Warlord vs. Str. Cleric

[Danceofmasks]

Except none of them NEED your support.

Inspiring word = support.

 

[SteelCoyote]

Except none of them NEED your support. ...no other class will have a harder time finding a chance to use it's at-wills and make em work to full strength than the Warlord.

If you're playing a Warlord, you NEED at least one other PC to be very actively positioning themselves in regard to your powers. Probably more than one if you want your encounter and daily powers to have their full, mathematically expected benefit on the encounter.

In order for Wolf Pack Tactics to be worth anything there HAS to be an ally who wants to shift one square...

...for Commander's Strike, Viper's Strike, and Furious Smash. Another character HAS to be ADJACENT to the Warlord and/or his target.

The cleric needs an ally somewhere in the battle for his powers to get their full effect, a reasonable condition for a leader. The Warlord needs an ally somewhere they won't be most the time. Where they can't be much of the time even if they are trying to work with him.


There may even be a friendly helpful player who knows how all your powers work but there just isn't any good the power could in that situation.

And I'd like to point out that this dissatisfaction with the Warlord and his at-will powers has nothing to with him being a "support" class.

The way to make Commander's Strike a better power would be to give it a range of 5. This wouldn't increase Commander's Strike's mathematical effect on the battle, but it would greatly increase it's ease of use.


So in short, it's not so much that the Warlords powers are mathematically weaker than the Cleric's or other classes' powers, but that they are SO much harder to find a chance to use. Mostly because of their limited range and awkward requirements that an ally be positioned just right.

Heck, I bet the game assumes that a successful Furious Smash will always be followed up by an attack from an ally. I think it was James Wyatt who said the game assumes the Rogue has Combat Advantage every turn for him to keep up in damage dealing with the Ranger. The Warlord has a similar problem compared to the Cleric, only much, much worse. The Warlord just can't possibly use his powers well as often as the Game Balance God's assume he can.

These are the problems/objections that my friend had when playing his Warlord. Even though I was playing a cooperative character, and I knew his powers pretty well, it always seemed like the situation wasn't any better (and was possibly worse) if I acted on the Warlord's abilities.

It may just be that our party was Defender-heavy and inside a dungeon so there was little movement, but across multiple encounters we (as a party) never seemed able to maximize the Warlord's abilities without messing up the various Marks, Challenges or Quaries that the Fighter, Paladin or Ranger were using.

Then, of course, we all try to position for the Rogue to flank without getting AoO'd to death, so once we get set up we're less likely to move, even if we could.

I definitely think that extending the range on the Warlord's powers from adjacent to 'nearby' (within 3 or 5 squares) or 'adjacent to target' is both keeping with the flavor and allowing the class to function better at the table (and what Gunny Sgt doesn't enjoy shouting at his men over the din of battle?).

Maybe 4.5e will address this.

 

[Fast Learner]

I've been playing a Dragonborn Inspiring Warlord for 5 levels now, and am having a great time with him. I really enjoy making things work out on the field. I really don't see it as a support position, and I definitely do the leader roleplay, telling people why I'm giving them that shift or that move action or that Inspiring Word.

 

[matkov]

The worst problem with warlord in my campaign is that he needs to hit for his powers to take effect. He has dwarf warlord builded using standart array (all players had to use it). He put maximum into his strength and even after trying to maximalize his attack he have less than 50% chance to hit opponents in combat which means that he missed all dailies so far and too many of his encounter powers.

 

[Danceofmasks]

Eh, who doesn't need to hit for their powers to take effect?
If you're forced to take standard array, choosing dwarf is just asking for punishment .. the stat bonuses are as bad as they get for a warlord.

 

[Ander00]

Eh, who doesn't need to hit for their powers to take effect?

Incidentally, the cleric has a few daily attack powers in the heroic tier that do not involve attack rolls at all. Also, the 1st level Divine Glow encounter power can grant attack bonuses to multiple allies even on a miss.

Still, I mostly agree with your post.


cheers

 

[F5]

I haven't played a Warlord, yet, but it seems to me that they could really benefit from some kind of 4E variant of the Cohort rules. You can't count on having an ally where you need them, in order to use your powers? Bring along your own ally.

