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View Poll Results: Which PHB2 classes do you not like?
All classes rock, what on earth are you talking about?
65
35.91%
I find the Avenger boring – I mean, who wants to hit all the time?
20
11.05%
Barbarian? Pfft, who cares about being a hard-hitter that can’t die?
19
10.50%
Bard?!? Seriously, I want to be useless in combat…
19
10.50%
Druid – If I can’t be the best at everything, why should I play a tree-hugger?
14
7.73%
Invoker? What’s that, like a divine wizard with no cantrips?
42
23.20%
Shaman – Did one of the designers play EQ?
47
25.97%
Sorcerer – Didn’t we already have the warlock as arcane striker?
22
12.15%
Warden – I do not even know what that is…
34
18.78%
I hate them all
8
4.42%
Multiple Choice Poll. Voters: 181. This poll is closed
I think the real question is: do they outshine the PHB classes, and if so by how much?
In general, I think the PH 2 classes are definitely more polished and coherently designed than the PH 1 classes. PH 2 classes tend to have just one primary ability score and allow players to choose one of two neat class features based on secondary ability scores. The PH 1 classes that are most comparable to this are the rogue, warlord, wizard, and fighter (in that order, IMO ).
I don't think the PH 2 classes are necessarily more powerful than PH 1 classes, but they do seem more interesting in terms of how they fulfill their roles. The only PH 1 class that seems weaker than its PH 2 counterparts is the wizard, and that's mostly because the wizard at-wills just don't seem to highlight the controller nature of the class as much as invoker and druid at-will powers do.
Perhaps the largest issue for me is that, if the PH 1 classes were designed according to PH 2 principles, the cleric, ranger, warlock, and paladin would all have one primary attack stat. I think the design team saw these warts quite some time ago - every new class since PH 1's release follows PH 2 design principles. Hopefully one of these days we'll see a major 4e update that redesigns these classes according to the PH 2 principles. But, with Wizards' design schedule - Martial Power is out, Arcane Power is imminent, and Divine Power will be out later this year - I don't think this will happen for another couple of years at the soonest, if it ever happens at all.
The classes at the bottom of my list (that is, the ones I voted for) are the invoker, avenger, and shaman. I don't generally care for the divine power source, although the invoker and avenger both have slightly interesting stuff about them (the invoke that he doesn't pay fealty to one particular god, and the avenger has an interesting/thought provoking mechanic). The shaman is my least favorite for two reasons: 1) It can be an animal or a spirit; an animal spirit is going too far. 2) All the companion does is run around and serve as a focal point for your powers? I didn't like the beastmaster ranger because it looked like the beast was nothing but a flanker, and it would actually attack less than half the time . . . now the shaman's companion is even worse. I don't mind complexity (I actually prefer it), but the fluff of a companion that doesn't do anything is IMO pretty terrible. I might have to reevaluate this after actually reading the book, but that's what I got from the 1-3 preview.
My favorites in order are: Druid, Sorcerer, Warden. The rest I'm mostly impartial about.
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Voted for the Shaman. If I had realized I could vote for more than one, I'd of also voted for the Invoker.
The shaman is the second most broken class in the game (next to the Battleraging Vigor Fighter: fighting 2 million minions at once since 1st level and still winning!)
The shaman has a 20 range all the time (or better), and can take out entire villages of enemies without even having to blink or be in danger. (You all goto the tavern and I'll take out the village of goblins from here in the trees, see ya around 6pm for drinks?)
Summon Spirt, have it go into the village, kill as many minions as ya can before a non-minion see the spirit and kills it (or better yet, you minor action it away). Wash rinse and repeat till most if not all the village is dead and at worst is cost you a few surges. Via la power! You also now have the super, uber scout which is far better than the ranger's pets.
The Invoker just seems far, far, far to bland. Most of the other classes feel like they have a purpose, like they were designed from a concept. The invoker seems to have been just designed as "we need a divine controller", and never evoled into a full roleplaying concept and is still in the mechanics/board game part of playtest.
Last edited by Kitirat; 16th March 2009 at 11:07 PM..
I think the real question is: do they outshine the PHB classes, and if so by how much?
Logic and experience would say by quite a bit. Only true playtesting will of course tell us the real answer, but after reading the classes, my gut says they are quite comparable. The difference, if any, is insignificant.
