Edge of Dreams
2008-11-08, 07:08 AM
So, I've been playing 4e since it came out and I finally think I've begun to understand some of the more subtle details of the balance between the options available for characters so far. I think I may end up doing a series of threads on this topic. For my first entry: The balance of Accuracy.
I am going to examine the potential accuracy of level 1 characters The following rules and assumptions are in play:
1) All characters take an 18 in their primary attack stat, regardless of race or class.
2) The party only faces level 1 monsters
3) AC of level 1 monsters averages about 15.
4) Other defenses of level 1 monsters average about 12.
5) All characters are optimizing only for accuracy. Maximum, average, and per round damage are not to be taken into consideration right now, or at least at first. This means melee characters use weapons with +3 proficiency bonus.
6) Only at wills are to be examined, leave encounter and daily powers out of this, for now.
7) Combat Advantage (CA) and the variations in defense scores will be considered toward the end.
8) Buffs from allies are to be ignored since all classes theoretically can benefit from them equally (to be examined further later, maybe?)
First up, attack bonuses.
Fighter and Rogue: 3 (prof) + 4 (stat) + 1 (class) = +8. Hits on rolls of 7 or up, 70% chance to hit.
Fighters and Rogues both get an additional +1 bonus on all attack rolls with their favored weapons, making them immediately
Ranger (both styles), Swordmage, Warlord, Cleric (melee), and Paladin: 3 (prof) + 4 (stat) = +7. Hits on 8 and up, 65% chance.
Cleric (ranged), Wizard, Warlock: 4 (stat) = +4, hits on 8 and up, 65% chance.
So far, looks like fighter and rogue are in the lead. But wait! We must consider the effect of at-will powers (only considering ones that affect accuracy):
Fighter:
1) Sure Strike: +2 to hit. In terms of damage output this at-will is mathematically bad, but it can put the fighter at 80% chance to hit, which is very nice.
2) Reaping Strike: Guaranteed damage against any non-minion. File this one under "to be further investigated"
Rogue:
1) Piercing Strike: One of only two at-wills that gets weapon proficiency against a non-AC defense (reflex in this case). Assuming normal AC to not-AC differences, this puts the rogue at 85% chance to hit. CA makes that everything except a natural 1. That seem unfair to anyone else?
Ranger:
1) Careful Attack: See Sure Strike above, 75%.
2) Twin Strike: Needs math. 65% on each attack. .65 + .35*.65 = .8775
87.75% chance to get A hit, not to mention the possibility of hitting twice. Looks like the ranger can give the rogue a run for his money. With CA this becomes .75 + .25*.75 = .9375 That's 93.75% chance to get a hit. Wow.
Warlord:
1) Furious Smash: Attacks with weapon versus Fort. Compare Piercing Strike. Puts warlord at 80% to hit with a low-damage ally-buffing attack.
Paladin:
1) Valiant Strike: Gets a +1 to the roll per adjacent enemy. At a minimum, gives 70% chance to hit, like fighter and rogue. Can scale to as awesome as an extra +8, which would only miss on a 1, and then only because of critical failure rules. Actual expected bonus from this is around +2 to +3 on average, I'd guess. Allows the Paladin to compete for most accurate, sometimes.
Wizard/Swordmage aoe at-wills:
Scorching Burst, Thunderwave, and similar attacks can have as many as 8 or 9 enemies in their area, although 2-3 is much more common and 5-6 is considered a lucky break. Against anything more than 2 targets, these beat Twin Strike for the chance to get A hit.
So, what can we conclude from all this? I'll tell you what I think:
In the kinds of fights most likely to be encountered by level 1 players in a normal game, Wizard and Swordmage clearly win the Get-At-Least-One-Hit competition just by the virtue of rolling two or more attacks almost every round (assuming they are played this way). So, let's push them aside and consider the other classes.
Reaping Strike allows the Fighter to win the Do-Some-Damage-Every-Round competition no matter what he rolls. This is nice for average damage, but I'd rather see who has the best chance to hit.
