Holy cow my party has 3 strikers in it

[Herschel]

Those "odball" encounters, as you call them, aren't.

There are adventures where all striker parties will work, nobody said there aren't. In fact, most point out there are. I used a LFR, I'll now mention "The Dark Knight of Arabel". A striker group may go through that particular adventure without losing a healing surge. That's just the way it works out.

The DM and adventure design have a lot to do with how the game plays. If hack & slash is your thing, that's fine. The game allows for that type of game. But as to your points:

(Q) I think that you will agree that strikers do more damage in general.
That's their role. How much more is flexible.

(Q) I think you will agree that strikers have access to AoE powers.
Not nearly as many (and frequently) as other roles.

(Q) I think you will agree that strikers have access to debuffing powers.
Again, not narly as many (and frequently) as other roles.

(Q) Strikers handle, solos, elites and soldiers the best.
1: I pointed out an example above where they simply do not. Solos and soldiers, generally yes, but not necessarily elites.
2. You also failed to acknowledge you can be facing minions, artillery, lurkers and controllers. That's almost 60% of the possible opposition you completely ignore. Also, solos and elites tend to be the "one big guy" with little "help". Those are the encounters where strikers are supposed to excel because of the low number of targets.

If the DM designs that way or that's the way the adventure is set up, then you're fine. If it's not is where you run in to trouble. That's the whole point.

[Sadrik]

Does this equate?
Lots less damage and access to more debuff/AoE
Lots more damage and access to fewer debuff/AoE

No they don't. you still get the debuffs and AoE.
This is also why the designers know this too:
defeders 4 with swordmage
controllers 3
leaders 5 with artificer
STRIKERS 7! with monk

[Herschel]

There's the error. It isn't "a lot less damage" especially if you multiclass your strikers thereby "watering down" their damage and/or attack bonus. You seem to be referring to 'damage against a single target in a single action'. Other classes do respectable damage too. Take a Prescient Bard with a high Charisma and Great Bow Proficiency. He can Jinx Shot at low levels for a d12 + 4 or 5 (only roughly 1 or 2 points off a twin striking ranger minus quarry, which generally a feat is used to improve also) and knock the opponent prone if the opponent misses your ally. Then the baddie is granting combat advantage and has to use his move action to stand, so in melee if your ally shifted before the baddie's turn he can't attack or has to charge some other character and not use anything but his basic attack.

A solid chance knocked prone bad guy granting CA and maybe being unable to attack is worth a few points of damage, in most cases.

Also, the number of classes for a role has absolutely NOTHING to do with perceived effectiveness of a role. You could make the exact same debate saying 'they need more striker classes because they aren't as efficient as ones in the other roles'. Neither has any credibility.

You could more likely debate "strikers are the most popular role because they're easier to adapt to for video gamers and 3E players", although I'd argue that's an over-simplification also.

Also note that different classes have secondary roles already mixed in to the flavor, some dramitically altering their play. For example, depending on build, some Warlocks are closer to controllers (secondary role vs. primary damage dealers) than others.

I built my primary Swordmage to be a mobile "rescue defender". He pulls out allies or pulls away foes. I could have built him a bit stickier or with more controller or area powers. I could have went Earthsoul Genasi w/ Earthshock Master, multiclass as a Wizard for Thunderwave and taken Dragons Teeth for my level 1 daily and had a nice turn + action point control action for group combats. He's still not be as good overall a controller as a wizard, but once a day he'd be pretty wicked for a round or two.

[ilmoin]

Actually, I think the fact that there are more strikers than any other class is part of what contributes to the fact that people think they are the best thing ever.

A lot of this is about perception: people talk about what they've experienced, and on the whole what they've experienced are striker-heavy groups. With 3 strikers, 2 leaders, 2 defenders and 1 controller in the PHB, almost every group that I read about on bulletin boards over the next six months was striker heavy. A few doubled up defenders or leaders and I can't remember any with more than one wizard unless the group was pretty big.

