[PF] Blaster caster vs. Theorycraft caster - a proof?

[harpy]

After a PFS game last night my friend and I had a hour long car drive home and we were just talking about the game.

At one point he raised the issue of "why do people think blasters suck?"

I started to say, "On every forum I've ever read over the last decade they've always said they suck."

He interjects, "Yeah, I've read that guy treantmonk's guide to wizards, but I just didn't buy it. I sat down and did the math and it seemed like fireballs were great."

I then gave him some broad explanations of what theorycraft has said... that it has to do with action economy, that damage progression is outstripped by the system, that min-maxed DCs outstrip saves, etc.

None of it was moving him. I told him to go ask this on the forums and he said, "Oh no! I don't post on forums. If you're on there six hours a day just find me one of these threads that demonstrates all of the math that shows that blaster wizards just can't keep up with the game."

So I've been searching the forums, but honestly, I can't find any grand treatise that breaks this down into elaborate proof-like examples with DPRish analysis, comparisons to melee bruisers, level by level damage progression, etc.

Is there anything like this out there?

[Starbuck_II]

After a PFS game last night my friend and I had a hour long car drive home and we were just talking about the game.

At one point he raised the issue of "why do people think blasters suck?"

I started to say, "On every forum I've ever read over the last decade they've always said they suck."

He interjects, "Yeah, I've read that guy treantmonk's guide to wizards, but I just didn't buy it. I sat down and did the math and it seemed like fireballs were great."

I then gave him some broad explanations of what theorycraft has said... that it has to do with action economy, that damage progression is outstripped by the system, that min-maxed DCs outstrip saves, etc.

None of it was moving him. I told him to go ask this on the forums and he said, "Oh no! I don't post on forums. If you're on there six hours a day just find me one of these threads that demonstrates all of the math that shows that blaster wizards just can't keep up with the game."

So I've been searching the forums, but honestly, I can't find any grand treatise that breaks this down into elaborate proof-like examples with DPRish analysis, comparisons to melee bruisers, level by level damage progression, etc.

Is there anything like this out there?

Well, I'm not sure there to find those threads, but it is simple I think.

What does a Core only level 6 warrior type with power attack deal? Assuming 20 Str (easy by 6) and power attack for 2 with a 2 hander: 2d6 + 7+ 4= 2d6+11= average 18.
And that warrior deals it twice so 36.

And that isn't including non-core like Leap Attack, Shock trooper, etc:
Leap attack makes it deal 2d6 + 7 + 6= 20 when charging.
Add Pounce: 40 damage (both attacks).

Add Shock Trooper so you can power attack fully without missing:
2d6 + 7 + 18 = 32.
Add in pounce: 64 (2 attacks)

Damage dealing spells:
Fireball is 1d6/level. At level 6, you deal average 3.5/level = 21 damage if they fail save or 10.5 if they succeed.
So you see you are already behind the Core Warrior.
Now you do deal it to multple enemies, but unless 21 damage would kill them it doesn't help because they still act and still hurt the party.
A hurt/damaged enemy is still a dangerous one. Only a dead one stops being a danger.


This is why you hear people supporting buffing, debuffing, and battle field control. They have a definite effect on the target.
a blind foe misses people 1/2 the time.

[herceg]

What does a Core only level 6 warrior type with power attack deal? Assuming 20 Str (easy by 6) and power attack for 2 with a 2 hander: 2d6 + 7+ 4= 2d6+11= average 18.
And that warrior deals it twice so 36.

How easy it is to get str 20 at level 6 exactly? I mean, what point-buy? Which items? etc


A hurt/damaged enemy is still a dangerous one. Only a dead one stops being a danger.

That is only true if the melee can kill each and every enemy with one hit. If not, bringing ALL of them low (thus making them killable in one hit) is very helpful.

[Ytaker]

Or you could just lock down the enemies with solid fog and then kill them over many rounds.

At higher levels enemies tend to be particularly dangerous so if you fireball them they can still attack you and may kill a weaker character. Save or die spells stop that completely.

The wizard still isn't useless, they're still tier 3 as a blaster which is the same level as a fighter, they're just far less useful than the wizard who stopped the entire enemy horde moving for 3 or 4 rounds.

[MightyIgoo]

I'ma agree with Starbuck_II here. A enemy with 90% of its HP gone can still hurt you, while an enemy with full HP but paralyzed is no danger at all.

The objective of combat is not so much to defeat your enemies as it is to keep your enemies from killing you. Sometimes the best way to do this is putting a pointy metal stick in the other man's belly, but other times the best way is freezing him stiff with magic.

[Psyren]

How easy it is to get str 20 at level 6 exactly? I mean, what point-buy? Which items? etc

Easy: 16 start + Bull's Strength potion/spell (4) = 20. I could throw in other stuff but meh.


That is only true if the melee can kill each and every enemy with one hit. If not, bringing ALL of them low (thus making them killable in one hit) is very helpful.

Incapacitating them is better - not only does this keep them from hitting back entirely (bringing them low does not); it also means it doesn't matter if you kill them in one hit. Even if you don't finish off the blinded ogre, he's still blind.

Question: How much damage can a 1 HP dragon deal? Answer: the exact same amount as a full HP dragon. This is a great way to inadvertently snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

[Pentachoron]

The wizard still isn't useless, they're still tier 3 as a blaster which is the same level as a fighter, they're just far less useful than the wizard who stopped the entire enemy horde moving for 3 or 4 rounds.

That is not the same level as a fighter at all, fighter is tier 5. That said I'm not entirely convinced that a blaster caster is tier 3.

Anyway, as you go up in CRs monsters have more and more HP. So while yes a blaster caster can still take them out, it might take a number of rounds worth of fireballs/chain-lightning/etc whereas one well placed Shivering Grasp can one shot half the creatures in the Monster Manual, Glitterdust can easily make it so your threats can't even see you, etc. etc.

[Reynard]

That is not the same level as a fighter at all, fighter is tier 5. That said I'm not entirely convinced that a blaster caster is tier 3.

Ytaker said 'Level', not 'Tier.'

[Pentachoron]

Ytaker said 'Level', not 'Tier.'

He said:


The wizard still isn't useless, they're still tier 3 as a blaster which is the same level as a fighter

Emphasis mine. Level in that sentence clearly being as a comparison on Tier...ness, not as in the game mechanic.

[Doc Roc]

Well, a lot of them existed, but the gleemax forum admins tend to delete instead of archive. Suffice to say, there are supremely optimized blaster builds that are pretty darn dangerous too.


