Warlord vs. Str. Cleric

[lin_fusan]

I'm one of the players that finds Inspiring Warlords underwhelming. At the moment, I've asked my DM to allow me to completely retool the character, swapping out not only a bunch of powers but feats and even a couple of ability scores, so maybe that will fix part of the problem.

The other problem, perhaps, is the fact that my teammates run all over the place without regards to tactical considerations. The fighter wanders off by himself and the ranger attacks the farthest opponent, for example.

A lot of the Warlord's powers are focused specifically at "hit this target I am attacking" but requires the other players to maneuver themselves to do so, and the majority of them refuse to do so. For example, there is a power that grants a bonus to damage to all other teammates to this one specific target. Unfortunately, three of my teammates decided that it was not advantagous for them to attack that creature, perhaps because they had flanking on another craeture or that they needed to kill a minion.

The last thing I've noticed is that I have to be very aware of what abilities the other players have. There was one moment in the game in which I told my teammate to move here and use "x" power/exploit. He then told me that he no longer had that power/exploit, rendering my plan useless. So I then use Viper's Strike, which is the same as a basic attack.

In conclusion, play a Warlord if you have a strong team. If you don't, play a cleric.

 

[Prism]

The worst problem with warlord in my campaign is that he needs to hit for his powers to take effect.

the warlord is probably the best class for not needing to hit. All the dailies through to 30th have an effect on a hit or miss. i would say about half of the encounter powers. and rather than the effect being a minor move or shift they are usually the main reasons for choosing the power

 

[Zinovia]

We're not writing off the warlord as a class. The issues I have seen so far are with an inspiring warlord. My husband will be playing a taclord in our new game, and I have the feeling that he'll do well moving people around, and telling them how to get the most advantage out of the situation. I'm hoping that build turns out to be more interesting and fun to play than what I observed with the inspiring warlord.

For most players, I feel that the battle cleric will be more satisfying to play if they want a leader that wades into combat and buffs their allies. A battle cleric can always do something better than a basic melee attack, and that simply is not always, or even often, the case with an inspiring warlord. All too often, the group members were not fighting the same opponent at the same time, and so the warlord had no one to swap places with, and no one to grant a boosted attack to.

Initially the lack of tactical positioning was due to carry-over from our 3.5 game where everyone runs off to fight their own opponent. Even once we were coordinating better, there were still times when the warlord felt that her powers just weren't of any use in the particular situation we found ourselves in. She got off some great encounter and daily powers a few times, but the at-wills all depended on having an ally adjacent to her or to the creature she was fighting, so she defaulted to basic melee attacks quite often. That shouldn't be the case.

While some of the issues were undoubtedly due to how she was playing the character, I don't feel that it was solely due to that. Others here seem to have had similar experiences with the inspiring warlord in their games, which to me indicates an underlying flaw in the class. There shouldn't be a class where you have nothing to do other than a basic melee attack for your at-wills because your at-will choices are so situational.

We had our first game with the dragonborn battle cleric last night. The player seemed to enjoy buffing people with her at-will from range, and healing us during a tricky fight. Turn Undead was also very handy in the last fight, and it was nice to see how much more the player was enjoying her character, and how she felt more effective compared to the warlord she started with.

I remain underwhelmed with inspiring warlords, and in my opinion, battle clerics are entirely superior for that kind of role. My husband, who enjoys tactical games and ordering people around will probably like his taclord. He's already planning to take glaive, and direct the combat the way he thinks it should go.

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

In conclusion, play a Warlord if you have a strong team. If you don't, play a cleric.

I think that is the takeaway.

Look at Diceboxisfull's party. If they did not work together that would surely be a boring party to play.

 

[Zinovia]

Whether a warlord works well for your party does seem to come down to what kind of players you have.

Tactical well-coordinated group:
Warlord: Okay guys, we're going to focus on taking out that caster while the fighter keeps the big guy occupied. Rogue, you get around back and sneak attack him while I hit him from the front.
Rogue: I'm behind him, but I wait on my attack for the warlord to set him up.
Warlord: I hit the guy, and give a bonus to the rogue.
Rogue: Stab, sneak attack. Extra damage. Win.

That kind of situation is something you won't be able to set up every time, and does require cooperation from the party in movement and timing of their attacks. (As an aside, are you allowed to move on your turn, and then delay your attack until someone else hits?)

