Hm how about giving each weapons a unique move or two? of course this idea comes from me playing the early access of baldur's gate 3 but adding something like that would take gods knows how long so yeah who knows
Hm how about giving each weapons a unique move or two? of course this idea comes from me playing the early access of baldur's gate 3 but adding something like that would take gods knows how long so yeah who knows
I'm pretty sure that's actually what they did. Also the subject of the thread.
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Look at what you've done. You spoiled it. You have nobody to blame but yourself. Go sit and think about your actions.
Don't be mean. Rudeness is a vicious cycle, and it has to stop somewhere. Exceptions for things that are funny. Go to the current Competition of the Finest 'Brews! It's a cool place where cool people make cool things.
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Ok, I just saw a bunch of YouTubers talking about play test 7 fighter and barbarian and am stumped. How are we still talking about weapon masteries as closing the martial/caster divide? Flex, according to JC mathematically the most damaging mastery, does extremely little. One additional damage for a Longsword over using a rapier. Flex, if it has an advantage over the other masteries ever, only does so in tier 1 play (the part of play where martials don’t need help). If JC is fixated on tier 1 play and is primarily balancing for that tier, I don’t see how who’s we’re going to get some of those fundamental issues resolved.
Masteries weren't meant to close the martial/caster divide. They were intended to try and address the fact that martial combat was boring and same-y, with martial characters rarely if ever getting to do anything on their turn except repeatedly spam The Attack Action. They resoundingly failed in that goal, but that was still the original intent.
At higher levels the most damaging masteries are Vex (for dex fighters) and Cleave (for heavy weapon fighters), though neither one is super dramatic. If you want to look at closing the martial/caster divide for fighters, the big ones are actually tactical mind (makes fighters a lot better at skills) and indomitable (at high level, might as well be legendary resistance).
Ok, I just saw a bunch of YouTubers talking about play test 7 fighter and barbarian and am stumped. How are we still talking about weapon masteries as closing the martial/caster divide? Flex, according to JC mathematically the most damaging mastery, does extremely little. One additional damage for a Longsword over using a rapier. Flex, if it has an advantage over the other masteries ever, only does so in tier 1 play (the part of play where martials don’t need help). If JC is fixated on tier 1 play and is primarily balancing for that tier, I don’t see how who’s we’re going to get some of those fundamental issues resolved.
His "mathematically most powerful" quote wasn't about pure damage actually, it was the combination of getting 2H damage without giving up the defense of a shield. It's moot anyway since Flex is dead but just wanted to be fair. +2 AC is indeed pretty powerful if getting it costs you nothing.
Ok, I just saw a bunch of YouTubers talking about play test 7 fighter and barbarian and am stumped. How are we still talking about weapon masteries as closing the martial/caster divide? Flex, according to JC mathematically the most damaging mastery, does extremely little. One additional damage for a Longsword over using a rapier. Flex, if it has an advantage over the other masteries ever, only does so in tier 1 play (the part of play where martials don’t need help). If JC is fixated on tier 1 play and is primarily balancing for that tier, I don’t see how who’s we’re going to get some of those fundamental issues resolved.
For one, they got rid of flex. And the reason it was mathematically best is because it worked every time. Others were more situational, cleave needs an adjacent enemy, for example. Vex doesn’t help if you kill the enemy you’re vexing, since it doesn’t apply to someone else. That kind of thing. The others need some kind of condition to be met which won’t come up every time. Flex was boring, but reliable. I guess nick pretty much works every time, too. But flex just worked every time you hit. Guaranteed.
Ok, I just saw a bunch of YouTubers talking about play test 7 fighter and barbarian and am stumped. How are we still talking about weapon masteries as closing the martial/caster divide? Flex, according to JC mathematically the most damaging mastery, does extremely little. One additional damage for a Longsword over using a rapier. Flex, if it has an advantage over the other masteries ever, only does so in tier 1 play (the part of play where martials don’t need help). If JC is fixated on tier 1 play and is primarily balancing for that tier, I don’t see how who’s we’re going to get some of those fundamental issues resolved.
His "mathematically most powerful" quote wasn't about pure damage actually, it was the combination of getting 2H damage without giving up the defense of a shield. It's moot anyway since Flex is dead but just wanted to be fair. +2 AC is indeed pretty powerful if getting it costs you nothing.