They're just hugely unfun for the whole party, then the GM wises up and things end in a conflagration.

[Hazzardevil]

I think that people consider blasters subpar mostly because it is more efficent to save-or-die because it takes less rounds, like people already said and because it delas less damage usally than a fighter or warblade.

It's also because it takes less spells to do it and means that if you take 1 down straight away that means that the party can focus on other enemys.

[Doc Roc]

So I think the other problem is that good blaster builds, like The Mailman, make every non-caster in the party completely useless except the skillmonkey.

[Psyren]

Blasting is FUN though, I'll give it that. I'm still working on my Kineticist/Metamind build for Pathfinder. (I'm tempted to name him "M'or Dak'ka.")

[Greenish]

I think that people consider blasters subpar mostly because it is more efficent to save-or-die because it takes less roundsBlaster casters are considered worse than controllers.

That's because there are many control spells that either don't allow save (or SR), or still affect the enemy on failed save, and thus reliably take the enemy (or enemies) from the fight.

[Edit]: And, as pointed out, they do something the fighty types can't really do, instead of encroaching their territory.

[GoatToucher]

A foe with 90% of his HP is just as dangerous as one with full HP, but a paralyzed for with full HP is dangerous to nobody.

But...

If you are facing four foes, what serves the party better, one foe out of the fight with the other three at full capacity, or all four with 90% of thier HP gone?

I'm not saying that blasting is the best choice, but conventional wisdom on alot of forums (coughHEREcough) is that any use of blastomancy is a waste of a spell. Sometimes, going a chunk of damage to alot of foes is a good contribution to the fight.

Fireball is the archetypal example, but it is level three, and Haste is always a much, much better choice to help the party. But AFTER the party is hasted, tuning the foes up with a little taste of cleansing flame can be most effecacious. After Glitterdusting the foes, shooting a couple Scorching Rays at the biggest bad guy might mean he goes down a round or two earlier than he would have.

I understand that the high level game is different, but, as is often pointed out, most people don't play the high level game. At mid levels, Blasting spells can be a useful back-up.

[Kylarra]

Blasting used to be a good option though, before everything had [large] con bonus to HP and HP kept scaling after 10 dice.

[Lord_Gareth]

It's always better to kill one than hurt many, Mr. GoatToucher. If you weaken all four enemies, unless you can be sure that the party will then kill them, you have four enemies that are about to rip you into pieces. But if you take one out of the fight, then there's only three enemies left to kill. It's an efficiency thing.

[Kalaska'Agathas]

Blasters can be made optimized. The Mailman (http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/19868534/The_Mailman:_A_Direct_Damage_Sorcerer) is one such build. The Psionic Dreadnought (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=177889) is another. Both of these are brute force solutions which invalidate both the other members of your party (as you kill more effectively than they do) and entire encounters (a Balor is no big deal for either of those guys at level 20, and is CR 20). A well played Batman Wizard may still invalidate encounters, but it is by using his skills to effect status changes on the enemy, whether that be blindness, sleep, paralysis, immobility, deafness, or anything else which prevents them from harming the party. Another perfectly valid tactic is improving the defenses of your allies such that the encounter cannot reasonably harm them - turning the glass cannon into an adamatium chain gun are I believe Treantmonk's words.

I feel the latter (i.e. Buffing and Battlefield Control) are more the Wizard's work, as the Fighter/Barbarian/High-Str-Meleeist already hits things very hard, the Rogue/Ninja/Scout/Precision-Damage-Dealer hits things very precisely, and the Cleric/Pally/Druid strikes with Divine Furvor - does the Wizard truly need to hit things with eldritch energies too terrible for a mere mortal to comprehend? Yes, it's sometimes fun to do, and certainly can be made worthwhile, but it strikes me that doing so for direct damage is rather un-subtle, whereas hitting that group of goblins with a Color Spray so they don't flank up the squishy Rogue (for a low level example) is a better expenditure of your standard action, as it effects a change that the mundanes in the party would be hard pressed to match, and allows them to do their jobs more safely.

This is why I prefer to play controllers to blasters.

[GoatToucher]

Consider:

Four foes. Each gets one attack a round. Each takes four rounds for the front liners to kill. In a pure melee fight, the bad guys will get 16 attacks to potentially damage your party.

If your caster takes one of them completely out of the picture in round one, you eliminate his attacks, reducing total attacks to 13.

If your caster uses an area effect damage spell to do 75% damage to all four, they can all be killed in one round, reducing the number of attacks to four.

Blasting is obviously less useful against fewer foes, but it can make a large number of foes considerably less dangerous. Much moreso than simply eliminating one entirely.

[jseah]

I might like to point out that UNoptimized blaster casters can still be useful.
Hp damage synergizes with itself. You just need enough of it.

Optimization can solve the shortage problem.
Specifically, metamagicking fireball or an orb spell can result in thousands of damage. Blowing right through resistance + hp and even immunity in some cases!

It works. I've seen it work, never did it myself, but my friend often builds low level blasting wizards for arenas.
Blaster wizards are brutal. If you make one mistake, show one weakness to them that they can get their hp damage through, you die.


I still think BC wizards are more powerful, simply because they synergize in other ways. One vulnerability I find is dispel magic. Since the BC strategy relies on action denial, it leads to long long battles where you get time to dispel stuff. Blasting... not so much.

Of course, I think strategic areas are where wizards really excel in. Petty things like battles are a side consideration.

[Telonius]

Let's compare Fireball to another spell the Wizard could be doing at that level: Haste.

At fifth level (which is when you'd first be casting it) you're most likely going to get all of your party when you cast it. A quick glance over some CR5 monsters in the Monster Manual shows their ACs kind of clustering around 16-17. (There are some outliers, but 17 is probably a good representation of the sort of AC you're going to be encountering at that level). Say you have a classic team of four: Wizard, Rogue, Fighter, and Cleric. Fighter's BAB5 and probably has at least an 18 in Str, plus a masterwork weapon (minimum). So before Haste, you're looking at a +10. He'll have to roll a 7 or so to hit (70% success rate) on the attack. Damage will probably be 2d6+6 (for a Greatsword), so 13, for an average of 9.1 damage per round. Rogue and Cleric are probably looking at a +6 attack or so, so they'll need an 11 (50% success; both only get one attack). For simplicity let's say their weapons both give them a 1d6+3, so around 6, for an average of 3 damage per round melee for each (not counting things like Sneak Attack). Assume the Wizard isn't going to be attacking in melee.