Martyr-Complex / Jewish Grandma Warlord no disrespect to Jewish grandmas, they are wonderful people and I love them!
Warlord: I don't need any glory for myself, I'm just here to help the rest of you. You go ahead and hit him this time, and I'll give you a nice bonus to damage on top of that. Someday the bards will write songs about this battle, and you'll all be the stars of the story. No one will remember that I'm even here, but that's okay. I don't mind not being in the spotlight as long as I can help my party.

(Addressing the sky): So I tell him "The fight would go much better if you would get over there behind that half wall, and shoot from safety", but does he listen? Of course not! So now I'll have to help him put out that fire that's burning up his hair, which needs to be cut by the way, no one can see you under that mop, and get you back on your feet. And after this battle you'd better eat something after you wash off all that blood. You're too thin! How do you expect to find a nice girl when you go around looking like a rake. I can count your ribs from over here! Now get over there and finish this fight like a responsible ranger, not some lazy no-goodnik.

Cheerleader Warlord
You can do it! You know how! Hit him a little harder now!
Yaaaaaay Team!

On a more serious note, I don't think this class is a good choice for people unless they really are willing to tell people where to go and what to do, and have a good grasp of basic tactics (and a group willing to follow your lead). That was definitely part of the problem my player was having - she just complained that the situation wasn't right without trying to tell the rest of us where we could move to fix it. It didn't help that we were all new to the game and had some bad habits left over from 3.5. "That's my monster, I'm fighting it now. You go get your own!"

 

[Danceofmasks]

(As an aside, are you allowed to move on your turn, and then delay your attack until someone else hits?)

Not delay, no .. the mechanics of delaying is not taking any actions until abit later.

What you want is Ready an Action.
Ready is a standard action, so you can move (and/or do a minor as well) first.

Choose Trigger: When a party member attacks this dude from a flanking position.
Choose Action: Sly flourish (or whatever other standard action you want)
Ready an action is an immediate reaction, so it will occur after your party member finishes their attack.
Reset initiative: After resolving your action, you now act just before your buddy on subsequent rounds.

 

[Milambus]

Zinovia, loved your breakdown of the ways to play a Warlord... especially the Jewish Grandmother =)

On a more serious note, I don't think this class is a good choice for people unless they really are willing to tell people where to go and what to do, and have a good grasp of basic tactics (and a group willing to follow your lead).

See this is exactly the reason I chose to play a Tactical Warlord, so that I could tell people how to play (within reason of course =)

Here is a story from my table at the Weekend in the Realms on Saturday. I'm playing my Human Tactical Warlord, wielding a Spiked Chain (+3 prof, 24d, reach). The Archer Ranger's turn comes up. I look across the table and say "Ready your Action". By this time people have seen me do this with the Fighter a few times before (who plays a Warlord in his home game), so he's willing to go along with me. He readies his Twin Shot for after my attack. My turn finally comes around, and I bust out my Warlord's Favor giving the Ranger +4 to his attacks until the end of my next turn. His readied action triggers, and he gets +4 to two attacks. Play continues, and the Ranger's next turn comes up.. another two attacks with +4. Now I look across the table and say "Action Point. Another two attacks, +5 this time. Not bad for an encounter power.

As for the Warlord needing to be adjacent to his allies for his At-Wills to work this is incorrect.

Commander's Strike: The ally has to be in melee range of the target. Sure with most weapons this means that you both have to be adjacent to the target (1-2 squares away). If you or your ally are using a range weapon, this increases to 3 squares, and if both of you are using range weapons then its 4 squares.

Furious Smash: "choose one ally adjacent to either you of the target".

Viper's Strike: Same as Commander's Strike. Arguably, your ally would need to be adjacent to the target but I would say that the specific rule of Viper's Strike overrides the general rule of needing to be adjacent for opportunity attacks.

Wolf Pack Tactics: "one ally adjacent to either you of the target"

So, at the very least you can be 2 squares away and the powers will work, and as far as 4 squares away.

 

[mneme]

See this is exactly the reason I chose to play a Tactical Warlord, so that I could tell people how to play (within reason of course =)

That's part of my reasoning, certainly (inspiring Warlord, but still).

