This made me think: How come spellcasters are the only ones with this problem??
In 3.5, you had monsters with pierce,slash,bludgeon reduction. You had the occasional vulnerability, but that was much less often.
Then, monsters had Damage resistance, expressed as 10/+1 or 10/admantine, or just straight up 10/-. These monsters needed special weapon construction to more easily defeat them, or use of energy types.
4E comes along, and now ALL weapon damage is untyped and thus un-resistable! Martial characters already seem to get more than their fair share of abusive stuff (Rain(Reign?) of Blows, Hurricane Strike, Twin Strike, Stances, etc.). And now, they can remain blythely ignorant of a monster's strengths and weaknesses. Who cares? You just shoot or slash away with impunity.
But the spellcasters, they still get the shaft. For every 1 monster with vulnerability to something, you have 10 monsters that have resistances or immunities. Besides, it is an imbalanced mechanism anyways even if vuln is as often as resist.
If you do 30 damage, a vuln 20 gets you a 66% damage increase. Less than double your effectiveness. But if you deal 30 and they resist 20, you are down to one THIRD of your normal effectiveness. That is a much larger percentage loss than the gain provided by vulnerability.
So whats the deal? Casters don't really gain anything for what they give up with resistances. Targeting AC with weapon proficiency is usually about as accurate as the average attribute vs monster NADs. And some weapon powers target NADs too! Martial guys seem to deal more damage, in general. The caster status effects are better in many cases, but these are balanced by weaker damage typically.
What am I missing?
4E comes along, and now ALL weapon damage is untyped and thus un-resistable!
...
What am I missing?
The error in that statement.
A creature can have resists to all damage, which would include untyped. For example, a gargoyle in stone form has a DR30 all.
What am I missing?
There are also creatures that have vulnerability to certain key words. Most martial classes do not get the benefit. There is no vulnerability to swords in the game, but there are many creatures that have vulnerability to fire, cold, thunder, etc. There are also creatures like swarms in the game that are vulnerable to area attacks an spellcasters have many more area attacks than weapon users.
The error in that statement.
A creature can have resists to all damage, which would include untyped. For example, a gargoyle in stone form has a DR30 all.
But that means they are resisting weapon and energy damage. So far there are no monsters that weapon users have a harder time fighting than casters.
I think this is "fair" because casters can have a variety of different kinds of energy types.
Swarm traits tends to favor elemental characters over weapon users, due to how often one has close/area attacks vs the other.
Radiant turns the argument on its head, as radiant damage is far more often vulnerability than resistance.
And to be contraversial, if your DM allows you to use elemental weapons (by RAW they have no argument if you're a swordmage, or use paladin/cleric radiant weapon attacks, but it's ambiguous and widely debated for implement users, doubly so for staff users), then you can easily get dual damage types. Dual type is usually better than single type especially if you have feat support.
Example: Paladin with Frost longsword, Wintertouched and Lasting Frost feats. When he makes an attack with the radiant and weapon keywords while using his frost longsword feature to attack a creature that is immune to cold but not vulnerable nor resistant to radiant he does normal damage and inflicts vulnerability 5 cold. On the following attack, he has combat advantage and deals 5 extra damage; the vulnerability still counts despite the immunity, and because it is a dual type attack it can get the best of both worlds.
So in my opinion dual damage type > untyped > single type. (Though single type can be conditionally better, it takes a heavy hit in reliability.)
Also, sorcerers are a partial exeption due to their resistance bypassing ability.
For every 1 monster with vulnerability to something, you have 10 monsters that have resistances or immunities.
That's a considerable overstatement, and weakens your argument. It's particularly silly when talking about Radiant damage, which is an extremely widespread vulnerability type.
So whats the deal? Casters don't really gain anything for what they give up with resistances.
Sure they do. There are many feats that specifically enhance powers with energy keywords. Look at Resounding Thunder or Solid Sound or Psychic Lock, to name just a few. Can't do that stuff with untyped damage.
The caster status effects are better in many cases, but these are balanced by weaker damage typically.
They also have more access to AoE or multi-target powers. Martial types get some close burst tricks, but very little at range. Hitting multiple targets greatly boosts your effective damage output. Between that and generally better status effects, caster types do their jobs fine. They don't need the raw single-target damage output the weapon users have, and if they had it they'd be overpowered.