When you cast Haste, you're giving everyone a +5% chance of hitting at the highest attack bonus. Assuming full attack, the Fighter gets 75% of hitting twice for 13 damage per round, for an average of 19.5. Rogue and Cleric get bumped up to 6.6 damage per round full attack.

Before: 9.1+3+3=15.1
After: 19.5+6.6+6.6=32.7
Difference: 17.6
Haste will be active for 5 rounds; you'll probably manage to get off a full attack on two of those rounds. So a total of 35.2 damage gained.

If the Wizard casts fireball, he's doing an average of 17.5 damage per enemy, assuming the enemies fail their save. However, he'll need to hit at least three enemies for the damage to (on average) exceed the damage gained from a single casting of Haste. But all of the AC's we were basing the calculations on were single CR5 enemies. If you're going to be targeting 3 creatures, we're talking about CR2 enemies, with AC's of around 15 or so. For that sort of enemy, here's what we're seeing for the difference in damage per round:

Before: 10.4 + 3.6 + 3.6 = 17.6
After: 22.1 + 7.8 + 7.8 = 37.7
Difference: 20.1
Total: 40.2 damage gained (two full attacks over 5 rounds)

The Fireball will actually need to deal 41 damage in order to beat the average gained by Haste. Certainly not out of the question, but it's pretty clear Fireball is most useful for clearing out hordes of low-CR enemies. For things that are equal to your CR, it's not as useful.

Also note that this is not even factoring in things like Power Attack, or the extra +1 on a single attack you'll still get on rounds you don't full attack, or the lower damage the enemies will be doing thanks to your +1 AC, or even the extra mobility you'll have from +30 to movement speed. If you have five party members, or another full-BAB character instead of a Rogue or a Cleric, the damage gained from Haste is also going to go up. In most tactical situations, Haste is going to be the superior spell.

[aje8]

Consider:

Four foes. Each gets one attack a round. Each takes four rounds for the front liners to kill. In a pure melee fight, the bad guys will get 16 attacks to potentially damage your party.

If your caster takes one of them completely out of the picture in round one, you eliminate his attacks, reducing total attacks to 13.

If your caster uses an area effect damage spell to do 75% damage to all four, they can all be killed in one round, reducing the number of attacks to four.

Blasting is obviously less useful against fewer foes, but it can make a large number of foes considerably less dangerous. Much moreso than simply eliminating one entirely.

Yeah, but the best Battlefield Control spells hit all opponents. Glitterdust, Solid Fog, Stinking Cloud and the like. So it's not a choice between damaging all of them and removing one, it'a s choice between damaging all of them and hitting one.

Also worth mentioning is the fact that huge percentage on enemies have fire resistance (reducing the damage) or good reflex saves (reducing the damage) or evasion (reducing the damage) or Spell Resistance (potentially negating the damage. Blasting isn't doing very much if it's area effect. The no save no SR Orb line is ok..... but then it's single target and thus inferior to non-area save or sucks like Slow.

The cold hard facts are, Fireball is not actually doing very much for you as compared to Stinking Cloud and other similarly leveled Control effects.

[Gullintanni]

Blasting is FUN though, I'll give it that. I'm still working on my Kineticist/Metamind build for Pathfinder. (I'm tempted to name him "M'or Dak'ka.")

The WAAAGH needs your support.

[Doc Roc]

The WAAAGH needs your support.





http://kara.allthingsd.com/files/2011/01/uncle-sam-wants-you.jpeg
In the Grim Future of WAAAAAAAAGH, there is only moar daka.
Join today! (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=6238850&highlight=beth#post6238850)

All joking aside, I think that my opinion has already been articulated. As a deal sealer, take a look at the old build I linked...

[Ytaker]

That is not the same level as a fighter at all, fighter is tier 5. That said I'm not entirely convinced that a blaster caster is tier 3.

Oh, I explained that poorly. From starbuck's post, we have a well optimized warrior who is almost tier 4 in terms of ability. Excellent at damage dealing, useless in all other areas. With enough books you can make fighters do a lot of damage and move them out of tier 5.

In the other corner we have a blaster wizard, who is decent at dealing area effect damage and useful in a host of other ways because wizards are like that and so is tier 3.

In terms of combat ability they're not at vastly different levels. Tier 3 vs tier 4 is just a difference in how many different skills you have, not the quality. In contrast a well made battlefield control wizard is a whole level above either, and will completely steal the spotlight in any battle and in everything else as well because their spells are so much more mechanically efficient.

[Angry Bob]

That said, it's been admitted and proven that blasty wizards can blast very well, especially with access to all the right spells and the right ACFs(Focused Specialist Conjuration), and a stack of CL increasers. It just looks bad because they have so many better options. If you've got a battlefield control guy already, a blaster wizard works fine. Battlefield control can shut guys down, but they still need to die. Melee or direct damage blasting, either works fine.

[dextercorvia]

Consider:

Four foes. Each gets one attack a round. Each takes four rounds for the front liners to kill. In a pure melee fight, the bad guys will get 16 attacks to potentially damage your party.

If your caster takes one of them completely out of the picture in round one, you eliminate his attacks, reducing total attacks to 13.

If your caster uses an area effect damage spell to do 75% damage to all four, they can all be killed in one round, reducing the number of attacks to four.

Blasting is obviously less useful against fewer foes, but it can make a large number of foes considerably less dangerous. Much moreso than simply eliminating one entirely.

In your hypothetical example all of the melee members of your party are cooperating for three rounds to reduce a single foe by 75% of it's HP, yet your blaster can do that to all enemies in a single round.

Yes, given the preposterous assumption that a fireball does as much damage as a Pouncing Barbarian and Flanking rogue would do in three rounds, bu to all opponents instead of just one, a blaster is clearly better.

[Starbuck_II]

I do agree that Blasting can be more fun. I think we get a "sense of awesome" when we kill something personally.
But with battlefield control/buff it is indrectly killing as they effectively deader due to you. You just need to remind yourself of that fact.

In a party, if you already have a battlefield control wiz, adding a blaster isn't bad as he controls for you.

[Gullintanni]

-awesome-


Thank you. My day sincerely needed that post. Nothing but win.

[Knaight]

It's always better to kill one than hurt many, Mr. GoatToucher. If you weaken all four enemies, unless you can be sure that the party will then kill them, you have four enemies that are about to rip you into pieces. But if you take one out of the fight, then there's only three enemies left to kill. It's an efficiency thing.