Shot for after my attack. My turn finally comes around, and I bust out my Warlord's Favor giving the Ranger +4 to his attacks until the end of my next turn. His readied action triggers, and he gets +4 to two attacks. Play continues, and the Ranger's next turn comes up.. another two attacks with +4. Now I look across the table and say "Action Point. Another two attacks, +5 this time. Not bad for an encounter power.

Not bad at all. Ah, right, the readied action puts his initiative rank just before yours, so he gets to go twice. Nice.

IMO, readied actions are the key to getting the most out of a warlord. Sure, some of time, the current timing doesn't work to get you your thing, but if you work together, you can make it much easier for no real cost.

I do think that cleric > tactical warlord > inspiring warlord. In theory, they each have their thing -- the cleric has better healing, the taclord has attack bonuses, the inspiring warlord has more saving throws and healing, and all warlords have initiative bonuses and good repositioning abilities. But in practice, the warlord, much more than any other class, finds herself performing basic attacks and charges (though one shouldn't discount charges!), pounding away while looking for the opprotunity to set up another cool teamwork manuver, and it turns out that attack bonuses are better than anything else, so the clerics basics (which can grant attack bonuses and saves) win. And active abilities (ie attack bonuses) are much stronger than reactive ones (saves) -- an ally doesn't make a saving throw every battle, though when they have to, its important. But they -do- make attack rolls every battle; quite a lot of them. (one big bonus in the warlord's favor -- they keep giving out extra attacks and attack bonuses with their dailies. Whereas clerics fairly quickly stop giving out attack bonuses quite so often, and do AoE and occasional defense penalties instead).

That said, I've had a lot of fun with my Inspiring Dragonborn Warlord -- hammer and anvil, furious smash "here, rogue, have a +4 to hit and damage! Don't know what you can do with that, but I'm sure you can think of something", and a fair amount of repositioning with Wolf Pack Tactics. (only gave someone (me, actually) a save once, but we just recently hit 2nd level where I picked up the save feat-granting and utilitiy). OTOH, the fact that even the stuff you'd think would apply to the warlord (ie, the "spend an action point, move up on the "not dying" track" bits) doesn't is both confusing and annoying; being much more effective boosting your allies is one thing, but not being able to heal/buff yourself at all is awful. One thing that makes it fun is that people do work with me (and my making sure to call people over or even join them to make sure I've always got an ally to work with helps a lot), another is that, as every Inspiring warlord should be, I'm playing a Dragonborn -- meaning I get my breath weapon in and quite a number of minions cease being a problem. When I end up going early, run out to the middle of the battlefield, breathe on a 5x5 grid, charge a survivor "Follow me, you laggards!" is not atypical. That said, a paladin multiclass is certainly tempting, as a good way to take advantage of excelent strength and charisma and use them to, say, pull foes off a heavily damaged fighter.

 

[Milambus]

The group I had for WitR was Dwarven Fighter using a Mordenkein, Elf Ranger (Bow), Drow Rogue (Hand crossbow, never went into melee), and a cleric (ranged, can't recall race).

As a human Warlord, having three At-wills helped alot. It seemed like for every round in combat I was always making a tactical decision about what power to use, where the cleric was just standing back toss out a Lance of Faith.

Do I give the Fighter another attack because he hits harder than I do, or do I make the attack because I have a better chance to hit? Or maybe I have him attack someone different from his first target so that he is now marking both? Or maybe Wolf Pack Tactics to move the Fighter into flanking.. or move the Ranger out of melee. Viper's Strike was pretty worthless with the only other melee fighter being a Fighter who already got to attack when the creature shifted.

I haven't played a cleric or an Inspiring Warlord, but in my opinion a Tactical Warlord can really make a group shine. Does the group need you? Probably not. But you turn the dial up to 11. But yes, both you and your group have to be playing together tactically.

 

[mlangsdorf]

Viper's Strike was pretty worthless with the only other melee fighter being a Fighter who already got to attack when the creature shifted.

Viper's Strike is great with a Fighter. The Fighter's Combat Superiority is an Immediate Reaction that doesn't trigger the "movement stops if the OA hit" effect, while Viper's Strike creates an OA. If you're facing someone you expect to shift, Viper's Strike lets the Warlord attack and opens the possibility of the Fighter attacking twice and canceling the shift. Admittedly, it's not often that you need to do this, but if you've got a skirmishing wight or some other big mongster that you want to stay in one spot, this is a great combination.