You might get bitten by high resists once in a while, but that's why you don't take all your powers with a single keyword.
There are also creatures that have vulnerability to certain key words. Most martial classes do not get the benefit. There is no vulnerability to swords in the game, but there are many creatures that have vulnerability to fire, cold, thunder, etc. There are also creatures like swarms in the game that are vulnerable to area attacks an spellcasters have many more area attacks than weapon users.
I discussed the resist and immunity vs Vulnerability thing at length in my post.
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Does anyone really think it is fair that casters can use multiple types of resistable/immunity energy types, while martials can only do ONE type of damage...that happens to be UNresistable? What kind of logic is that?
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Theres plenty of martial feats that pump up damage too. Nimble blade increases accuracy. Backstabber pumps sneak attack.
Called shot increases arrow damage.
Casters do NOT get some kind of monopoly on feats that add damage or effects.
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What is so great about a thunderwave that has fire added? It means half the damage is thunder, and half is fire. Thats double the chance for a monster to resist one or the other, though it is less likely they will resist all of it.
From what I read in the PHB, when you add a keyword, it means that damage is split up among those keywords. I dont understand where people get the idea that a multi-keyword power can get around resistance this way.
Even if it did, this just means that a small handful of multi-element powers effectively gain the same thing as the Untyped guys get in the first place! i.e. ability to ignore resist/immune.
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OK, I realize that Radiant is an EXCEPTION. Tons of undead are vulnerable, but only a few caster types can exploit this.
For the most part, there are a lot more immune/resist than vulnerabilities. I think that is a reasonable statement.
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One of the best answers so far is that casters generally get AoE effects.
HOWEVER, their single target powers arent any better than those of martial guys. Look at the CHA-based warlock. They get NO AoEs practically. Their various single target powers dont seem to be appreciably better than a ranger's arrow powers.
Look at sorcerers. Their single target spells aren't so great to be honest.
What is so great about a thunderwave that has fire added? It means half the damage is thunder, and half is fire. Thats double the chance for a monster to resist one or the other, though it is less likely they will resist all of it.
From what I read in the PHB, when you add a keyword, it means that damage is split up among those keywords. I dont understand where people get the idea that a multi-keyword power can get around resistance this way.
Even if it did, this just means that a small handful of multi-element powers effectively gain the same thing as the Untyped guys get in the first place! i.e. ability to ignore resist/immune.
This is in the errata. Check it out. Dual type damage is now both types entirely, and uses the lower of the two resistances/immunities and the higher of the two vulnerabilities. Also, the elemental weapons (frost/flaming/lightning and a few others from AV and elsewhere) add their damage types/keywords to the attacks made through them as long as that power is being used, which means untyped attacks (pretty much anything from a ranger/rogue/fighter/warlord/etc.) become single type (which grants them potential feat advantages and vulnerability at the cost of resist/immunity coming into play. At least you can turn it off when it's not helpful.) but typed attacks (many from paladin, cleric, and pretty much everything on swordmage) become dual type (which I've used before to deal more damage to a blue dragon with a lightning sword turned on then if its power was turned off, due to my Raging Storm feat).
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Another note is that adding new damage types is NOT trivial. You can NOT use a frost/flame weapon as a spellcaster. Only MARTIAL weapon users can do that. When used as an implement, a weapon's powers are not accessible and the FAQ states that only enhancement,crit, and properties are used. (i.e. not keywords or weapon powers)
So a warlock can use eldritch gloves. You can spend a paragon FEAT to add ONE damage type to ONE power. There are a small handful of dual keyword powers. That is about it.
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I agree that AoE is a good arguemnt, but lets compare a Ranger Archer and a CHA-based warlock. They both have mostly single target powers. They are approximately equal in defenses. (Though rangers get their hide proficiency for free) As far as I can tell, twin strike >> warlock at-wills. In any case, rangers seem to be about equal to warlocks, damage wise AT WORST.
Except sometimes warlocks get their stuff resisted, so that is an extra problem they have to worry about, which archers do NOT.