Unless hurting many allows for more kills down the line. Taking the four enemies example, and assuming that you disable one per turn, there are two scenarios for their attacks. They either attack first, getting 10 attacks total (4 first round, 3 second, etc.) or attack second, getting 6 attacks total (3 first round, 2 second, etc.). If striking all of them keeps attack totals under that threshold, then its fine. In this case, one needs to be able to kill the lot of them in 2 hits if none die in the first, though one comes out ahead if only 2 die in the 2nd hit.

However, this is a comparison of single target death effects and blasting more than control effects and blasting. Control effectively nullifies attacks entirely. Consider the wall spells: if a wall breaks an encounter into two even parts over half the attacks are taken out instantly. (Mathematically this works off the assumption that every opponent would get an attack until they are taken out. As such, for x enemies one gets x attacks (or x-1 if the enemies lose initiative), one gets x-1, one gets x-2, up until x-n=1 (or 0 if the enemies lose initiative). If the attack is split in two, there is instead 2(x/2, x/2-1, x/2-2...1), which comes to x, x-2, x-4, ... 1. As an illustration, consider 10 opponents. Normally they would get 55 attacks, or 45 if they lose initiative. Split in two they instead get 30, 25 if one half loses initiative, or 20 if both halves lose initiative.

Obviously this is hugely oversimplified. Not all attacks are equal, nor are groups divided into halves, there are ways around and through control spells of varying sorts, etc. The point is that if one looks at the damage control spells essentially nullify they are extremely powerful.

[Jarawara]

If you dealing with hordes of smaller guys, area-effect blasting is the better choice. Fireball takes out hordes of minions in a flash. (bad pun) And while yes, you could say that this is a rare occurance... *I* would not. Hordes of minions is my usual fare of enemies, rather than the few big guys who seemingly have avoided the area for the last four levels, but now suddenly have come out of their caves to challenge the party at level five.

Furthermore, you have to take into account the effects on morale on the enemies you are fighting. A bunch of 20 hp baddies are fighting you. Fireball them for an average of 17.5 damage each. So far, you haven't reduced their combat capability one whit.... until they look at the fact that they each have 2 and a half hit points remaining on average, and say F*** THIS!, and run.


So, know your DM, and try to know the mission you are on. If the situation calls for blasty wizards, be a blasty wizard. If it calls for a controller, then skip the fireball and be a controller.

[GoodbyeSoberDay]

There's no overarching math because it's not clear cut. There are too many moving parts to consider: optimization level, party make-up, DM style, and the timing of the encounter are the four major parts I've encountered. The first two are touched on a lot, so I'll focus on the second two.

Some DMs want to avoid playing D&D, with dice and actual random elements anticlimactic battles where save or X spells effectively finish off foes. To these DMs, a bunch of blind ogres isn't a very interesting encounter, so some or all of them get the fudge treatment and fight on. In this case, the ogres probably wouldn't have gotten the same treatment against a fireball, effectively giving the fireball a relative advantage in save DC. On the flip side, DMs can also fudge HP if the damage gets too ridiculous. Worse yet, this can be caused by someone else's high damage. Disables suddenly become much more useful.

Timing is also important. Depending on the nature of the combat, it can last anywhere from 1 to double-digit rounds, with 3 to 4 being typical (3rd and 4th mostly being mop-up) in my experience. You don't want to use the big guns in mop up rounds, whether it's an empowered fireball or a solid fog. Blasting tends to speed things up here. More importantly, though, blasting is a debuff against an enemy with low HP. If you chuck an Orb of Fire at the enemy wizard who's already been beaten up by the party fighter, there's a good chance you're firing a no-save-just-die spell at him. That's great, though it requires a little metagaming without helpful combat description from the DM.

Of course, this is coming from a player who usually bans evocation on his wizards, but I also don't like playing the blasty style. In my experience, either it really is inferior to options I could be doing (like glitterdust, stinking cloud, web), or it's optimized so hard that you're actively stealing the spotlight from the melee damage dealers. I've found that support characters can get away with a lot more power with no harm to group dynamics.

[ericgrau]

The classic example is haste vs. fireball. I've done the math and fireball is often more except against single targets. You can't find the proof b/c no one has done it. Either it's apples and oranges in the case of control vs. damage or area damage in fact deals more in the cases of buffs vs. area.

That said control is a very effective way to play and has of course been done successfully. As far as I can tell the blaster hate comes from the tendency of people online to exaggerate in arguments, and they only started arguing against blasters b/c they were the main competition once control started becoming popular (even though WotC was pushing it from day 1). Many styles that are worse than either never even made it to the discussion, or slipped in afterwards.

For instance I've done the math of blasting vs. SoD's a few times in core (before optimization on either side), yes with calculations on average number of rounds and so on, and blasting tends to kill faster. Not that optimization changes things, it's just easier to calculate fairly in a way closer to the way most people play that way. Cheesing metamagic damage through the roof or bypassing saves/SR in cheesy ways plus less cheesy optimization on both sides is possible.

[Innis Cabal]

I think the problem really stems from the concept that everything everywhere has to be optimized to be viable or fun which just isn't the case. I honestly think this and other forums have long lost the concept of fun for funs sake and look at the game as something to win. Which is a shame

[arguskos]

I think the problem really stems from the concept that everything everywhere has to be optimized to be viable or fun which just isn't the case. I honestly think this and other forums have long lost the concept of fun for funs sake and look at the game as something to win. Which is a shame
While true, some of us (myself included) actively ENJOY the process of making our characters as mechanically good as possible, then fighting things just as scary as we are. For those of us, the fun is in both the creation and the runtime of the character. Neither is better, of course, but saying optimizers "look at the game as something to win" is somewhat ignorant of the idea that perhaps, just perhaps, we do it for *fun*. :smallwink:

I mean, I can enjoy my gaming experience with Bob, the Half-Elven level 5 Fighter/level 1 Sorcerer/level 14 Samurai, who might be among the worst characters ever (and who I've actually played, before you get huffy). However, I personally can have even MORE fun as Bob, the Elven Duskblade 11/Barbarian 1/Ronin 2/whateveretcetcetc. To me, the creation is fun as well as the RP is fun. :smallsmile:

[nyarlathotep]

I think the problem really stems from the concept that everything everywhere has to be optimized to be viable or fun which just isn't the case. I honestly think this and other forums have long lost the concept of fun for funs sake and look at the game as something to win. Which is a shame

First off optimization is not about "winning" it is about the fun that can be found in finding the right pieces to fit together and to be good at what you choose to do.

Secondly part of the reason people avoid blasters is to have fun. A blaster does the same thing as a fighter but better, while a controller/buffer makes the fighter better at his job.