When you watch a group play, there is a lot of static. It's difficult to parse out what's actually happening and who makes a difference in combats. The best that can be said most of the time is that striker parties tend to kill faster (and are slightly fragile), defender parties are tougher (and need to hold formation effectively), and leader parties tend to keep characters on their feet better (and run out of healing surges).

Controllers? They seem to make a marginal contribution to the party--because there is only one of them and their effect is drowned out by what is going on with everyone else. The only place that someone might ahve had enough experience of varied groups to comment is somewhere like LFR, but even there the pool of evidence is tainted. The same striker heavy bias is present in those games, too. Moreover, are the easiest characters to play with people you don't know--they are designed to be loners and need to coordinate with the rest of the group much less than any other character type.

Want to know how effective controllers are? Play a bunch of levels using a five person party with three controllers. Then maybe we'll know. Until then, you don't know what you are talking about--and neither do I.

[Machus]

Hard to disagree. Strikers in 4e combat, seem relative to other careers, outstanding. They are not glass cannons, as one might see in well balanced cooperative MMOs or other similar games. Especially if the coordinate, and play off one another, they can really shore up any perceived holes in their gameplay. And skills aren't dismal, and with a feat or two, can be rounded out nicely.

Bards and Wizards do have some nice out of combat roleplay perks, like good access to rituals and other things that play into the role playing experience and advancing the plot (with a few feats strikers can do most of that too though). They also have an entirely different feel to them, and with a good GM, it should be a ton of fun.

RP games driven by a GM excel at providing challenge, story, tactics, and surprises, because they have a GM. If the party has optimized to be a combat meat-grinder, the GM must optimize to challenge them. If not, it's just bad GMing. Who wants to be a badarse optimized rogue assassin with a high DPS answer for any situation, when you fight weak encounters? Its purely a GM issue IMO.

It would be like having a party with no healers, and forcing them to have to have a healer to finish every encounter. Who'd enjoy that? Or playing a controller when the GM never uses hordes of minons...ever. Thanks but no thanks. If the GM doesn't want to create fun for the players, no sense in playing a GM'd game.

GMs have the hardest role, to make sure the game is fun for any class combination the players choose. As long as it's not over-the-top obvious trying to find holes in their skills and exploiting it, with a good GM, the game will be good. If you play with a non-optimized group, in a very story-driven, challenging campaign, and all you do is single target massive damage in combat, it's probably not going to be as fun as it was optimizing it on paper. Of course, 3.5 had wizards being super-verastile, super flavorful, and super powerful...maybe 4e is a slap-down to that

As the above poster mentioned, how many groups have 3 controllers?
Ironically using the dreaded MMO reference, AOE as a soloer or without other AOErs was often not welcome in groups, it was entirely inefficient. So they formed AOE groups and set new records for kill rates....

[Herschel]

Originally Posted by ilmoin

Want to know how effective controllers are? Play a bunch of levels using a five person party with three controllers. Then maybe we'll know. Until then, you don't know what you are talking about--and neither do I.

I have played a number of five and six-person parties with two and three wizards, part of them with no striker. They rock. Some times I'm challenged as a defender, but many times I can pick up the stray that gets through. Multiple wizards rock, especially when they can loose a daily or two each encounter in a LFR set up.

I've found having Resist 10 Fire VERY helpful as a defender when working with wizards. They might not be best all the time because some times you do face solo, low to mid AC meat sacks, but even then they can help out tremensously. I don't care how optimized strikers are, it's hard to chew through 500 HP at levels 5-7 when they have good defenses.

[Old Gumphrey]

And if it's hard for strikers, how hard is it for those 3 wizards whose combined damage output on a single target is equivalent to approximately 1.5 rangers? You just contradicted yourself.

[tiornys]

Originally Posted by Old Gumphrey

And if it's hard for strikers, how hard is it for those 3 wizards whose combined damage output on a single target is equivalent to approximately 1.5 rangers? You just contradicted yourself.