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DrNick, what are you talking about. Are you expecting wizards to beat monsters to death with their staves? Ditto with Invokers and Druids? Is this the genius plan for having spellcasters get around the limitations of resistance?
You need to elaborate more on your point that spellcasters can theoretically use weapons, cuz I missed it.
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In general, spellcasters and non-casters seem to be balanced with NO resistances in play. However, the casters occasionally get hosed by resists/immunities, whereas weapon users remain unaffected.
Casters very rarely get an equivalent boost from vulnerabilities.
Istarin, interesting info! I dont think it changes my argument much, in that multiple damage types usually just negate resistance, which Weapon users get for free.
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Another note is that adding new damage types is NOT trivial. You can NOT use a frost/flame weapon as a spellcaster. Only MARTIAL weapon users can do that. When used as an implement, a weapon's powers are not accessible and the FAQ states that only enhancement,crit, and properties are used. (i.e. not keywords or weapon powers)
So a warlock can use eldritch gloves. You can spend a paragon FEAT to add ONE damage type to ONE power. There are a small handful of dual keyword powers. That is about it.
I agree that AoE is a good arguemnt, but lets compare a Ranger Archer and a CHA-based warlock. They both have mostly single target powers. They are approximately equal in defenses. (Though rangers get their hide proficiency for free) As far as I can tell, twin strike >> warlock at-wills. In any case, rangers seem to be about equal to warlocks, damage wise AT WORST.
Except sometimes warlocks get their stuff resisted, so that is an extra problem they have to worry about, which archers do NOT.
DrNick, what are you talking about. Are you expecting wizards to beat monsters to death with their staves? Ditto with Invokers and Druids? Is this the genius plan for having spellcasters get around the limitations of resistance?
You need to elaborate more on your point that spellcasters can theoretically use weapons, cuz I missed it.
In general, spellcasters and non-casters seem to be balanced with NO resistances in play. However, the casters occasionally get hosed by resists/immunities, whereas weapon users remain unaffected.
Casters very rarely get an equivalent boost from vulnerabilities.
Few points: Spellcaters. Who are you talking about? Swordmages and Bards do proper "Spells" that have weapon keywords. Druids have nonimplement (ant non elemental too attacks) trough his beast form, Barbarian and Warden also not quite Martial. Oh and Shaman's beast just bites if need be. Most of Divine clases do casting and smiting equaly.
So who are those nerfed by resistances? Wizard, Invoker, Sorcerer and Warlock. Warlock leaves the scene right away since everyone of em has Eldrish blast that is nonelemental. All others have actual weapons choises for implements. Though ok for them the argument stands.
Next. Not having resistance comes at a prize of not having vulerability. Weapon vulnerability would mean most of the time +X damage (and that is bit OP). Now to balance it the user of elemental attacks are given bunch of tools form multielemental attack rules to feat's/items/features that ignore resistence. Couple that with ways to apply vulnerability where one haven't egsited before.
Does that equalize weapon attacks and elemental attacks? Bloody no idea. How do you propose to measure it? You aware that "it feels like this for me" is not a measurment since it feels for me that wintertouched/lasting frost combo is based on resistance ridden cold element. And radiant element has more vulnerabilityes that resistances (and if you manage to splice it with other elements you are not only overcoming resistance. you are working into vulnerability!).
How come my martial melee characters have to stand inside a damaging aura to fight their enemies while the spellslingers safely blast away from a distance? And they do this radiant damage stuff that destroys undead like nothing my puny weapon can do. And they can blast a gaggle of minions from 10 squares away. And we were imprisoned once and the eladrin wizard teleported out and started blasting away enemies right away eventhough he didn't have his staff. I had to wait for him to clean up and come rescue me with keys. And then I was useless until I could find some weapons but it was like the wizard and cleric had unlimited ammo. Waah.
So who are those nerfed by resistances? Wizard, Invoker, Sorcerer and Warlock. Warlock leaves the scene right away since everyone of em has Eldrish blast that is nonelemental. All others have actual weapons choises for implements. Though ok for them the argument stands.
Sorcerers can penetrate resistances, easier for Dragon magic and Storm Magic sorcerers, but they can easily not be concerned with anything other then immunity.