[Doc Roc]

I think the problem really stems from the concept that everything everywhere has to be optimized to be viable or fun which just isn't the case. I honestly think this and other forums have long lost the concept of fun for funs sake and look at the game as something to win. Which is a shame

It's funny. I don't think I've ever heard anyone involved in the optimization community suggest that, or espouse a view I'd consider particularly antithetical to Fun-For-The-Sake-Of-Fun.

[GoodbyeSoberDay]

I think the problem really stems from the concept that everything everywhere has to be optimized to be viable or fun which just isn't the case. I honestly think this and other forums have long lost the concept of fun for funs sake and look at the game as something to win. Which is a shame+1 to Doc, but also, look at the OP. This thread isn't about which wizard style is more fun. It's about which one kills things more efficiently. Of course blasting can be fun. Anything can be fun. Also, ironically, blasting is quite competitive when everyone optimizes. The power of battlefield control and save-or-X matters most when the fireball-bot tries out Black Tentacles because it was funny on OOTS and then roflstomps the encounter accidentally.

[Akal Saris]

It's funny. I don't think I've ever heard anyone involved in the optimization community suggest that, or espouse a view I'd consider particularly antithetical to Fun-For-The-Sake-Of-Fun.

I've seen enough people ask "Please build me a wizard that will make my DM cry because he killed my last PC" that I think some people do want to optimize as a passive-aggressive way to make the game less fun for others. But yes, the "real" optimization community tends to be quite as focused on having a good time as any other players.

I think the hate for blasters comes from the difference between 3.5/PF and 2E, since in 2E evocation was one of the strongest schools, and it took a lot of time to convince people that it sucks in 3.5.

Blasting is still decent if you take the time to choose spells that both deal damage and status effects. Druid's Boreal Wind is a great example of this, as are Frost Breath, Ice Storm, Howling Chain, and the Orb spells.

One of my favorite PrCs is Stormcaster, since it adds a stun effect to all your lightning spells - so now you have a little bit of control with all your blasting :smallbiggrin:

[Jarawara]

One of my favorite PrCs is Stormcaster, since it adds a stun effect to all your lightning spells - so now you have a little bit of control with all your blasting :smallbiggrin:

One of the problems I had with adjusting to 3rd edition is to learn that some of the rather obvious status effects don't exist unless it's written into the actual rules.

Fireball evacuates all the air, leaves everyone on fire, fills the area with smoke, and generally force everyone to stagger out of the area of effect in confusion.

Lightning bolt blinds, stuns, and deafens all in the area of effect. Can blind and deafen even those not directly hit by the bolt.

But in 3E? They do 1d6 damage per level of caster. Nothing else.

Blasting became weaker in 3E partly because DM's had previously ruled additional effects to blasting, and those effects have been specifically lacking in 3E.

[Optimator]

HP gets Con added to it. Fireballs get nothing, and are mere d6s to boot. That's all there is to it.

[Psyren]

I've seen enough people ask "Please build me a wizard that will make my DM cry because he killed my last PC" that I think some people do want to optimize as a passive-aggressive way to make the game less fun for others. But yes, the "real" optimization community tends to be quite as focused on having a good time as any other players.

To which we rightly respond by denying our power to those who would misuse it. :smallwink:


Blasting is still decent if you take the time to choose spells that both deal damage and status effects. Druid's Boreal Wind is a great example of this, as are Frost Breath, Ice Storm, Howling Chain, and the Orb spells.

Not to mention metamagic. Born of Three Thunders and Fell Drain are commonly mentioned; psionics gets Paraelemental Power.

[huttj509]

I think a key point is that between, say, a wizard who focuses on blasting spells (without high optimization of such)*, and a wizard who focuses on control, disabling, and/or buffing spells (without high optimization of such)*, the control wizard will generally be more effective.

This does not mean the control wizard should eschew spells that do damage. Wizards wind up getting a good number of spells, and having a couple of blasty ones can be useful, even if not focused on such.

The primary strength of a wizard is versatility. Spells do a lot of different things, and it's not recommended to completely ignore any category. Even if you're focused on damage....you might want to pick up something like Glitterdust.

Even the control wizard might want to have a no save no SR orb spell on hand, as mentioned above, because if the enemy's already low on health, ending it now prevents it getting another attack, even if that attack could be blinded/grappeled/gagged.

* By this I mean, like, Joe Normal looking through and building a character. Feats that boost intended role, sure, but there's some build options that just wind up getting a bit silly in power, and at that point it gets tougher to compare, cause you're trying to compare the guy who causes his enemies to huddle in a corner whimpering until the summon or fighter finishes em off, with the guy who roasts an elder demon with a single orb of fire, even if the demon was fire immune. Unfortunately, while there are levels of "No Optimization (caster wizard with power attack)" "Low Op" "High Op" "Theoretical Op", etc, it can be hard to divide the levels clearly for comparing different styles of characters.

[Zuljita]

Some DMs want to avoid playing D&D, with dice and actual random elements anticlimactic battles where save or X spells effectively finish off foes. To these DMs, a bunch of blind ogres isn't a very interesting encounter, so some or all of them get the fudge treatment and fight on. In this case, the ogres probably wouldn't have gotten the same treatment against a fireball, effectively giving the fireball a relative advantage in save DC. On the flip side, DMs can also fudge HP if the damage gets too ridiculous. Worse yet, this can be caused by someone else's high damage. Disables suddenly become much more useful.


this!
if i get told by my DM "he saves" without rolling dice vs my minor debuff, i may get violent.

[Jayabalard]

Well, I'm not sure there to find those threads, but it is simple I think.

What does a Core only level 6 warrior type with power attack deal? Assuming 20 Str (easy by 6) and power attack for 2 with a 2 hander: 2d6 + 7+ 4= 2d6+11= average 18.
And that warrior deals it twice so 36.

<snip>

Damage dealing spells:
Fireball is 1d6/level. At level 6, you deal average 3.5/level = 21 damage if they fail save or 10.5 if they succeed.
So you see you are already behind the Core Warrior.
Now you do deal it to multple enemies, but unless 21 damage would kill them it doesn't help because they still act and still hurt the party.
A hurt/damaged enemy is still a dangerous one. Only a dead one stops being a danger.This is kind of a bad analysis. EDIT: Note - I am not saying that blasting > control wizard. Just that your reasoning here is flawed.