Then again, I could easily have missed something and be totally wrong.
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I'm with the OP. There isn't a single class in 4e so far that I don't want to play. I was hesitant with the Invoker and the Warden at first but now that I have a better understanding of those classes I am really excited. Of course all of this is moot since I'm always a DM, never a Player.
Voted for the Shaman. If I had realized I could vote for more than one, I'd of also voted for the Invoker.
The shaman is the second most broken class in the game (next to the Battleraging Vigor Fighter: fighting 2 million minions at once since 1st level and still winning!)
The shaman has a 20 range all the time (or better), and can take out entire villages of enemies without even having to blink or be in danger. (You all goto the tavern and I'll take out the village of goblins from here in the trees, see ya around 6pm for drinks?)
Summon Spirt, have it go into the village, kill as many minions as ya can before a non-minion see the spirit and kills it (or better yet, you minor action it away). Wash rinse and repeat till most if not all the village is dead and at worst is cost you a few surges. Via la power! You also now have the super, uber scout which is far better than the ranger's pets.
The Invoker just seems far, far, far to bland. Most of the other classes feel like they have a purpose, like they were designed from a concept. The invoker seems to have been just designed as "we need a divine controller", and never evoled into a full roleplaying concept and is still in the mechanics/board game part of playtest.
You missed something important... the Spirit Companion is a Conjuration. It can't leave those 20 squares, nor can it leave line of sight. It also has no vision, so it can't scout at all.
That's like saying Flaming Sphere is the best scout ever. The flavor is that the Companion is... well, a spirit animal. The mechanics don't reflect that though.
I voted Druid, Shaman & Barbarian. I actually made up a druid from the preview material to try out, but in the end was a bit "meh" about him and opted for an invoker instead (see below...). I didn't realise until after I voted that was 3 out of the 4 Primal classes I wasn't really interested in... maybe there's something in that?
The characters I would like to try (I'll add them to the list of characters I want to try and haven't, like my dwarven rogue, elf polearm fighter and dragonborn 2W ranger...):
Avenger - one of my first 4e characters was a dragonborn multiclass paladin/rogue (of the Raven Queen). I'd like to re-imagine him as an Avenger, I think it'd work well (maybe not mechanically, because there isn't an obvious Charisma synergy anymore...)
Bard - I really want to try out the uber-multiclassing 4e version of an old school half elf bard - a bit of Fighter (swordmage in this case), a bit of Wizard (or Warlock), etc.
Invoker - I've already tried one from the playtest material (he was a follower of a dualistic pantheon consisting of dark and light brother gods), and I loved the RP potential inherent in that (he called on the dark god to smite enemies with thunder powers and the light god more for protection and radiant powers). Fun character, and I'd like to bring him out of the folder again once the full material is released.
Sorceror - I really want to try out a 4e version of one of my favourite 3e characters - a kobold dragonblood sorceror. Unfortunately the character won't work mechanically very well (he was a total weakling), so we'll have to see.
Warden - I don't know what it is, but there's something about the "form of" daily powers that is really grabbing me. I think a goliath warden would be cool - and I don't even like the 3e goliath race!
I am really excited about all the classes (especially the warden, sorcerer and bard) EXCEPT the invoker. It looks like a good, solidly-built class but I don't see anything mechanically or thematically interesting in the concept. Of course my opinion might change once I see it in play.
Voted for the Shaman. If I had realized I could vote for more than one, I'd of also voted for the Invoker.
The shaman is the second most broken class in the game (next to the Battleraging Vigor Fighter: fighting 2 million minions at once since 1st level and still winning!)
The shaman has a 20 range all the time (or better), and can take out entire villages of enemies without even having to blink or be in danger. (You all goto the tavern and I'll take out the village of goblins from here in the trees, see ya around 6pm for drinks?)
Summon Spirt, have it go into the village, kill as many minions as ya can before a non-minion see the spirit and kills it (or better yet, you minor action it away). Wash rinse and repeat till most if not all the village is dead and at worst is cost you a few surges. Via la power! You also now have the super, uber scout which is far better than the ranger's pets.
It's funny that you should post this here. You posted the exact same thing a while ago (when the shaman was just released) and I (and several other) showed you why you were wrong. At least you got the range (more or less) right this time around.