A wizard's damage output can easily surpass that of a striker. It won't be concentrated on a single target, but it will be more total damage. Add in some crippling combinations of status effects and a couple of single target damage dealers to finish off weakened enemies, and I can easily see how a party with multiple controllers might work extremely well.

t~

[Pbartender]

Originally Posted by Herschel

You could more likely debate "strikers are the most popular role because they're easier to adapt to for video gamers and 3E players", although I'd argue that's an over-simplification also.

I might argue that "strikers are the most popular class, because they reap the most personal glory on the battle field". Strikers make far more blatant contributions to combat than any of the other roles.

That is to say, if a Controller (or Leader, or Defender) makes a Striker twice as effective through their buffs and debuffs and so on, then a Controller and Striker combination can be just as effective as two Strikers.

The difference is that you have to build the Controller-Striker combo together as a team to be most effective, and be coherent about teamwork and party tactics in combat. With only Strikers, its easier to build a group of relatively self-sufficient characters, where the power and feat choices and the in-game combat tactics of any one character do not appreciably effect the performance of any of the other characters... That's a lot closer to the 3E paradigm of party building than the suggested 4E style.

I wonder if that's part of the reason Strikers look so powerful... Through the lenses of 3E, a solo Strikers or a party of (effectively solo) Strikers is the most powerful. However, a mixed party properly working together as a team could be just as effective, and easily moreso.

[Silverblade The Ench]

Machus,
yup, absolutely nothing could touch the kill rates of a point blank AOE group in Everquest Even with deaths, you'd get 3 or 4 times the amoutn of XP, in the same time, easily, as normal fighting methods.

And I don't dread the MMO refference
Long since time folk accepted 4th ed is NOT an MMO, and that any edition of D&D should be open to pick up tricks and tips from any influence, as we've all been house rulling for decades anyway!
I wrote up a 2nd ed conversion for "X-COM" (in Europe, "UFO: ENEMY UNKNOWN"...damn I'll need ot put that back on my site, I think it's not on it currently)

A smart DM will play his NPcs appropriately: my players dread coming up against drow, mind flayers etc 'cause I'll play them as the very, very intelligent, tactical, sneaky, nasty dirty SOBs they are meant to be!

Yes, many strikers have "get out of jail free cards", but they don't/may not work if they are surprised and stunned, or in auras/AOEs that stop shifting or whatever. Nor are they unlimited.
So if your uber high DPs character is stuck there in some unpleasant aura or effect, with a brute in his face and a skirmisher at his backside...hm...

Well played enemies will have ambushes, traps and other means of getting the drop on the party. That's why feats/powers that help with Perception, initiative and the like, can be more effective than having another high DPs power.

Can you imagine how nasty a drow strong point would be?! I can, muhaha!!
They absolutely would not spread out and come forward as easy meat for the kill...that's the job of the goblin slaves, and thus to show up where the heroes are: ripe targets for drow specialists to teleport/drop on them.

Hey, a little point, while rituals canot normally be used in a combat due to the time...what the hell do folk think a drow wizard will have been doing in the half hour the drow have know a bunch of sun-dwellers have been plodding towards them, eh?

He'll open a special teleport, like a sort of reversed "Linked Portal", so allies can port directly to an area he knows close bye for a limited duration, one way travel, 'cause he obviously will have a Teleport Circle as they need that for supplies etc.

So you can imagine pairs or trios of drow soldiers/skirmishers porting to each PC once the drow have got the PCs style/plan worked out, or levitating safely down from heights or invisible or turning back to flesh after having been transformed ot stone stalagmites temporarily, or who knows what!

"Sending" would allow co-ordinated, devastating and logical tactics (you should always be able to justify such good combat teamwork).

And drow hunters will be ensconced in high up natural "bunkers" on cavern walls to turn enemies into pin cushions.

Meanwhile, the drow priestess will have been maybe summoning demons, spiders, or completes a Magic Circle that had previously been mostly set into the ground in silver, so it doesn't take long to do, thus blocking the only way through...or other nasty stuff.