Over the hundreds of encounters a party will face in a campaign, resistances work out to be more flavor than anything else. Over half of the creatures in the MM have no resistance to anything at all (278 vs 209). Well over half of those (159) that do possess resistance have Necrotic or Poison (thanks to a large undead contingent) or Fire. Only 147 critters total have any kind of immunity, and that number includes stuff like immune to disease, moon frenzy, or forced movement.:D Seriously, from 1st to 33rd level, 6 whole things are immune to fire.
What's more, this makes sense. The game is worse if that Red Dragon you find sleeping in a volcano doesn't take reduced damage from fire, and adventurers that come equipped with fire-based attacks to kill it are the primary contributors to its big pile of treasure.
Furthermore, only striker casters are really affected by resistances. Leaders and controllers need to be aware of them, but really their primary role is to have other meaningful, effects on combat besides merely damage. Even if the monster is resistant to fire, the real reason you are hitting it is for the -2 to attacks or giving a healing surge or whatever. Heck, even if the thing is immune to Poison, Stinking Cloud still blocks line of sight whether it does damage or not and depending on the intelligence of the creature it might not voluntarily enter it if it doesn't know what it is (your roleplay mileage may vary)
Over the life of a campaign, a caster's access to a variety of NADs to attack, ability to project a variety of damage types and Area attacks more than make up for any particular shortcomings they might have in a specific encounter. At low levels, even just the plain old ability to damage at range is nice in parties that lack a ranger. Sure, martial types have a small handful of chances to attack REF or FORT but even a 1st level wizard can attack more different defenses than most 30th level fighters can.
Few points: Spellcaters. Who are you talking about? Swordmages and Bards do proper "Spells" that have weapon keywords. Druids have nonimplement (ant non elemental too attacks) trough his beast form, Barbarian and Warden also not quite Martial. Oh and Shaman's beast just bites if need be. Most of Divine clases do casting and smiting equaly.
So who are those nerfed by resistances? Wizard, Invoker, Sorcerer and Warlock. Warlock leaves the scene right away since everyone of em has Eldrish blast that is nonelemental. All others have actual weapons choises for implements. Though ok for them the argument stands.
Next. Not having resistance comes at a prize of not having vulerability. Weapon vulnerability would mean most of the time +X damage (and that is bit OP). Now to balance it the user of elemental attacks are given bunch of tools form multielemental attack rules to feat's/items/features that ignore resistence. Couple that with ways to apply vulnerability where one haven't egsited before.
Does that equalize weapon attacks and elemental attacks? Bloody no idea. How do you propose to measure it? You aware that "it feels like this for me" is not a measurment since it feels for me that wintertouched/lasting frost combo is based on resistance ridden cold element. And radiant element has more vulnerabilityes that resistances (and if you manage to splice it with other elements you are not only overcoming resistance. you are working into vulnerability!).
Well, saying that a Warlock can just use eldritch blast and ignore all his dailys and encounter powers is not much of a consolation.
Thats like telling the fighter that he can always Sure Strike the entire encounter because most of his other powers might be useless due to resist/immunes.
Great points about druids and various other 'casters' having weapon based powers. However, martial characters have ALL untyped damage. Just having a few options for untyped damage does not really address the resist/immunity problem. It just provides a few ways out for the casters.
I guess I am defining spellcasters as those who primarily deal non-untyped damage.
You all realise of course that the typical spellcaster has lower defenses than an equivalent martial guy. Sure, the wizard gets AoEs, but he also has really bad HPs and cloth armor. So there is some consideration there. This is why I am trying to use the warlock/ranger comparison, as they have the same HPs, and the same single-target role.
Mengu, you understand that the rant you pasted could be applied to an archer ranger, as much as any spellcaster. Even a rogue can toss daggers for decent damage, and such builds exist. Or they can just use a crossbow. Range is not exclusive to spellcasters.
And surely you are not saying that a caster being able to use his powers when unequipped (at a fat penalty of course) is really a significant balancing factor? That is definitely an edge case. 99% of the time, everyone will have their equipment... or at least a basic weapon.