It costs you 1.5 damage per hit and Graze. That's not nothing. The only people who think Flex is half decent are the ones who think that sword and board is already way better than two-handed weapons, because they think it doesn't matter that the Mastery sword and board gets is way worse.
Look at what you've done. You spoiled it. You have nobody to blame but yourself. Go sit and think about your actions.
Don't be mean. Rudeness is a vicious cycle, and it has to stop somewhere. Exceptions for things that are funny. Go to the current Competition of the Finest 'Brews! It's a cool place where cool people make cool things.
How I'm posting based on text formatting: Mod Hat Off - Mod Hat Also Off (I'm not a mod)
Flex also contradicted the stated goal of the Mastery system in the first place, i.e. offering martial characters more interesting round-by-round combat options. Mathematically 'best' or not, Flex manifestly failed in that goal. It was just an always-on buff you never had to think about, which made it just as boring as spamming Attack Action. The subgoal of Flex - "it's the Mastery option for people who don't want to engage with the system and just want to spam Attack Action" - is incompatible with the objective of the system itself. You can't have a system designed to offer options beyond spamming Attack Action and then make the primary thing that system does be "Spam the Attack Action with a one-size-bigger dice."
At some point, people have to engage with the rules if they want to play. Or I guess not if the DM just turns Mastery off at their table, but at that point why include a Mastery for people who hate Mastery and simply won't use it anyway?
It costs you 1.5 damage per hit and Graze. That's not nothing. The only people who think Flex is half decent are the ones who think that sword and board is already way better than two-handed weapons, because they think it doesn't matter that the Mastery sword and board gets is way worse.
I didn't say I thought Flex was decent; I said that "according to JC it's the most mathematically damaging mastery" is a lie.
I will say that the claim of 'mathematically most powerful' indicates that JC can't do math. Which probably shouldn't be a surprise. Vex with a rapier will beat flex with a longsword unless you're actually only ever attacking targets once, which isn't really a factor after tier 1.
I will note that Graze is atrocious at high levels because you don't miss enough.
I will say that the claim of 'mathematically most powerful' indicates that JC can't do math. Which probably shouldn't be a surprise. Vex with a rapier will beat flex with a longsword unless you're actually only ever attacking targets once, which isn't really a factor after tier 1.
I will note that Graze is atrocious at high levels because you don't miss enough.
It's been clear from other ones of those videos that Crawford is very far from perfect in his knowledge of the UAs. But he's not entirely wrong, but nor is he particularly right. Power is subjective but if I had to rank the masteries by "power level" I'd rank them like this:
Cleave Graze / Vex Topple Flex Push / Nick Sap Slow
Though it depends on what class / weapon you're talking about, Nick is really good for Rogue, Graze & Vex are bad on Barbarians, Topple is best on a thrown weapon, Cleave is best on a weapon with Reach, Sap is best in Tier 1&2.
Part of the problem of evaluating masteries is that a lot of them are specific to certain fighting styles so it really turns into evaluating fighting styles with masteries -- if you really want to do a shield-based fighter, cleave/graze/nick just aren't options. However, if I were ranking masteries by power level
Push is very party-dependent. Pushing an enemy into a cloud of daggers is about 20 damage (get hit both on being pushed in, and start of turn) at level 3; in tier 4 pushing someone into a prismatic wall is 175 damage. Oh, and it isn't limited to once per turn (though damage usually is) so at high levels you can move targets a long distance. Unfortunately, it doesn't work on Huge or Gargantuan targets (it needs to have a relative size check so we can use Runic Juggernaut to play golf with the Tarrasque).
Cleave benefits from features that give per-attack damage bonuses with no target limits, such as rage, magic weapons, divine power, and improved divine might, but suffers from not being usable on every attack. If we figure it's usable half the time, on a halberd barbarian it's likely around 3-4 dpr in tier 2, up to around 5-6 in tier 4.
Vex, under typical use cases, averages out about equal to +2 to hit. On a rapier fighter it's likely around 2-3 dpr in tier 2, up to about 6 in tier 4.
Flex lets you make an off hand attack even if you had a different use for your bonus action. This is quite significant for rangers as it lets you use hunter's mark without sacrificing attacks -- assuming you'd need a bonus action half the time, it's around 3 dpr in tier 2, 5 dpr in tier 4.