Smart enemies are a nightmare. That's the fun of fighting them 4h ed's very good at letting you do sneaky tactics wih them.
If all you rely on is pure damage to win...you could really be left short. It's a very valid way of settign a group up, I'm not saying it isn't as evidence and logic shows it can be superb, but it's not the be all and end all.

[tiornys]

The main argument I keep seeing from the pro-striker camp is damage output. So, let's look at the roles and their contribution to damage output.

Strikers
Strikers have the highest average single target damage output. They also have abilities that enhance their ability to direct that damage at any target. That makes them the most efficient single character at bringing down a given target. Striker proponents have argued that these facts make a party of strikers the most efficient party at bringing down an enemy party.

Defenders
Defenders have the second highest average single target damage output. Some defenders are capable of damage output that rivals that of the best strikers (and clearly outclasses the lower damage strikers). However, they lack the mobility options of the Striker. Defenders also indirectly enhance the damage output of the party by making it less likely that a party member is disabled.

Leaders
Leaders have the second lowest average single target damage output. However, they indirectly contribute to party damage output in two ways. First, they have tools that help disabled party members recover. More importantly, Leaders grant force multipliers in the form of attack bonuses, damage bonuses, and extra attacks, causing the other party members to deal extra damage.

Controllers
Controllers have the lowest average single target damage output. However, they are capable of the highest overall damage output through large area of effect attacks. They compensate for the general weakness of multi-target damage as compared with focused damage through effects, which can both hinder the enemy's ability to deal damage and enhance the party's damage output.

So, here's the thing. Even though Strikers have the best individual single target damage, they don't necessarily contribute the most damage to a party. Leaders and Controllers are easily capable of contributing more to overall damage output, and while Defenders will usually cause a slight drop in party damage per round, the extra resources they add to the party are more beneficial in adverse situations.

t~

[Iron Sky]

From my experience with a group that was initially three strikers and a leader, I'd say the leader is by far the most important member.

With this majority-striker party, we often wished we had a controller or a defender. So, in the end, we ended up molding our characters into those roles: I started molding my ranger into a defender and our warlock became our controller.

Now that we've added a paladin the group is alot more balanced and everyone is important: the paladin tanks, the cleric keeps us alive, my ranger does steady, regular damage, the rogue is extremely mobile and destroys individual targets, and the warlock is our pseudo-controller.

That said, anyone who thinks controllers aren't useful hasn't played with an Invoker. We ran the first adventure of Scales of War with one and he was probably the MVP of the adventure.

[Old Gumphrey]

Yeah, controllers...too bad all their best effects hurt your allies, as I've been saying. If you can catch 3+ enemies in one spell while simultaneously not harming your buddies every time you cast, then yes, you can surpass striker damage. Also, if I guess the correct 6 numbers, I can win the lottery.

PS...why does everyone think only a balanced party can use teamwork and strategy? Why can't strikers do this, too?

[tiornys]

Originally Posted by Old Gumphrey

Yeah, controllers...too bad all their best effects hurt your allies, as I've been saying. If you can catch 3+ enemies in one spell while simultaneously not harming your buddies every time you cast, then yes, you can surpass striker damage. Also, if I guess the correct 6 numbers, I can win the lottery.

Good teamwork obviously improves the odds of this happening, as does winning initiative. Plus, you only need to catch two targets to be about equal to striker damage, and that's not hard in most fights.

PS...why does everyone think only a balanced party can use teamwork and strategy? Why can't strikers do this, too?

Clearly they can. In fact, I think they have to in order to have any chance at surviving hard encounters or encounters where the initial conditions are unfavorable. Still, Strikers may be great at adapting to any given battlefield, but Defenders can define a battlefield and Controllers can completely rewrite it. These options lend themselves to more complex and rewarding strategies than those available to an all-Striker force.

t~

[Pickles JG]

Originally Posted by tiornys

Good teamwork obviously improves the odds of this happening, as does winning initiative. Plus, you only need to catch two targets to be about equal to striker damage, and that's not hard in most fights.~