In the core fighter example, you glossed over the fact that the attack roll on the 2nd attack is low (since it's an iterative, and power attack). Implying that he can reliably deal 36 damage per round is more than a little of absurd. If he's attacking an AC 18 target, he's got a ~55% chance of hitting with his first attack (+5 + 6 -2 +x ) and a ~30% chance with his 2nd attack (where x depends on feats, magic weapons, etc). It's probably safer to put his average damage per round at 15-22 (that's (.55 +30) * 18 and (.75 +.5) * 18 respectively; the top end of that assumes he gets another +4 to hit from somewhere, or that the AC is up to 4 lower, or some combination of the 2). That seems like it's not nearly enough to reliably drop a CR appropriate foe in a single round, and there's a decent chance he won't even be able do it in 2 rounds either.

The blasty wizard can reliably drop multiple foes enough so that they can be killed with 1 additional round... and in fact, he's not far off of par for single target. He can fairly reliably kill multiple creatures in 2 rounds. So he looks like he's got a clear advantage over the fighter to me.

Your statement "Now you do deal it to multple enemies, but unless 21 damage would kill them it doesn't help " is simply not true. It does help... it just doesn't help as much as killing them outright, or controlling them so that they can't retaliate does. Sure, you just get an assist, but it's still not worthless.

[Knaight]

Furthermore, you have to take into account the effects on morale on the enemies you are fighting. A bunch of 20 hp baddies are fighting you. Fireball them for an average of 17.5 damage each. So far, you haven't reduced their combat capability one whit.... until they look at the fact that they each have 2 and a half hit points remaining on average, and say F*** THIS!, and run.

Individually, all any of them are going to know is that something that hurt just hit them, but they are all still standing. Them trying to kill the wizard due to anger is just as easy to argue.

Furthermore, this applies just as much to control spells. If a bunch of your allies are pinned in suspiciously thick fog somewhere and its you and a smaller group up against the entire enemy group, there will be morale problems.

[T.G. Oskar]

After a PFS game last night my friend and I had a hour long car drive home and we were just talking about the game.

At one point he raised the issue of "why do people think blasters suck?"

I started to say, "On every forum I've ever read over the last decade they've always said they suck."

He interjects, "Yeah, I've read that guy treantmonk's guide to wizards, but I just didn't buy it. I sat down and did the math and it seemed like fireballs were great."

I then gave him some broad explanations of what theorycraft has said... that it has to do with action economy, that damage progression is outstripped by the system, that min-maxed DCs outstrip saves, etc.

None of it was moving him. I told him to go ask this on the forums and he said, "Oh no! I don't post on forums. If you're on there six hours a day just find me one of these threads that demonstrates all of the math that shows that blaster wizards just can't keep up with the game."

So I've been searching the forums, but honestly, I can't find any grand treatise that breaks this down into elaborate proof-like examples with DPRish analysis, comparisons to melee bruisers, level by level damage progression, etc.

Is there anything like this out there?

I think that's the trouble, OP. He did the math, he used numbers, but probably focused on HP damage exclusively. Generally, the ability to deal damage to large numbers is inconsequential, since you aren't really lowering their potential (just their HP). On the other hand, a spell such as Glitterdust, which unoptimized can just blind any creature with poor Will saves, reduces the potential of an enemy to deal damage by over 50%, and increases the possibilities of taking damage by your allies. The enemy is not dead, but really incapacitated (not using the D&D glossary term, but the typical term), and treantmonk's conclusion is that a fully incapacitated creature was out of the battle, effectively the same as dead.

While the numbers presented by one of the posters are really good, you can't hope to convince him of the utility of non-blasting spells by place of numbers. That's a bit of a folly, because in the end blasting spells do the HP damage, not the incapacitating spells (unless they do damage over time like Incendiary Cloud or outright kill them as per Cloudkill). In fact, that's the whole idea behind treantmonk's guide; the Batman Wizard effectively makes battles a one-turn deal, because while you don't do any damage with your spell, you effectively take them out of the battle because they have no chances to retaliate; they are, thus, no worse than traps, in which case you turn them into easy challenges to overcome.

The second point which I believe your friend won't understand is that a Wizard is part of the team, not a loner. While you can certainly build a Wizard that needs no allies (and that's not the realm of treantmonk's guide, but that of Tippy's), a Wizard thrives on a group because they can choose the right spell for the situation to aid his allies. Again, the whole concept of the Batman Wizard is basically supporting his allies; he just does it so well, he could do it by himself and still win (but in that case, he will have to rely on his blasting spells, even if just using wands or scrolls).

The third point is that blasting spells require a great deal of finesse. Without the ability to measure the right place to land the spell, you'll have your allies affected by the same ability. This is true for all area of effect spells; if you place it on the wrong spot, you'll take your allies with it. However, a battlefield control spell doesn't require many consecutive uses of the same spell to remain useful, whereas a blasting spell requires multiple uses. A Fireball does damage at the end, but unless you use it on the right moment (when people get softened up to the point minimum damage would kill them), it doesn't get effective. Fireball becomes more effective when you defeat as many monsters as possible with a single blow; if you require two or three spells to finish them, then that's one more turn. Web? Anything that has a bad Reflex save cannot hope to escape it, and you can just use anything from your other blasting spells to your crossbow to take them down, while the warrior deals the right amount of damage to kill them.

Finally: notice that for a blaster OR warrior to remain active, it requires dealing as much amount of damage as it possibly can? And at all situations? Ubercharger, Shocktrooper, Mailman; all builds are meant to deal as much damage as possible on a single spell, because every spell you expend over what's really necessary (in theory one, in practice about two or three spells per battle) can be reliably considered a waste of resources, and forces the spellcaster to rest, which leads to 5 minute workdays, which is just as detrimental to the others as leaving them out in the dust. Optimization is much more than big numbers; by definition, is the ability to do more with the minimal amount of resources (if Calculus and Microeconomy has it right). A blaster caster is not optimized until it can end battles in one spell, two or three at the very minimum; a battlefield control caster is not optimized if it has to cast more than one spell to end the battle. In the case of a buff spell for all allies, if it lasts for more than one round, that's basically 1/x of a spell used, where x is the number of battles; the more battles the buff is active, the more useful that spell is. A calling spell does the same. However, it HAS to have utility in every battle, whereas it deals heavy damage or incapacitates the enemy.

So...I dunno if you spoke this to your friend, but next time he says "I can reduce 25% of the enemy's hit points with a Maximized, Empowered Fireball cast at CL 20th", you can retaliate with "Sure, but how many HP did we take because you didn't stop them dead on their tracks?" If he doesn't reason to that, then it's quite probable he won't listen to anything.