Paladin gets a situational buff through Valiant Strike, but it's just not big enough or consistent enough to win a prize. Clerics and Warlocks, on the other hand, are just out of luck entirely with no special way to boost their own accuracy. This bothers me, and I might discuss it more in the future.
What's left is Warlord, Rogue, and Ranger. Furious Smash is great in a party, but the Rogue's automatic +1 with daggers edges it out ahead for the purposes of this thread since Piercing Strike is strictly more likely to hit. Fort scores tend to be slightly higher throughout the monster manual than Reflex, as well, so the Warlord loses out.
So, the final round comes down to Rogue versus Ranger, and the math doesn't lie: Rangers are more likely to get a hit with Twin Strike than a Rogue is with Piercing Strike when neither has CA (87.75% versus 85%). Strangely enough, CA swaps these positions and puts Rogue ahead, though, which means this is where the Archery Ranger drops out of the running. The tie breaker really is CA, and by my experience, a melee Rogue is significantly more likely to get CA than a melee Ranger due to Artful Dodger, the encouragement of sneak attack to take risks for CA, and the number of Rogue powers that provide CA.
So, my final rankings are thus:
1) Melee Rogue wielding daggers and using Piercing Strike
2) Melee Ranger using Twin Strike
3) Archer Ranger using Twin Strike
4) Warlord using Furious Smash
5) Fighter using Sure Strike/Paladin using Valiant Strike (which is better is situational)
6) Fighter/Rogue not using their special at-wills
6) Warlord/Paladin not using their special at-wills, Cleric, Warlock, Wizard using single-target attacks
And the special cheater prize goes to Wizard, of course, for using aoe.
What do you think?
EDIT: Sorry folks, I forgot about Prime Shot for Archery Rangers and Warlocks. Prime Shot pushes Warlocks just the tiniest bit ahead of Cleric, single-target Wizard, etc., but for both classes that get it, the actual number of times Prime Shot actually comes into effect is extremely small. Prime Shot also encourages unnecessary risk for two classes that are designed to stay out of harm's way.
I am going to examine the potential accuracy of level 1 characters The following rules and assumptions are in play:
1) All characters take an 18 in their primary attack stat, regardless of race or class.
2) The party only faces level 1 monsters
3) AC of level 1 monsters averages about 15.
4) Other defenses of level 1 monsters average about 12.
5) All characters are optimizing only for accuracy. Maximum, average, and per round damage are not to be taken into consideration right now, or at least at first. This means melee characters use weapons with +3 proficiency bonus.
6) Only at wills are to be examined, leave encounter and daily powers out of this, for now.
7) Combat Advantage (CA) and the variations in defense scores will be considered toward the end.
8) Buffs from allies are to be ignored since all classes theoretically can benefit from them equally (to be examined further later, maybe?)
First up, attack bonuses.
Fighter and Rogue: 3 (prof) + 4 (stat) + 1 (class) = +8. Hits on rolls of 7 or up, 70% chance to hit.
Fighters and Rogues both get an additional +1 bonus on all attack rolls with their favored weapons, making them immediately
Ranger (both styles), Swordmage, Warlord, Cleric (melee), and Paladin: 3 (prof) + 4 (stat) = +7. Hits on 8 and up, 65% chance.
Cleric (ranged), Wizard, Warlock: 4 (stat) = +4, hits on 8 and up, 65% chance.
So far, looks like fighter and rogue are in the lead. But wait! We must consider the effect of at-will powers (only considering ones that affect accuracy):
Fighter:
1) Sure Strike: +2 to hit. In terms of damage output this at-will is mathematically bad, but it can put the fighter at 80% chance to hit, which is very nice.
2) Reaping Strike: Guaranteed damage against any non-minion. File this one under "to be further investigated"
Rogue:
1) Piercing Strike: One of only two at-wills that gets weapon proficiency against a non-AC defense (reflex in this case). Assuming normal AC to not-AC differences, this puts the rogue at 85% chance to hit. CA makes that everything except a natural 1. That seem unfair to anyone else?