Sap is about preventing attacks, but isn't terribly good at it. In tier 2 it's probably preventing on the order of 2 damage if your target doesn't die before its next action, by tier 4 the hits are bigger but not that much bigger and disadvantage matters less, figure closer to 4.
Graze suffers from high level characters not actually missing much. In tier 2 it's around 2 dpr on a greatsword fighter, tier 4 it's around 3.
Flex is +1 damage per hit, a bit less per attack. On a tier 2 fighter it's around 1.5 dpr, increasing to around 3.5 in by level 20.
Topple applies an indifferent status effect (yeah, it helps you... but it hinders ranged allies), and the fact the target needs to stand up doesn't matter much given that you're likely in melee combat to start with.
Slow is really only useful to ranged attackers.
I would generally just group them in two sets -- the top 4 are generally useful, for the rest you take them because you didn't have a better option.
IME Pushing isn't nearly as good as the YT talking heads make it out to be. It relies on very precise positioning which it is often not possible to achieve, and it relies on having allies that cast a small number of specific spells all the time. Basically you need a melee-cleric in the party for it to useful reliably. Sometimes it is amazing, the rest of the time it is useless.
IME Pushing isn't nearly as good as the YT talking heads make it out to be. It relies on very precise positioning which it is often not possible to achieve, and it relies on having allies that cast a small number of specific spells all the time. Basically you need a melee-cleric in the party for it to useful reliably. Sometimes it is amazing, the rest of the time it is useless.
The thing is, the difference in power is so huge that it doesn't need to be reliable. I put it as a top tier option because, while it's not always good or even usually good, when it is good it's really really good, whereas all the other options are... a nice benefit but not really game changing.
IME Pushing isn't nearly as good as the YT talking heads make it out to be. It relies on very precise positioning which it is often not possible to achieve, and it relies on having allies that cast a small number of specific spells all the time. Basically you need a melee-cleric in the party for it to useful reliably. Sometimes it is amazing, the rest of the time it is useless.
That or it pushes melee back from the range guy who then can move back 30 feet so the melee guy loses multiple rounds of doing damage.
IME Pushing isn't nearly as good as the YT talking heads make it out to be. It relies on very precise positioning which it is often not possible to achieve, and it relies on having allies that cast a small number of specific spells all the time. Basically you need a melee-cleric in the party for it to useful reliably. Sometimes it is amazing, the rest of the time it is useless.
That or it pushes melee back from the range guy who then can move back 30 feet so the melee guy loses multiple rounds of doing damage.
Only if you assume a party of entirely ranged, otherwise the melee guy just goes and attacks your melee guys instead.
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Hm how about giving each weapons a unique move or two? of course this idea comes from me playing the early access of baldur's gate 3 but adding something like that would take gods knows how long so yeah who knows
I'm pretty sure that's actually what they did. Also the subject of the thread.
Look at what you've done. You spoiled it. You have nobody to blame but yourself. Go sit and think about your actions.
Don't be mean. Rudeness is a vicious cycle, and it has to stop somewhere. Exceptions for things that are funny.
Go to the current Competition of the Finest 'Brews! It's a cool place where cool people make cool things.
How I'm posting based on text formatting: Mod Hat Off - Mod Hat Also Off (I'm not a mod)
Ok, I just saw a bunch of YouTubers talking about play test 7 fighter and barbarian and am stumped. How are we still talking about weapon masteries as closing the martial/caster divide? Flex, according to JC mathematically the most damaging mastery, does extremely little. One additional damage for a Longsword over using a rapier. Flex, if it has an advantage over the other masteries ever, only does so in tier 1 play (the part of play where martials don’t need help). If JC is fixated on tier 1 play and is primarily balancing for that tier, I don’t see how who’s we’re going to get some of those fundamental issues resolved.
Masteries weren't meant to close the martial/caster divide. They were intended to try and address the fact that martial combat was boring and same-y, with martial characters rarely if ever getting to do anything on their turn except repeatedly spam The Attack Action. They resoundingly failed in that goal, but that was still the original intent.
Please do not contact or message me.
It does force you to be creative on your own for no effect.
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At higher levels the most damaging masteries are Vex (for dex fighters) and Cleave (for heavy weapon fighters), though neither one is super dramatic. If you want to look at closing the martial/caster divide for fighters, the big ones are actually tactical mind (makes fighters a lot better at skills) and indomitable (at high level, might as well be legendary resistance).
