Proposed Wager with DracoSuave - Blurred Step

Obryn · Apr 13, 2010

DracoSuave said:
Warden's can't really stop that tactic very well either. At best, they can pull a guy -after- he's charged and done his work. I wouldn't call Wardens non-sticky.

The party just needs to work with the battlemind in order to make his abilities work. I've heard of this 'The enemy shifts and charges the party' but most of the time, what is that guy doing away from the defender? And the battlemind, unlike the fighter (even with Combat Agility), paladin, swordmage, OR warden, can shift in response to -all- the foes he has marked, which is an advantage you've not noted.

Without a level of assistance from the party, a defender can expect to hold down one enemy, which in normal encounters, means everyone has an enemy to themselves... in other words, the defender isn't doing his job. The party works with the defender, or they get smacked.

Battlemind can be worked with, but requires tactics and positioning. But it's not difficult to give the enemy zero options. Stay within two squares of a battlemind, and that tactic you describe isn't gonna work so well.

Rather than spam up an irrelevant thread, I figured I'd fork this discussion.

AND, I figured I'd make it interesting. See below.

The chief difference with Paladins, Swordmages, and Wardens is that their mark whammy works at a distance. They have less of a need to be sticky than the Battlemind, because they can still punish at range. Battleminds have no such luck - they are the only Defender who is neither sticky, nor has a ranged mark.

Battleminds, put simply, are much better at their jobs if Blurred Step is a free action, timed as a reaction. Timed as an interrupt, it allows for cute tricks, but it doesn't make them any better at their job. I think it's kind of silly to assert that the way it currently works is the way it's supposed to work.

So, I'll put my money where my mouth is. WotC has two ways to deal with mistakes - errata and mechanical "pseudo errata" such as new class mechanics (Divine Sanction) and feats (Versatile Expertise). I have a strong suspicion Blurred Step will end up in the May errata. While there's a chance that Blurred Step will be fixed by an upcoming feat tax, I'm willing to take that risk. So...

If there is no errata on Blurred Step next update, I'll change my avatar and status to an image and phrase of Draco's choosing.... IF he agrees to do the same, if there is errata on Blurred Step in May. (All keeping within board rules, of course.) The new avatar and status would stay until the end of May.

What do you say?

-O

Kzach · Apr 13, 2010

I'm not sure I quite understand the need to make this personal but I definitely like the idea of either of you being wrong and having to wear the consequences

Mengu · Apr 13, 2010

I'm afraid there won't be any/many PHB3 errata in the May update that would have involved any designer/playtest time. Typos, missing and mismatched text will probably be fixed. Any over/under powered mechanic, or mechanic that doesn't work will likely take longer to examine and fix. So, you're likely to be shooting yourself in the foot.

AbdulAlhazred · Apr 13, 2010

I say you are going to lose, lol.

The debate about battlemind stickiness has gone back and forth all over the 4e boards for weeks. Have you played one? I wouldn't make any bets based on theorycraft.

In any case, Blurred Step is an OA, which means it happens at interrupt speed. The enemy announces a shift, the battlemind makes its shift FIRST. Now, if you have a marked adjacent enemy that can shift multiple squares, then depending on the situation the battlemind may be SOL depending on the situation, but ordinarily he's going to be able to move in such a way as to block a charge (this may in some cases depend on exactly how the DM parses the charging rules).

I haven't seen the class in action, so I reserve judgment on its overall stickiness. OOTB at level 1 they seem like they would be more hard-pressed to keep an enemy adjacent, but then again you also have the option of Bull's Strength, which has obvious control uses.

My thought is that in general the battlemind's best defender tactic is to stick close to the characters he's defending (1-2 squares) in order to take advantage of Mind Spike, Twisted Eye, and Whirling Defense. Doing so you can both punish creatures violating your mark SEVERELY and toss extra penalties onto the attack rolls they make, plus shift around with Blurred Step to both increase the area you can handle this way and either force opponents to take OAs or block their attempts to get past you entirely. It appears to me that the battlemind's defending function is just not based on any one thing, its an amalgam of various parts. I kind of suspect they're going to become a lot more useful in this role after a couple of levels, but its really hard to tell how well its going to work.

Remember, fighters are great defenders, but they can only smack one enemy a turn with an OA and one a round with CC, and they only get one mark at a time for CS to work with. You could make a lot of arguments about how a fighter can't really lock down more than one target and a target that is really determined to get past you can do so. Both battlemind and fighter however can punish targets who do that. At a guess the battlemind's punishments are harsher than the fighters but it lacks a built-in equivalent of CS. Very hard to say how that will play out.