In fact, ANY weapon guy can bust out a Radiant weapon of -1 enchant for cheap and gain all the benefits of vulnerability, with none of the issues. Heck, a ranger archer can use a mindiron bow and psychic lock all the baddies, or wintercheeze with a frost bow, or Tiefling bonuses from a Fire bow, gain Solid Sound resists from a Force bow, etc. If they ever get a Thunder at-will weapon, you can bet on seeing increased burst sizes from martial types!
Even SPELLCASTERS cannot do this! They are stuck with whatever powers they picked. They cant just carry a few backup weapons and deal whatever damage type they feel like.
The ONLY reason weapon-users do NOT do this, is because there is no reason to! Vulnerability is relatively rare, and they don't have to worry about resists. The only really common vulnerability is Radiant.
I agree that sorcs can penetrate resists. This helps address the resist issue, but does nothing for immunities. It also kind of pidgenholes that sorc into picking powers that are related to that element.
Those sorcs with varying resistances (2 out of 4) have a bit more issue with this.
I absolutely agree that the ratio of resists to vulnerabilities is a gut feel. Ill have to look on the monster forum and find some stats. But I think just you thumbing through the MM will show a lot more resist/immune than vulnerable, with the exception of Radiant.
As I discussed in my initial post, even if vulnerable and resists were equally balanced, it would NOT actually balance things out.
This is because casters lose a lot more mathematically from resist/immunities than they gain from vulnerabilities.
DrNick, what are you talking about. Are you expecting wizards to beat monsters to death with their staves? Ditto with Invokers and Druids? Is this the genius plan for having spellcasters get around the limitations of resistance?
You need to elaborate more on your point that spellcasters can theoretically use weapons, cuz I missed it.
Angry much? A fighter can't attack things at range unless he uses a basic attack. Does that make him underpowered?
What about the fact that weapon powers don't get the types of riders that arcane powers do?
guy did most of the legwork on an Excel sheet you can find here:
http://www.enworld.org/forum/general-rpg-discussion/248997-d-d-4th-edition-monster-resistance-statistics.html
to be fair, only 63 of the 487 monsters in the MM have vulnerabilities. Again the most significant type is Radiant, mostly thanks to all the undead.
guy did most of the legwork on an Excel sheet you can find here:
http://www.enworld.org/forum/general-rpg-discussion/248997-d-d-4th-edition-monster-resistance-statistics.html
Ya, Vulnerability is not very common of the 2285 creatures presently in compendium (don't have access to MM2 yet) 419 mention vulnerability, and not all of them have it.
However, there are things that can give creatures vulnerability out there, like lasting frost and Arcane fire.
I am really not trying to be difficult.
I guess my question is basically, why did they get rid of Weapon/conventional damage resistances (i.e 10/- DR, 5/admantine, 20/+2), and immunities (50% slashing reduction), along with vulnerabilities?
Since they got rid of the conventional weapon resist/immune/vuln, why did they decide to keep the energy-based resists/immunities/vulnerabililities?
Then, the next question is: When 4E was balanced, was it balanced excluding Res/Imm/Vulns, or were they included?
This leads one to conclude that either...
a) Resistances and Immunities are balanced against vulnerabilities to provide a statistical even playing field. We pretty much know this isn't the case, with the exception of a few builds that can use lots of Radiant stuff vs Undead.
OR,
b) Stuff is balanced with NO imm/res/vulns, and any encounter with them will sway the balance to make energy-users more or less powerful. (usually less)
OR,
c) Stuff was balanced with Imm/Res/Vuln in mind, and therefore any encounter WITHOUT them will be unbalanced to the energy-user's advantage.
I am kinda curious as to which way it was supposed to be. To me, the martial guys have more broken stuff and are generally better, when you compare role-to-role (which is pretty hard to do in fairness, hence the warlock/archer ranger comparison).
I'm a Wizard. I use Icy Rays. Oh no! The enemy is resistant to cold! Oh well, guess I'll use Magic Missile.
I'm a Fighter. I swing my sword. Oh no! The enemy is resistant to slashing! Guess I'll dig into my bag for my warhammer. Oh no! The enemy is also resistant to normal metal! Guess I'll dig into my bag for my adamantine warhammer. Oh no! The enemy is resistant to blah blah blah...