Ranger:
1) Careful Attack: See Sure Strike above, 75%.
2) Twin Strike: Needs math. 65% on each attack. .65 + .35*.65 = .8775
87.75% chance to get A hit, not to mention the possibility of hitting twice. Looks like the ranger can give the rogue a run for his money. With CA this becomes .75 + .25*.75 = .9375 That's 93.75% chance to get a hit. Wow.
Warlord:
1) Furious Smash: Attacks with weapon versus Fort. Compare Piercing Strike. Puts warlord at 80% to hit with a low-damage ally-buffing attack.
Paladin:
1) Valiant Strike: Gets a +1 to the roll per adjacent enemy. At a minimum, gives 70% chance to hit, like fighter and rogue. Can scale to as awesome as an extra +8, which would only miss on a 1, and then only because of critical failure rules. Actual expected bonus from this is around +2 to +3 on average, I'd guess. Allows the Paladin to compete for most accurate, sometimes.
Wizard/Swordmage aoe at-wills:
Scorching Burst, Thunderwave, and similar attacks can have as many as 8 or 9 enemies in their area, although 2-3 is much more common and 5-6 is considered a lucky break. Against anything more than 2 targets, these beat Twin Strike for the chance to get A hit.
So, what can we conclude from all this? I'll tell you what I think:
In the kinds of fights most likely to be encountered by level 1 players in a normal game, Wizard and Swordmage clearly win the Get-At-Least-One-Hit competition just by the virtue of rolling two or more attacks almost every round (assuming they are played this way). So, let's push them aside and consider the other classes.
Reaping Strike allows the Fighter to win the Do-Some-Damage-Every-Round competition no matter what he rolls. This is nice for average damage, but I'd rather see who has the best chance to hit.
Paladin gets a situational buff through Valiant Strike, but it's just not big enough or consistent enough to win a prize. Clerics and Warlocks, on the other hand, are just out of luck entirely with no special way to boost their own accuracy. This bothers me, and I might discuss it more in the future.
What's left is Warlord, Rogue, and Ranger. Furious Smash is great in a party, but the Rogue's automatic +1 with daggers edges it out ahead for the purposes of this thread since Piercing Strike is strictly more likely to hit. Fort scores tend to be slightly higher throughout the monster manual than Reflex, as well, so the Warlord loses out.
So, the final round comes down to Rogue versus Ranger, and the math doesn't lie: Rangers are more likely to get a hit with Twin Strike than a Rogue is with Piercing Strike when neither has CA (87.75% versus 85%). Strangely enough, CA swaps these positions and puts Rogue ahead, though, which means this is where the Archery Ranger drops out of the running. The tie breaker really is CA, and by my experience, a melee Rogue is significantly more likely to get CA than a melee Ranger due to Artful Dodger, the encouragement of sneak attack to take risks for CA, and the number of Rogue powers that provide CA.
So, my final rankings are thus:
1) Melee Rogue wielding daggers and using Piercing Strike
2) Melee Ranger using Twin Strike
3) Archer Ranger using Twin Strike
4) Warlord using Furious Smash
5) Fighter using Sure Strike/Paladin using Valiant Strike (which is better is situational)
6) Fighter/Rogue not using their special at-wills
6) Warlord/Paladin not using their special at-wills, Cleric, Warlock, Wizard using single-target attacks
And the special cheater prize goes to Wizard, of course, for using aoe.
What do you think?
EDIT: Sorry folks, I forgot about Prime Shot for Archery Rangers and Warlocks. Prime Shot pushes Warlocks just the tiniest bit ahead of Cleric, single-target Wizard, etc., but for both classes that get it, the actual number of times Prime Shot actually comes into effect is extremely small. Prime Shot also encourages unnecessary risk for two classes that are designed to stay out of harm's way.