Only true playtesting will of course tell us the real answer, but after reading the classes, my gut says they are quite comparable.
It's not exactly exhaustive playtesting, but I played a 4th level (covenant of Wrath) Invoker alongside a Wizard using the preview material for a couple of sessions.
My observations:
1) The Invoker seemed to have a lot more "rider" effects on his attacks.
2) The raw damage output of the Invoker was noticeably higher.
3) Most of the Invokers attacks only targeted enemies, and consequently he was usually able to hit more opponents with his burst/blast attacks than the Wizard (and a few of his powers actually had beneficial riders when allies were in the AoE).
It's possible luck and/or optimisation played a part but in my opinion the Invoker was noticeably better.
I said the Sorcerer, mostly because nothing about it has really grabbed me so far. I personally like the flavour of the warlock a lot more, though I suspect that the sorcerer will likely be a more powerful striker.
That said, I'm looking forward to all of them. Especially the Avenger. I think the avenger will be made of pure, refined awesome.
In general, I think the PH 2 classes are definitely more polished and coherently designed than the PH 1 classes.
Also at least from the preview material and everything I'm hearing, it sounds like the PHB2 classes went for a bit more complexity as well. That, to me, is a good thing. (Not that the PHB ones need to be more complex, mind you, but it's nice having some variation in that regard.)
I've not got PHB2 yet, and my opinions might change once I have.
But at the moment I don't like the avenger (sounds like it is what the paladin should be, but shoehorned into the source+role matrix), the barbarian (because I like Conan style barbarians and this sounds like warp-spasm Slaine style barbarians), the Warden (something nebulous shoe-horned into the primal-defender part of the grid), the Invoker (ditto but filling in the divine-controller part of the grid), the Shaman because the mechanics sound iffy at the moment.
I'm looking forward to Bard, Druid & Sorcerer, who fill roles which I want to see in my games (and I mean roles in the generic player-character in the world sense).
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I'm with the OP. There isn't a single class in 4e so far that I don't want to play. I was hesitant with the Invoker and the Warden at first but now that I have a better understanding of those classes I am really excited. Of course all of this is moot since I'm always a DM, never a Player.
This is pretty much my sentiments exactly. I really can see myself having a ton of fun with all the classes in the PH2, but alas, I'm always the DM.
Also, fissionessence, I'm curious as to why an animal spirit is offensive to you, but not either characteristic on it's own.
I voted for all classes. I think I was least excited about the shaman after the preview, but upon reading the full class I am pretty impressed. I like the flexibility the spirit companion offers, and when you're not using it just put it away and get to work with your other powers.
I'm gonna use the deathcap mushroom mini from Demonweb for my shaman's spirit companion. There's an evocation that lets you summon a second spirit companion for the encounter - lucky for me I pulled two mushrooms.
I really could have done with out the commentary in the poll answers.
I really could have done without the commentary about the commentary in the poll answers.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jonathan Moyer
Perhaps the largest issue for me is that, if the PH 1 classes were designed according to PH 2 principles, the cleric, ranger, warlock, and paladin would all have one primary attack stat. I think the design team saw these warts quite some time ago - every new class since PH 1's release follows PH 2 design principles. Hopefully one of these days we'll see a major 4e update that redesigns these classes according to the PH 2 principles. But, with Wizards' design schedule - Martial Power is out, Arcane Power is imminent, and Divine Power will be out later this year - I don't think this will happen for another couple of years at the soonest, if it ever happens at all.
Interesting. If this is really as glaring as you make it sound, I don't see why WotC can't publish "updated versions" in Dragon. Or hopefully some ENWorlder will fix it for us, hint hint.
Avenger seems made of win and probably the class I was born to play.
Sorceror also seems quite fun, though I'll have to look through it more.
Barbarian I'm tentatively hopeful for, though the preview one played out kind of boring when I played one at level 4 (back up, charge, repeat).
Warden I'm very psyched about, as they seem to have taken over the "I turn into a bear and eat you" aspect of druid, which is what I always liked about the class anyway.
Druid, slightly less excited about, as they are more casty now.
Invoker was my vote for uninteresting - I just haven't seen anything that grabs me about the class.
Shaman and Bard I like because I like leaders, pets, and multi-classing.
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