Alternately, a brief multiclass dip into Wizard, and some sort of rules for Summoning spells would be even better. You need an adjacent ally to buff? *BAMF* There's one, now!

 

[Tony Vargas]

There's a non-trivial minority of powers that don't need to hit to have a desireable effect. In fact, 3 out of the 4 Warlord at-wills fall into that category. Commander's Strike doesn't require the warlord to attack at all, Viper's Strike & Wolf Pack Tactics have an effect line that happens whether he hits or not.

A Dwarven Warlord could work out, in spite of the poor stat bonuses, by prioritizing CON over STR, taking Hammer Rythm, and concentrating on such powers. Heck, sometimes he'd do more damage on a miss than a hit.

 

[Caliban]

I'd play a human over a warforged .. warforged are so out of place in the realms ..
My first choice was actually a fighter, but the folks I play LFR with (13 people at present, will be more soon) already had 3 defenders .. and 1 leader.

There is a way to have a canon explanation for warforged in the Realms. Gond the Wonderbringer is still a functioning religion (even after the island of Lantan sank -taking most of his priests with it), and Gond (or his chosen) created intelligent constructs called Gondsmen (somewhat confusingly "Gondsman" is also a generic term for any Gond worshiper). A warforged character can be an advanced type of Gondsman.

I started a Warforged fighter in LFR with the mod "A Sense of Wonder" - it's a Gond themed mod and has a great hook to bring your character into the Realms from the halls of Gond the Wonderbringer himself.

 

[Diceboxisfull]

In the game I currently play in, we have 5 players, all of 5th level:

1) Dwarf Fighter
2) Warforged Warlord (Taclord)
3) Half-Elf Paladin
4) Half Elf Cleric (Melee)
5) Eladrin Wizard

The warlord started as a rogue, but got frustrated by the fact that he always had to flank to get extra damage and switched around 2nd level. In such a melee centered group, the Taclord was a very welcome addition. We are also very fortunate to have both a STR/melee cleric and a Taclord and I have had a good chance to compare:

Is one better than the other? I dont think so. The buffs provided by both classes are very welcome additions to any group, particularly melee groups.

Does an imbalance exist between the two classes' at wills? No, they just require different play styles to be effective.

Neither class is a melee monster by itself and anyone that picks those classes expecting to be so will be sorely disappointed- probably the reason that so many posters indicated people in their groups dropped the warlord class for something else.

Once the players in my goup understood their role in the party dynamic, changed their tactics and at wills to fit, we started rolling a lot of encounters- and our DM is no slouch.

For example: Our taclord switched from a sword and board to a glaive, switched Viper Strike to Commander's Strike. He now stands behind our Fighter (me) and uses Commanders Strike whenever possible. I get +12 to the damage I roll which is considerably more than he could do by himself. He uses White Raven Tactics to help get positioning and the two of us together have been able to take out most of the melee enemies in short order when we focus fire.

Note: If you have a taclord player that misses the visceral sensation of rolling dice and doing big damage, make him or her roll for the attacks and damage granted through powers like Furious Smash or Commander's Strike. This can grant a sense of accomplishment and that thrill of pounding an enemy that they might otherwise be missing from the session.

The Cleric was a little frustrated in the beginning that he was not the buffed up melee machine he had played in 3.X, but he quickly realized where his strenghts lied and changed up his at-wills and tactics. He took Rightous Brand and Sacred Flame and now stands a dual threat. The Paladin usually tanks the BBEG and the cleric will help flank and grant attack bonuses for big smites or grant temp hp. When there is no BBEG around, he is more than happy to sit back and throw sacred flames next to the wizard. I cant wait until they are high enough level to build of the Radiant damage synergies between the two.

I have not played an inspiring warlord yet, but as we advance in level, I am certainly seeing the importance of "pre-emptive healing" like the kind offered by an Inspiring Warlord. Temp HP, healing strikes and most importantly, save throws play an enourmous part in mitigating ongoing damage and status effects. There is definitely a difference in play style between the two brands of warlords, but I do not think the importance of Inspiring Warlords should be written off so early in the game.