digital insider: Monk in PH3, playtest in May

[RefinedBean]

You know, honestly, I just threw Shugenja and Wu-Jen into the Ki spot because they just have that "feel" of redirecting energy flows and what-not. Whatever. Elemental works just fine, too.

But yeah, Fighters have an unheralded secondary role of Controller. In my experience, whenever there's a Fighter in play, they control a HUGE chunk of the battlefield.

Of course, the Warden is coming up, and he's probably going to be even MORE controller-y.

I STILL say that has a lot to do with wizard "orders" being scrapped late in the game to avoid Golden Wyvern Adepts and Emerald Frost Orb-users. I bet dollars to donuts that if we could see the 2007 version of the wizard class, we'd see a lot different class...

I'm a bit lost here, was this from an early 4E playtest or something?

 

[Rechan]

Of course, the Warden is coming up, and he's probably going to be even MORE controller-y.

WHat's interesting is that the Warden and Swordmage are both quasi-controllers.

Swordmages do the area affects/blasty stuff. They eat minions for breakfast. Wardens do the status effects/battlefield shaping.

I'm a bit lost here, was this from an early 4E playtest or something?

Between 4e's announcement in GenCon August 2007 and the books hitting the shelves in June 2008, WotC put out a bunch of preview articles about 4e. The article in question that's beeing referenced is this article back in September, 2007.

The relevant info is here:

The orb is favored by the Iron Sigil and Serpent Eye traditions. Serpent Eye cabalists use orbs to focus powers of enchantment, beguiling, and ensnaring. The mages of the Iron Sigil, on the other hand, employ orbs to guard themselves with potent defenses when invoking spells of thunder or force.​

The staff is best suited to the disciplines of the Hidden Flame and the Golden Wyvern. Servants of the Hidden Flame wield fierce powers of fire and radiance through their staves. Golden Wyvern initiates are battle-mages who use their staves to shape and sculpt the spells they cast.

​

The wand is a perennial favorite for wizards who favor accurate, damaging attacks. Emerald Frost adepts use wands to help channel powers of cold and deadly acidic magic, while Stormwalker theurges channel spells of lightning and force through their wands.

​

A wizard without an implement is like a slightly near-sighted man with glasses: The man can still see, but without his glasses, he can’t read the road sign across the way. Likewise, while wizard traditions are associated with a particular implement, a wizard need not possess or hold a given implement to use a power belonging to that tradition. For instance, a wizard belonging to the Hidden Flame order can cast the fire spell cinder storm even if he doesn’t own, has lost, or is not holding a magic staff. But if he does have a magic staff, it aids the accuracy of his attack, and his mastery of the Hidden Flame technique allows him to deal more damage with the spell.​

​

This article spawned a lot of anger among the messageboards because DMs felt that WotC was wedging flavor into the classes themselves, thereby forcing the DM to include that flavor. There were tons and tons and tons of threads about how Golden Wyvern Adept was going to ruin the game.

 

[glass]

Well, we already have a martial controller: it's called the Fighter.

Err... Huh? This doesn't make any sense...

If I were a betting man, I'd bet RB was satirising your ascribing classic defender traits to your putative controller!


glass.

 

[Cadfan]

This article spawned a lot of anger among the messageboards because DMs felt that WotC was wedging flavor into the classes themselves, thereby forcing the DM to include that flavor. There were tons and tons and tons of threads about how Golden Wyvern Adept was going to ruin the game.

Plus just about every thread on a different topic had at least one thread-crapper sneering about it.

 

[Rechan]

Plus just about every thread on a different topic had at least one thread-crapper sneering about it.

What I find very funny, is that before 4e came out, there was tons of complaint about the intrusive fluff.

Now that it's out, there's complains about how there's not enough fluff.

 

[Jack99]

What I find very funny, is that before 4e came out, there was tons of complaint about the intrusive fluff.

Now that it's out, there's complains about how there's not enough fluff.

Welcome to the Internet, where people will complain about something no matter what.

 

[RefinedBean]

This article spawned a lot of anger among the messageboards because DMs felt that WotC was wedging flavor into the classes themselves, thereby forcing the DM to include that flavor. There were tons and tons and tons of threads about how Golden Wyvern Adept was going to ruin the game.

Psh, it seems fine. It's basically what we ended up with anyway, only without the tried-and-true WotC style of not being able to name things worth a damn.

Thanks for digging that up, Rechan. Also, you're right: I had forgotten how controller-y the Swordmage was, even more so than the Fighter.

If I were a betting man, I'd bet RB was satirising your ascribing classic defender traits to your putative controller

Sure, let's go with that. Honestly, Plane Sailing summed it up best in his post(s). And Mustrum was looking for fighter AWs that have controller-based elements to 'em:

Footwork Lure
Tide of Iron
Cleave (auto-killing a minion seems very controller-y to me)

 

[TwinBahamut]

If I were a betting man, I'd bet RB was satirising your ascribing classic defender traits to your putative controller!


glass.

Honestly, I think your attempt at clarification probably needs more clarifying than the statement you were trying to clarify.

And PlaneSailing did make that statement quite a bit more clear to me, though I still don't agree with it. Different ideas about how the roles work and the way different powers work towards different roles, I guess.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

Different ideas about how the roles work and the way different powers work towards different roles, I guess.

Yeah...to me, it's fairly clear that the Defenders and their secondary roles so far are:

Fighter (Striker)
Paladin (Leader)
Swordmage (Controller)
Warden (Controller...although, it could be argued that their secondary role is Defender)

To me, in order to be a Controller, you need to have an area attack at range. As the post from WOTC on Wizards and their at wills said, they didn't want to make the controller role defined by AoE, however. They wanted classes from all roles to get multiple attacks and AoEs. So, simply having an AoE doesn't make you a controller.

I'd say that the goal of the Defender role is: Keep enemies attacking you and away from your allies.

The goal of the Controller role is: Keep enemies AWAY from you and to decrease the effectiveness of attacks that do happen. This is done by decreasing the teamwork of the enemies.

If the goal of a Leader is to enhance the teamwork of their allies(healing those who get in trouble, giving bonuses to those who need them at the right times, keeping everyone close together, moving people around for flanking, and so on) then the Controller is the opposite. They examine all of the enemies and figure out ways to make their teamwork fall apart(moving enemies out of flanking, encouraging them to break up and spread their damage around instead of concentrating it, making them leave cover, giving them minuses to hit).

The major difference between Defenders and Controllers is that Defenders concentrate on the area immediately surrounding them(1-3 squares away) and Controllers focus on the entire battlefield. Plus, a focus on single target rather than AoE.

 

[Plane Sailing]

To me, in order to be a Controller, you need to have an area attack at range.

OK. To me, in order to be a Controller, you need to limit your opponents choices in terms of movement or actions (via status effects).

Cheers