When you are an element user, you usually have more than one element to use. Switching is as easy as using a different power. But what of weapon based resistance? You can't just use a different power. You need a new weapon.
Which means you need three or four times the number of magic attack items that a element caster does. So they will either be sub-par, so you'll never hit and be useless, or they will cost too much for you to afford!
Then, the next question is: When 4E was balanced, was it balanced excluding Res/Imm/Vulns, or were they included?
Neither. Most of the balancing work seems to go toward balancing player races and clases against each other to try and make them equally useful in encounters.
Monsters aren't even entirely balanced among themselves. When you look at the level, or even the role of a monster, it's not always balanced. An insubstantial monster that weakens is always more durable than a zombie with vulnerability to radiant, and zombie weakness, regardless of if they are the same level or not.
Monsters exist to give the PC's a hard time. This can be in the form of resisting typed damage. It can also be in the form of regeneration that can only be shut down by typed damage. Knowing there is a tiefling fire wizard in the party, if the DM puts fire resistant creatures in 90% of the encounters, that's bad DM-ship. It's the DM's job to pick on different PC's in different encounters, and allow them each a turn to shine with equal opportunity.
So I don't really see a big need to "balance" resistances, immunities, vulnerabilities, regeneration, etc. Each of these elements is simply a tool for the DM to set forth a challenge that requires the use of different abilities from different players.
Now, like fantasy heroes everywhere in the genre, our fighting men are pretty darn good with a single weapon, and when something shows up that needs killing they start swinging it - not rummaging around in their haversack for their +3 cold iron, ghost touch, holy mace of disruption. The key point though, is that the one weapon they use all the time is really better because of the person wielding it, not because of the amount of adjectives stacked up in front of it. In return, the game is kind to the melee players, and pretty much lets them hit pretty much everything.
Now that you mention it, I do kind of miss the " /-" resistance. Things that are resistant to physical damage while remaining affected by energy damage is an expected shtick for at least a handful of monsters, and needs to be represented in some way besides high Defenses, regen or temp hp. It would be tough to wing, because a lot of mechanics rely on physical damage mattering (especially Combat Challenge.) Enough resistance to register to strikers could emasculate a fighter, but strikers run the danger of just blowing through something intended more for a defender. I don't miss all the other wacky stuff, because that really promoted book keeping over playing; it didn't add fun, it just added work and made me spend all my loot on backup weapons I would only ever use for 1-2 fights in my career.
Sure, the ranger is a noteworthy exception and many games dismiss what a character might not know about the creature's defenses but, these two things can be a big factor. While he may face a few more resistances, most casters can stand off a bit in relative safety and not have to waste spells against "unknown" resistances.
I am not advocating going back to punishing weapon users, for not having the right material weapon, or not enough enhancement, etc.
But, just like there are resistance/vuln to energy, I see no reason not to have resistance/vulnerability to Physical, where Physical is a damage type.
You would not want a whole lot of it, and never an Immune, as that could ruin an entire party. But I could see some being appropriate for certain monsters, where the energy users would be more valuable for a fight than the martial guys. (Or martial guys would use energy-weapons).
Piercing: bow, crossbow, light blade, pick, spear
Slashing: axe, light blade, heavy blade, polearm
Bludgeoning: flail, hammer, mace, sling, staff, unarmed
Now all you need to do is house rule a few monsters to have resistance / vulnerabilities against the above weapon types. I wouldn't overdo it, but there are a few classic examples where it adds flavor. If you fight a skeleton, you'd expect arrows to slid between the bones, while a mace should be very effective. Slashing weapons on the other hand should be effective to cut down zombies.
Skeleton: Resist 5 piercing, vulnerable bludgeoning (critical hit on 18-20)
Zombie: vulnerable slashing (slowed until end of next turn)
What is so great about a thunderwave that has fire added? It means half the damage is thunder, and half is fire. Thats double the chance for a monster to resist one or the other, though it is less likely they will resist all of it.
From what I read in the PHB, when you add a keyword, it means that damage is split up among those keywords. I dont understand where people get the idea that a multi-keyword power can get around resistance this way.