But blaster casters can be fun. The trick is to learn how to use them at maximum efficiency. I mean, there ARE feats that grant some measure of utility to blasting spells (I could say Searing, Flash Frost, the ever-important Energy Substitution...uhh, Energy Gestalt...) If you reach a point where a blasting spell can finish people in one spell, then you've reached the key point...except people will start to lambast you because they can't do anything to keep up, especially warriors who can't do anything unless they have ToB or are carefully built for that (trippers, for example). Suck is a big term; inefficient is right at the spot, which has at least one degree of difference over "suck".

[Jayabalard]

Individually, all any of them are going to know is that something that hurt just hit them, but they are all still standing. Them trying to kill the wizard due to anger is just as easy to argue.I think it may have been specific the battlechest box set I had... but spells like fireball triggered morale rolls in AD&D iirc.

And they do know that the entire squad just got engulfed in flame; and they know "holy crap I'm lucky to be alive after that" ... unless one of

they're convinced they can get to and incapacitate the wizard before he has another chance to cast,
they're convinced they have no chance to escape,
they're convinced that they won't receive mercy if they surrender,
they're totally fanatical/mindless.


is true, then "trying to kill the wizard due to anger" is not just as easy to argue. It's suicidal behavior, and it totally breaks verisimilitude if intelligent entities are regularly this stupid.

[faceroll]

HP gets Con added to it. Fireballs get nothing, and are mere d6s to boot. That's all there is to it.

If looking at vanilla blasters, this is absolutely true. Monsters get roughly 10 x CR in HP, while you are doing an average of 3.5 damage per level, if you crack SR, and half that on a successful save. And if the enemy doesn't have resistances.

BUT. Arcane Thesis on Wings of Flurry and stacking Twin, Maximize, Quicken, and Empower, and using an Assay Spell Resistance to crack SR, in one turn your damage looks like 24*CL+12*CL force damage in an AoE. Who needs crap like solid fog when you can kill everything super dead?

However, I would say the efficiency of such a character isn't great, seeing that you require a high feat investment, and are casting 3 level 4 spells to do that. Solid Fog and Grease, let the melee handle it, and you can now have spell slots to do real magic, like shrink lava into small cloth patches for a rainy day.


average damage

I see average damage all the time, and I think it's often misleading. Unlike WoW, where you make about 100 attacks per combat, and thus your sample distribution approaches the expected, DnD has two attack with a high chance of missing, average damage only comes into play if you're making more than 30 attacks. Otherwise, random chance is going to be playing hell with your expectations. A string of bad rolls (or just sub-average) means you're ogre chow.

[Jarawara]

Individually, all any of them are going to know is that something that hurt just hit them, but they are all still standing. Them trying to kill the wizard due to anger is just as easy to argue.

I agree with Jayabalard above me. Furthermore, while it *is* possible to argue just as you say, you cannot reasonably do this *every single time*. Sometimes, the baddies take the hit and it just angers them more. Sometimes, they take the hit and then turn to leave. And not just the 'intelligent' monsters only. I've seen so many DM's say that once you touch the spider's web, the spider comes charging out.... but in real life most of the time you touch a spider's web, the first thing it does *is run away*!

There are lots of mitigating factors to this, how hungry the creature is, how mindless it is to damage, how enraged it might get, but on any given day, if you burn creatures they are more apt to back off and sooth their burns then they are to drive forward into the battle that burned them.



Furthermore, this applies just as much to control spells. If a bunch of your allies are pinned in suspiciously thick fog somewhere and its you and a smaller group up against the entire enemy group, there will be morale problems.

Now I do have to agree with you here. Except now, we're limiting ourselves more to the intelligent creatures. A Neo-Otyugh whose partner is trapped in a thick fog is probably not going to notice (while it would have noticed that burning sensation). Orcs on the other hand, might see the battle going against them and decide on the "better part of running away".

[Doc Roc]

If looking at vanilla blasters, this is absolutely true. Monsters get roughly 10 x CR in HP, while you are doing an average of 3.5 damage per level, if you crack SR, and half that on a successful save. And if the enemy doesn't have resistances.

BUT. Arcane Thesis on Wings of Flurry and stacking Twin, Maximize, Quicken, and Empower, and using an Assay Spell Resistance to crack SR, in one turn your damage looks like 24*CL+12*CL force damage in an AoE. Who needs crap like solid fog when you can kill everything super dead?

However, I would say the efficiency of such a character isn't great, seeing that you require a high feat investment, and are casting 3 level 4 spells to do that. Solid Fog and Grease, let the melee handle it, and you can now have spell slots to do real magic, like shrink lava into small cloth patches for a rainy day.

I cracked up. I would add that those damage estimates might be quite conservative, and that with some effort, I could improve spell efficiency quite considerably.

[Endarire]

I've played a blaster Psion in an arena tournament. All of us were optimized ECL5 dudes. I won initiative and, with some synchronicity tricks, fired three ML7 electricity missiles at my raging Barbarian opponent.

He laughed, charge me, crit me, and killed me in one hit.

After that, I relied on astral construct and only rarely blasted. I never died.

[tyckspoon]

I think it may have been specific the battlechest box set I had... but spells like fireball triggered morale rolls in AD&D iirc.


Morale check when you had ~half of your group defeated, with a penalty for facing a spellcaster when you didn't have magical support of your own, IIRC. 3.5 pretty much did away with mechanical morale of that style, tho.

[Knaight]

I agree with Jayabalard above me. Furthermore, while it *is* possible to argue just as you say, you cannot reasonably do this *every single time*. Sometimes, the baddies take the hit and it just angers them more. Sometimes, they take the hit and then turn to leave. And not just the 'intelligent' monsters only. I've seen so many DM's say that once you touch the spider's web, the spider comes charging out.... but in real life most of the time you touch a spider's web, the first thing it does *is run away*!
...
Now I do have to agree with you here. Except now, we're limiting ourselves more to the intelligent creatures. A Neo-Otyugh whose partner is trapped in a thick fog is probably not going to notice (while it would have noticed that burning sensation). Orcs on the other hand, might see the battle going against them and decide on the "better part of running away".

Taking your first and second points in conjunction, it doesn't have to be every time that there are counter attacks, the advantage is gone as soon as it is comparable to retreats from battlefield control spells. In my case, I would consider retreats more likely in both cases, barring the exceptions Jaybalard gave and a few others, such as behavior altering substances that crank up agression or inhibit flight response.