I have found it hard to both gain flanking & avoid getting in the way of the AOEs but assuming you can sort this out it is true.
Remember Sorcerers are Strikers too & do the best AOE damage & also that damage split over 2 targets is less good than the same damage concentrated on one. (About 80% as good in my estimation)

Originally Posted by tiornys

Clearly they can. In fact, I think they have to in order to have any chance at surviving hard encounters or encounters where the initial conditions are unfavorable. Still, Strikers may be great at adapting to any given battlefield, but Defenders can define a battlefield and Controllers can completely rewrite it. These options lend themselves to more complex and rewarding strategies than those available to an all-Striker force.
t~

This I guess - striker tactics are mostly focus fire & get combat advantage with a bit of run away thrown in. Other roles (especially controllers & controllery defenders) have more complex options.

I do not know if you mean that the strategies are more rewarding in that they give better outcomes or that they are more rewarding in that they give the same outcomes but with a greater sense of acheivement from having done so with weaker resources.
In MTG terms I think the mixed party appeals to Johnny (combo guy) & the all striker one to Spike (wants to win - I may have the names wrong). Timmy is probably not a good team player but likes it if he hits with his daily - he may be a striker fan too?

[Pickles JG]

Originally Posted by tiornys

A wizard's damage output can easily surpass that of a striker. It won't be concentrated on a single target, but it will be more total damage. Add in some crippling combinations of status effects and a couple of single target damage dealers to finish off weakened enemies, and I can easily see how a party with multiple controllers might work extremely well.
t~

I do not think you get both lots of damage (even spread out) & crippling status effects in the same powers wizards seem to have to choose between these.

[tiornys]

Originally Posted by Pickles JG

I have found it hard to both gain flanking & avoid getting in the way of the AOEs but assuming you can sort this out it is true.

Flanking on the diagonal allows an AoE to hit the enemy, although in my experience the target being flanked is often ignored by the controller, who hinders and weakens the rest of the enemy while the flanked enemy gets dead.

Remember Sorcerers are Strikers too & do the best AOE damage & also that damage split over 2 targets is less good than the same damage concentrated on one. (About 80% as good in my estimation)

I haven't done a detailed analysis of the Sorcerer, but my glance-through suggested that their AoE's were smaller and had weaker effects than controller AoE's.

This I guess - striker tactics are mostly focus fire & get combat advantage with a bit of run away thrown in. Other roles (especially controllers & controllery defenders) have more complex options.

I do not know if you mean that the strategies are more rewarding in that they give better outcomes or that they are more rewarding in that they give the same outcomes but with a greater sense of acheivement from having done so with weaker resources.

More rewarding because they give better outcomes against adverse conditions and similar outcomes against favorable ones.

In MTG terms I think the mixed party appeals to Johnny (combo guy) & the all striker one to Spike (wants to win - I may have the names wrong). Timmy is probably not a good team player but likes it if he hits with his daily - he may be a striker fan too?

I don't think the roles are closely tied to those archetypes; any role can give any archetype what it wants. But some roles may be more appealing to some archetypes.

Timmy is there for the experience, so he wants to play a character that helps him experience things. If he's looking to experience combat stuff, he'll probably gravitate toward Striker or Defender; if he's looking to experience RP stuff, he probably has no preference.

Johnny is there to express himself, so he want to play a character that lets him do that. If he's expressing himself through combat, Leaders and Controllers offer the best possibilities for in-game improvisation. If not, again, he probably won't prefer any role.

Spike is there to prove himself. He's the most likely to be looking at combat for his proving ground, and I think he'll gravitate toward Strikers for their efficiency (these are the Spikes that play beatdown in Magic) or Controllers for their ability to dictate the battle (and these are the Spikes who play Islands). However, if he thinks group balance is a good thing, he'll be willing to play any role (and he'll know how to optimize for any role).

In terms of group dynamics, Timmy will only care that everyone is enjoying themselves, Johnny will be more concerned with how to make a given party work than with whether it will work, so it's Spike who will care most about the composition of the party, and what kind of composition he thinks will work will depend on his theories about how the game works.

