Assault Swordmage thoughts/observation (Heroic tier)

[Herschel]

As I sit on the cusp of Paragon Tier with one of the three Assault Swordmages I play around with, I thought I'd share my Swordmage observations through Heroic Tier (Hey, it's Wednesday and I have summer/holiday fever):

• Lightning Lure is the best at-will power in the game. Almost every session it’s a major player, be it pulling an aura-wielding baddie away from a seriously hurt companion, simply pulling him adjacent to deal with me, sucking it into a perfect flanking opportunity for the rogue, extending the threat range and bringing a foe in to set up an action point fueled encounter or daily it is just amazing. It doesn’t look all that special on paper, but it sure is in practice.
• Resistances are wonderful. They essentially have given me a lot more HP than I have on the character sheet. Necrotic, Fire, Poison and Cold, likely in that order, have been huge, making Genasi and Deva great choices. However…
• Human may be the best choice for one simple reason: The third at-will. All the FRPG at-wills are very good. Lightning Lure is still the “best” because it allows me to change the battle, but I can’t count the number of times I’ve had either Greenflame Blade, Sword Burst or Booming Blade and wished I’d had one of the others. With the Assault build, I’ve found Booming Blade to be the least useful where it’s a great choice for the Shielding build (in part because of stat allocation).
• The class is just plain fun. It’s also very versatile. I prefer sticking with the Long Sword for the better AC, not spending a feat and still having that +3 proficiency bonus. It’s especially nice for when I need to fill a doorway.
• It seems I’m always short feats for what I want to do. Some class builds seem to have pretty easy feat choices, I just haven’t found this true for the Assault Swordmage.
• The condition other than stun that sucks most is immobilized. The swordmage doesn’t offer much in the way of ranged attacks past three squares so mobility is HUGE. Related to that subject…
• The class doesn’t play like other defenders. The fighter and warden are more typical “tanks” and Paladins mix in a lot of leader abilities. Even the Shielding builds play differently. Trying to make the Assault Swordmage in to a pseudo-striker is generally sub-optimal but can work, depending on party composition. It’s a weird blend of defender, controller and consistent damage dealer.

WotC finally figured out how to viably have a lightly armored “hero” in the center of battle that isn’t just a pin cushion. Kudos!

Thoughts?

 

[Klaus]

I'll add Dragonborn as a great swordmage race, specially if you focus on a single element and take feats that augment that. The Dragon article that expanded the elemental swordmage powers is very useful.

 

[Holy Smokes]

I'm enjoying my blinkelf assault swordnerd immensely.

I may retrain Frigid Blade out for Lightning Lure; when I created this character, I wanted a strong weapon-keyed at-will attack. However, after playing this guy for almost 5 levels in LFR, my basic melee attack is virtually identical (the -2 movement condition is rarely a factor). It seems wrong somehow to use a standard action on a basic attack; but really, if its as strong as any single-target at-will, why waste the slot?