Coming to the second point, monsters that are attacking in groups are presumably pack hunters, scared herbivores, or families. Pack hunters are going to notice that they suddenly only have half a pack, scared herbivores are probably already cornered if they are attacking, and as such flight response is out regardless and weakening a bunch is a very good idea (though inferior to getting out of the situation), and families tend to include cubs to protect, which will be done.

Eventually, what this all comes down to is an argument that the morale argument of blasting doesn't work, as it requires blasting to force routs more often than control spells. I would expect both to do so. However, I'm fond of retreat and surrender as options*, and probably over fond of intelligent opposition.

*Because really, most fights that are played in RPGs fit into two categories. Something is attacked by the PCs, in which case panicking over sudden attack is reasonable, or something attacks the PCs, usually on the assumption that they are going to win with minimal losses. If a good chance of losing was expected most entities aren't likely to pick fights.

[Doc Roc]

The mailman has come up a few times, but I don't think anyone linked it. Since Endy just saved it from deletion, I thought it might be worth using as a reference (http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/19868534/The_Mailman:_A_Direct_Damage_Sorcerer?pg=1).

[Telonius]

I see average damage all the time, and I think it's often misleading. Unlike WoW, where you make about 100 attacks per combat, and thus your sample distribution approaches the expected, DnD has two attack with a high chance of missing, average damage only comes into play if you're making more than 30 attacks. Otherwise, random chance is going to be playing hell with your expectations. A string of bad rolls (or just sub-average) means you're ogre chow.

It's not be as accurate as WoW battles, but what other metric do we have? If we don't have some actual numbers to work with (and average damage is an actual number), it's just a battle of "Does not!" versus "Does too!"

[Doc Roc]

Actually, I wouldn't mind min\average\max\standard-dev.

[Jayabalard]

It's not be as accurate as WoW battles, but what other metric do we have? If we don't have some actual numbers to work with (and average damage is an actual number), it's just a battle of "Does not!" versus "Does too!"Number of successful combats out of x trials works a lot better metric... it's just harder to use because "success" is not really a mathematical term. Easier than "successful fights" but less meaningful would be Average damage per fight. Maybe something like "how many actions do the opponents get"

there are a huge number of possibilities that represent "what is the rest of the team doing" ... so you'd have to make so many assumptions that the value of any answer you come up with is kind of suspect.

If I were to sim it, I'd take an encounter, sim the fighter dealing damage against those creatures until he defeated all of them (say, 100 trials minumim), then do the same for the wizard strictly blasting. I'd go with "how many actions do the opponents get". I'd just count those actions, not sim them (so assuming that the PC can survive and continue to do damage) to keep the focus on "what is the damage contribution of a fighter vs blasting wizard). I don't know how meaningful it would be, but it's almost certainly a better answer than any of the average damage ones.


barring the exceptions Jaybalard gave and a few others, such as behavior altering substances that crank up agression or inhibit flight response.ooh... good call. I tend to think of such things in more of a sci-fi setting, but that's totally appropriate in fantasy as well..


Morale check when you had ~half of your group defeated, with a penalty for facing a spellcaster when you didn't have magical support of your own, IIRC. 3.5 pretty much did away with mechanical morale of that style, tho.that sounds about right.


I see average damage all the time, and I think it's often misleading. Unlike WoW, where you make about 100 attacks per combat, and thus your sample distribution approaches the expected, DnD has two attack with a high chance of missing, average damage only comes into play if you're making more than 30 attacks. Otherwise, random chance is going to be playing hell with your expectations. A string of bad rolls (or just sub-average) means you're ogre chow.I agree... I think that simulation is the way to go (I'm doing that on another thread).

[mint]

I would like a more clearly defined problem.
It is nice to know more about the stuff in the set you want to do math at, before you do math at it.
My initial feeling is that there can be no general proof because there is no general gaming group and hence no basis for such a proof.

My second impulse is to use set theory but I got bored. Try to prove that there are more asymmetric solutions to a problem than symmetric solutions. Symmetric solutions such as setting it on the appropriate amount of fire or summoning an equal and opposite amount of troll.
Asymmetric solutions being summoning a scary goat what is super effective or being quite good at riddles.
But I don't think that one is going anywhere good.

[GoodbyeSoberDay]

Actually, I wouldn't mind min\average\max\standard-dev.The problem is people don't want to work to justify their opinions on the internet.

[Nero24200]

I think the problem really stems from the concept that everything everywhere has to be optimized to be viable or fun which just isn't the case. I honestly think this and other forums have long lost the concept of fun for funs sake and look at the game as something to win. Which is a shame

That just simply is not true. I dislike blasty mages for fluff reasons, so the first mage I ever made was a specialist transmuter. I took polymorph, one of the most broken spells in the game, because "it looked like it would suit my character".

The reason why so many people say SOD/SOS spells are better than blasting is because at some point someone in your group is going to try something a little different than throwing a fireball - and find it works.

And I think it does. Using SOD/SOS means that my casters are actually worth using. Knocking hit points off of a foe is something I can already do well with martial classes, and they can do it for longer, so why waste resources doing somthing that other party members can do well when you can add something unique to the group?

[ryzouken]

I've played a blaster Psion in an arena tournament. All of us were optimized ECL5 dudes. I won initiative and, with some synchronicity tricks, fired three ML7 electricity missiles at my raging Barbarian opponent.

He laughed, charge me, crit me, and killed me in one hit.

After that, I relied on astral construct and only rarely blasted. I never died.

Should've Ego Whipped instead. ECL 5 means our plucky Barb's not OVERLY likely to be mindaffecting:immune quite yet and he's also probably done the "smart" thing and dumped Cha. 3x ML 7 Ego Whips (meaning those're tapping in at 2d4 Cha) Would've had a good chance at zeroing the poor fella, and if they didn't, he'd have had to make 3x saves vs DAZE at his worst save value.

For every trouble comes along, you must [Ego] Whip it.

[faceroll]

That just simply is not true. I dislike blasty mages for fluff reasons, so the first mage I ever made was a specialist transmuter. I took polymorph, one of the most broken spells in the game, because "it looked like it would suit my character".

The reason why so many people say SOD/SOS spells are better than blasting is because at some point someone in your group is going to try something a little different than throwing a fireball - and find it works.

And I think it does. Using SOD/SOS means that my casters are actually worth using. Knocking hit points off of a foe is something I can already do well with martial classes, and they can do it for longer, so why waste resources doing somthing that other party members can do well when you can add something unique to the group?

IMO, blasting > SODs. But I play controller casters, because I love shaping the battlefield to suit my needs.