Even if it did, this just means that a small handful of multi-element powers effectively gain the same thing as the Untyped guys get in the first place! i.e. ability to ignore resist/immune.
You don't get it do ya?
Thunderwave is a close blast, it hits EVERYTHING in a 3x3 square, and a wizard has that as an At WIll. There's also feats that can increase it's size, move it's origin point up to 2 squares away from you (one of my faves), reduce damage and attack against allies caught in it, or even leave safe gaps in it, AND it pushes.
So, while the fighter is making one or two (with cleave) beasties with at wills, you can hit NINE.
And you can choose ot hit 3 different defence types with yer spells, only a few fighter effects hit anything except AC.
So dual implement feat = big damage bonus for a caster
then, Reaping Touch, you can use Magic Missile as a melee basic attack if you wish..do you get how powerful that is?!
I was making a character for fun base don one I liked from ages ago, lvl 21 Wizard, Bonded Summoner, planeshaper, human.
so he can use magic missile as a melee attack, 4d4+15 damage versus Reflex, not AC, but Reflex!
So, I believe you are wrong
You don't get it do ya?
Thunderwave is a close blast, it hits EVERYTHING in a 3x3 square, and a wizard has that as an At WIll. There's also feats that can increase it's size, move it's origin point up to 2 squares away from you (one of my faves), reduce damage and attack against allies caught in it, or even leave safe gaps in it, AND it pushes.
So, while the fighter is making one or two (with cleave) beasties with at wills, you can hit NINE.
And you can choose ot hit 3 different defence types with yer spells, only a few fighter effects hit anything except AC.
So dual implement feat = big damage bonus for a caster
then, Reaping Touch, you can use Magic Missile as a melee basic attack if you wish..do you get how powerful that is?!
I was making a character for fun base don one I liked from ages ago, lvl 21 Wizard, Bonded Summoner, planeshaper, human.
so he can use magic missile as a melee attack, 4d4+15 damage versus Reflex, not AC, but Reflex!
So, I believe you are wrong
Doesn't Enlarge Spell affect Thunderwave, as well as another Paragon feat that expands Thunder spell blast/burst by 1? That ought to give you a Close Blast 5 instead of Close Blast 3, allowing you to hit... 25 opponents with an at-will?
Here's my opinion regarding magic elemental resistances versus physical non-elemental (lack of) resistances:
- Number of opponents hit
- Most of the physical attacks take out only a few opponents. This is assuming you have a Medium or Small character; Large and Huge characters could take out more, but even with a Close Burst 3 (which applies to high level non-elemental users I think) it's still at best something like 80 opponents.
- The most a Wizard could take out would be 399 opponents with only Legion Hold (Close Burst 20, no feats included to enhance the radius).
- Most of the physical attacks take out only a few opponents. This is assuming you have a Medium or Small character; Large and Huge characters could take out more, but even with a Close Burst 3 (which applies to high level non-elemental users I think) it's still at best something like 80 opponents.
- Defenses targeted
- Physical attacks mostly hit AC -- the easiest to raise and often the highest defense -- and the few that hit NADs strike at Fortitude and Reflex
- Magic attacks typically hit NADs, often Reflex and Will (note that Will is typically the lowest save on most PCs and NPCs)
- Special: while there are physical attacks that do (usually half) damage on a miss, there are magic attacks that do (often full) damage on a miss... and in the case of Grease in particular, the spell does better if you miss
- Physical attacks mostly hit AC -- the easiest to raise and often the highest defense -- and the few that hit NADs strike at Fortitude and Reflex
Weapon-based attacks are more powerful especially when the x[W] pushes up by a lot, but straight-up damage isn't the only thing you have to look at. First you have to see if the attack actually *hits*. Second you have to consider how many are affected by your attack. Finally you have to check out if the attack does as intended.
[W] based attacks would do more damage and maybe do a little shifting/sliding/pulling/pushing as well, but most of the shifting/sliding/pulling/pushing and enemy hampering would be done by the Implement based attacks since in spite of them doing less direct damage, they make it up by making encounters easier for players...
... and frankly I've seen more posts about casters ruining DM campaigns by wiping out mobs and reducing BBoEs to mere playthings at times, than non-casters being able to do the same.