Originally Posted by Pickles JG

I do not think you get both lots of damage (even spread out) & crippling status effects in the same powers wizards seem to have to choose between these.

Well, let's see. Thunderwave is probably the best at-will effect, and it's competitive on damage. Color Spray gives up a d6, as does Prismatic Burst. Crushing Titan's Fist also gives up about a d6. I suppose if you equate giving up a d6 to no longer doing lots of damage, then sure, for encounter powers. Daily's are wonky; Sleep obviously does no damage, but Stinking Cloud averages more damage than Fireball, and so does Prismatic Beams over Blast of Cold.

t~

[Trevelyan]

Originally Posted by Old Gumphrey

Yeah, controllers...too bad all their best effects hurt your allies, as I've been saying. If you can catch 3+ enemies in one spell while simultaneously not harming your buddies every time you cast, then yes, you can surpass striker damage. Also, if I guess the correct 6 numbers, I can win the lottery.

Catching 3+ enemies is pretty easy. I rarely target less than that with scorching burst or thunderwave, and never less than that with encounter or daily spells. Last night I caught six enemies in range of fire shroud and actually hit four of them. If I'm forced to target only 2 enemies it's usually because the DM has rather obligingly split them ito smaller groups to avoid my AoE attacks, which doesn't bother me in the slightest as it only helps the rest of the party pick on lone individuals.

There is no single trick, everything from winning initiative to having the defenders rack them up for you to making good use of the enlarge spell feat helps.

Now what easy solutions do you have for picking those winning lottery numbers?

PS...why does everyone think only a balanced party can use teamwork and strategy? Why can't strikers do this, too?

Strikers can and should. BUt the range of available tactics is more limited when you have fewer options available other than just damage. And while strikers might have some movement or status effects, and all striker party has far fewer such powers than a mixed party.

[Pbartender]

Originally Posted by Old Gumphrey

PS...why does everyone think only a balanced party can use teamwork and strategy? Why can't strikers do this, too?

I don't think everyone is saying that...

For my part, I was only suggesting that, from my perspective and personal experience, a party of strikers is easier to run without teamwork and succeed than a balanced party is, but that a balanced party using good teamwork and tactics can feasibly equal or even outperform a party of strikers.

Much of this will, of course, depend on the players themselves, and their preferred style of play.

[Ryujin]

You know, I just realized that our party also has three Strikers. Guess I'm a bit slow

We've got my Feylock (a bit Controllery/leadery, especially since multi-classing into Bard), am Archer Ranger, and a thuggish Rogue (big on charging). I don't do great damage, but I have status effects and can set the Rogue up with combat advantage or put him in a convenient charging spot, if he's being at all co-operative. The Rogue has been known to do critical damage over 70, when all of his charging bonuses and combat advantage come into play. Usually he doesn't co-operate though, which results in him being pounded down to under 10 hits in a couple of rounds. The Ranger might as well be the patron god of hunters, with the sort of ranged damage that he can do.

That leaves us with a Cleric who is big on ranged and radiant, and a Battlerager fighter. The usual M.O. is that we get the fighter into melee to lock down the toughest opponent first then try to pound it into submission from range, while the Rogue wanders around wondering why he's getting pasted so badly. After a couple of rounds he's running for cover, but has likely kicked a hundred+ damage into the mix, and the Ranger is surrounded by lesser opponents. This is about the time when I usually Fey Switch one of the others out of the fire, then try to lock down his opponents for a round by using Otherwind Stride to get my own butt clear.

Darned near every combat follows a similar pattern. The Rogue ignores my ability to drop him virtually anywhere on the combat map until he needs a save, or the Ranger backs himself into a corner and gets beaten on, needing a rescue. He hasn't figured out yet that just because he CAN range on virtually every opponent from the furthest point on the map, that doesn't necessarily make it the best location to do it from. I've sniped from rooftops in a town, the tops of trees, on big rocks, in buildings...... Anything that will make the opposition have to work a little harder to get to me, until I teleport again to spoil their fun.