His "mathematically most powerful" quote wasn't about pure damage actually, it was the combination of getting 2H damage without giving up the defense of a shield. It's moot anyway since Flex is dead but just wanted to be fair. +2 AC is indeed pretty powerful if getting it costs you nothing.
For one, they got rid of flex.
And the reason it was mathematically best is because it worked every time. Others were more situational, cleave needs an adjacent enemy, for example. Vex doesn’t help if you kill the enemy you’re vexing, since it doesn’t apply to someone else. That kind of thing. The others need some kind of condition to be met which won’t come up every time.
Flex was boring, but reliable. I guess nick pretty much works every time, too. But flex just worked every time you hit. Guaranteed.
It costs you 1.5 damage per hit and Graze. That's not nothing. The only people who think Flex is half decent are the ones who think that sword and board is already way better than two-handed weapons, because they think it doesn't matter that the Mastery sword and board gets is way worse.
Look at what you've done. You spoiled it. You have nobody to blame but yourself. Go sit and think about your actions.
Don't be mean. Rudeness is a vicious cycle, and it has to stop somewhere. Exceptions for things that are funny.
Go to the current Competition of the Finest 'Brews! It's a cool place where cool people make cool things.
How I'm posting based on text formatting: Mod Hat Off - Mod Hat Also Off (I'm not a mod)
Flex also contradicted the stated goal of the Mastery system in the first place, i.e. offering martial characters more interesting round-by-round combat options. Mathematically 'best' or not, Flex manifestly failed in that goal. It was just an always-on buff you never had to think about, which made it just as boring as spamming Attack Action. The subgoal of Flex - "it's the Mastery option for people who don't want to engage with the system and just want to spam Attack Action" - is incompatible with the objective of the system itself. You can't have a system designed to offer options beyond spamming Attack Action and then make the primary thing that system does be "Spam the Attack Action with a one-size-bigger dice."
At some point, people have to engage with the rules if they want to play. Or I guess not if the DM just turns Mastery off at their table, but at that point why include a Mastery for people who hate Mastery and simply won't use it anyway?
Please do not contact or message me.
I didn't say I thought Flex was decent; I said that "according to JC it's the most mathematically damaging mastery" is a lie.
(And again, it's gone anyway so who cares?)
I will say that the claim of 'mathematically most powerful' indicates that JC can't do math. Which probably shouldn't be a surprise. Vex with a rapier will beat flex with a longsword unless you're actually only ever attacking targets once, which isn't really a factor after tier 1.
I will note that Graze is atrocious at high levels because you don't miss enough.
His exact words were "mathematically ONE OF the most powerful." Which again, does not mean pure damage, nor the #1 spot.
If you mean "in the top 9" (of 9), sure. It's probably not the worst, but it's still bad.
It's been clear from other ones of those videos that Crawford is very far from perfect in his knowledge of the UAs. But he's not entirely wrong, but nor is he particularly right. Power is subjective but if I had to rank the masteries by "power level" I'd rank them like this:
Cleave
Graze / Vex
Topple
Flex
Push / Nick
Sap
Slow
Though it depends on what class / weapon you're talking about, Nick is really good for Rogue, Graze & Vex are bad on Barbarians, Topple is best on a thrown weapon, Cleave is best on a weapon with Reach, Sap is best in Tier 1&2.
Part of the problem of evaluating masteries is that a lot of them are specific to certain fighting styles so it really turns into evaluating fighting styles with masteries -- if you really want to do a shield-based fighter, cleave/graze/nick just aren't options. However, if I were ranking masteries by power level
I would generally just group them in two sets -- the top 4 are generally useful, for the rest you take them because you didn't have a better option.
IME Pushing isn't nearly as good as the YT talking heads make it out to be. It relies on very precise positioning which it is often not possible to achieve, and it relies on having allies that cast a small number of specific spells all the time. Basically you need a melee-cleric in the party for it to useful reliably. Sometimes it is amazing, the rest of the time it is useless.
The thing is, the difference in power is so huge that it doesn't need to be reliable. I put it as a top tier option because, while it's not always good or even usually good, when it is good it's really really good, whereas all the other options are... a nice benefit but not really game changing.
That or it pushes melee back from the range guy who then can move back 30 feet so the melee guy loses multiple rounds of doing damage.
Only if you assume a party of entirely ranged, otherwise the melee guy just goes and attacks your melee guys instead.