull out one per fight. Remember, summons with instinctive actions (and whatever the Wizard equivalent is called) break 4E's action economy. In 3.X this was less of a big deal because lol gently caress balance anyway, but 4E is actually meant to be a balanced game and adding extra creatures with extra actions circumvents normal combat math expectations. So they're meant to be used relatively sparingly.
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Dec 5, 2015 22:41
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If you're only getting three fights per extended rest your DM is throwing you softballs.
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Dec 5, 2015 23:57
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Depends on the fights. The other option is that you're playing LFR. SO yeah, softballs.
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Dec 6, 2015 00:09
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Dick Burglar posted:Also, on the note of houserules, how do people use Battlemind's Lightning Rush? RAW, it can provoke an OA since it just lets you move, rather than shift or teleport or whatever. And when you're using Lightning Rush, you're already breaking the flow of combat since it's an Immediate action. You're going to further break the flow when you have to figure out who gets OAs on you and whether they hit/how much damage you take. It just seems bad. Do people houserule it into a shift, or is that too powerful, or what? Technically, if you Lightning Rush on someone doing a ranged attack, after your Immediate action resolves to put you next to them, their attack provokes an OA from you as well, before the attack that triggered the Lightning Rush in the first place even resolves.
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Dec 6, 2015 04:01
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OneThousandMonkeys posted:I think the idea is you do 1 summon per encounter rather than summon-spam. Yeah, it's a daily that keeps on giving. While it wouldn't always be the case, you would come pretty close to being able to have a summon going in any given fight. It's a shame the encounter conjuration powers are so garbage, I liked them conceptually in that they all had some sort of lingering effect or a zone, etc. to represent the attack actually taking the form of some lesser summoned thing. Sadly, none of them are actually good.
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Dec 6, 2015 08:03
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My Lovely Horse posted:Also, playing an Essentials class makes some items from before Essentials really good, particularly all the basic attack enhancers. To the point where I'd say it's no longer working as intended. Yeah this is basically the crux of it. Essentials isn't designed to be used with other materials, despite how much the dumb poo poo out of Dragon magazine might indicate otherwise.
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Dec 6, 2015 09:47
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The only ones that get really bad with that are Hunters and Elementalists, though. The charge kit is great on Slayers, but it's great on basically anyone with an MBA anyway (which is basically anyone now). The only one that increases to-hit bonus in terms of items is Eagle Eye Goggles for RBAs, which means Hunters and Elementalists. There are a bunch of feats that increase accuracy or buff the hell out of BAs, but I find that to be less of a problem when the characters lack good dailies and encounters and don't HAVE any other at-will powers.
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Dec 6, 2015 10:49
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thespaceinvader posted:The charge kit is great on Slayers Okay, so you guys have used this term a lot, and my Slayer's game debut is in less than 12 hours, so what exactly does the "charge kit" entail? Is it a set of feats, magical weapons like Vanguard Weapons that boost charges, stuff like that? Is Surprising Charge in it, because that poo poo is going on my guy so hard.
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Dec 6, 2015 11:25
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Excuse the noob question, but what's a charge kit? I expect it's a set of feats that boost MBAs, don't trigger OA's etc. Google isn't helping, it's just referenced a bit by charop-ers, but nothing is really defined; It could be like an adventurer's kit, so  e: by twelve minutes? What the hell?
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Dec 6, 2015 11:37
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Noxin of Shame posted:e: by twelve minutes? What the hell? Looks like that was a not-so-Immediate Reaction.
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Dec 6, 2015 11:38
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Charge kit is generally the following items: Horned Helmet (+1d6 to charge damage by tier) Vanguard's Weapon (+1d8 charge damage, IIRC) Badge of the Berserker (never take opp attacks when charging) You can combine this with any attack that is a basic or usable as a charge attack and feats that increase charge effectiveness to charge all day and be doing a lot more damage than most other characters. Later on in the game there are even more items that make charges better.
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Dec 6, 2015 11:53
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Also Boots of the Mighty Charge once you get to a level where you can pick up a good encounter power. And Surprising Charge, Impaling Spear. I personally wouldn't bother with Vanguard though, there are better enchants for damage. The thing with all of this is that Slayers are pretty mediocre if you DON'T do this stuff. They do relatively high single hit damage, but that's it.
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Dec 6, 2015 12:01
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Also worth noting for charge kits, unless you're the kind of barbarian that can charge when you kill a dude, it's super boring. I mean we're already talking about a Slayer so it can't really get more boring, but still, for non essentials classes, it makes your contributions the same thing every time.
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Dec 6, 2015 12:20
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Somehow a shitload of damage combined with potentially massive mobility is never really boring to me.
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Dec 6, 2015 13:13
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So having looked at controller nonsense enough I'm pretty solidly set on Wizard now. Or Enchanter Mage, more specifically. Aside from the obvious potential issue of running into something with a high Will defense, there's nothing all that wrong with mostly taking the non-damaging hindrance powers, yeah? IE Hypnotism, Illusory Obstacles, Maze of Mirrors, Sleep, etc.
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Dec 6, 2015 13:19
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| # ? May 16, 2024 02:10 |
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Unknown Quantity posted:So having looked at controller nonsense enough I'm pretty solidly set on Wizard now. Or Enchanter Mage, more specifically. Aside from the obvious potential issue of running into something with a high Will defense, there's nothing all that wrong with mostly taking the non-damaging hindrance powers, yeah? IE Hypnotism, Illusory Obstacles, Maze of Mirrors, Sleep, etc. Generally the strongest pure control wizard stuff is anything with the Psychic keyword, and yes all of that stuff is generally good and arguably what the wizard at the end of the day is best suited for. And no it doesn't really matter too much which defense it targets. You can make a damage-oriented wizard but it's pretty underwhelming compared to just rolling a striker.
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Dec 6, 2015 13:21
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