Obryn · Apr 13, 2010

Mengu said:
I'm afraid there won't be any/many PHB3 errata in the May update that would have involved any designer/playtest time. Typos, missing and mismatched text will probably be fixed. Any over/under powered mechanic, or mechanic that doesn't work will likely take longer to examine and fix. So, you're likely to be shooting yourself in the foot.

Sigh. Yep, that's quite possibly the case, but having thrown the gauntlet, I can't exactly take it back now.

Unless Draco is so confident that there won't be errata that he'd like to expand the wager to include the next updates after this one, I'm stuck!

If he doesn't do that, and if there's an update in June, at least I will have a moral victory.

Kzach said:
I'm not sure I quite understand the need to make this personal but I definitely like the idea of either of you being wrong and having to wear the consequences

Oh, it's not personal, it's just fun.

-O

Obryn · Apr 13, 2010

Alright, in a nutshell, here's my argument.

Battleminds have the following features for Defendery-ness

(1) Battlemind's Demand, a ranged mark that lasts until EoE
(2) Mind Spike, an II which requires the Battlemind to be adjacent to their mark
(3) One Daily power at every Daily level, which allows the Battlemind to enter a stance for beefier OA's
(4) Blurred Step, which IMO should be the glue holding the rest of this together, enabling both OA's and Mind Spike.

If Blurred Step is a free action, timed as a reaction, it's a perfect fit. If it's timed as an interrupt and eats the Battlemind's OA, it's pretty incongruous and doesn't fit. In that case, it's its own thing, instead of an essential piece of the whole Defending strategy.

Just IMO, like I said. And I even think there's a chance that Blurred Step didn't come out as intended, but it won't be changed anyway.

The 4e designers have been known to do that, too!

-O

DracoSuave · Apr 14, 2010

Well, I'm not confident they won't errata it, because I've been wrong before.

But who cares?

I love friendly wagers!

YOU ARE ON!

That said, I think it'd be too powerful as a free action.

Besides, the utility you desire to chase down an opponent is an at-will power for them called 'Lightning Rush' that does... pretty much exactly what you want them to do.

Let's say your marked felling is shift/somethinging. If it's not shifting to a spot where you can blurred-step interrupt it, you let it shift. If he charges your fellow, you then Lightning Rush it (flanking of course), getting the punishing attack in, and your OA is still available: If he ranged attacked instead, then you still have your OA against him.

Now, let's say you augment 2 that, you then become the target of the attack. Woot!

OR... you augment 1 it, penalize that roll by your charisma mod... and then augment 1 Twisted Eye so that he'll take a -further- penalty to his attack rolls.

Now, if you had a fighter, who had an encounter power that triggered as an ImInt that was

Imediate Interrupt - Melee weapon
Trigger: An enemy within 5 squares of you targets an ally.
Effect: Move your speed adjacent to the triggering enemy.
Target: The Triggering enemy.
Attack: Strength vs AC.
Hit: 1[W] + mod damage. If it was an area or ranged attack, penalize the triggering attack by your Wisdom Modifier, then make a secondary attack against the target. If it was a melee or close attack, you may choose to either replace your ally as the target and deal an extra 1[W] damage, or penalize the attack roll by your Wisdom modifier.
Secondary Attack: Strength vs AC
Hit: 1[W] + Strength mod attack to increase the penalty by the number of allies adjacent to the target.
Effect: You do not take your normal standard action on your next turn.

You'd call that a -damn good- encounter power for stickiness. That power alone would be super sticky... it doesn't even require marked opponents!

Battleminds can turn their allies invisible to the foe, mark what they're not attacking, knock things prone... all the tools for stickiness are in there, but they're more reliant on their at-wills then their class features.

Some classes are just like that.

Obryn · Apr 14, 2010

DracoSuave said:
Well, I'm not confident they won't errata it, because I've been wrong before.

But who cares?

I love friendly wagers!

YOU ARE ON!

Awesome.

I am worried that an errata is in store, but won't be in May, but like I said, that's a risk I'm willing to take.

This is far more fun than arguing back and forth for the next 3 weeks.

-O

P.S. For the record, I hope you love The Hoff.

DracoSuave · Apr 14, 2010

Obryn said:
Awesome.

I am worried that an errata is in store, but won't be in May, but like I said, that's a risk I'm willing to take.

This is far more fun than arguing back and forth for the next 3 weeks.