Gencon: Any non-Essentials content coming up?

[Tony Vargas]

Why isn't it a fun or balanced choice?

Because...

If you're going to just use one easy mode button, you can make any class boring...

Any class /with/ an 'easy mode button,' yes.

(I know nested quotes get anoying, but we just looped this little tangent for lack of them.)

 

[Raikun]

Because...Any class /with/ an 'easy mode button,' yes.

Which is all classes. Note, I said "Easy" button...not the "I Win" button, or "Total Effectiveness" button...thus balance really didn't factor in.

Any class can be made boring if you do absolutely nothing but the same thing over and over...and as I already explained above, the Thief has other options (and better options) than using the same "Easy Button" over and over.

The Thief is quite a fun and balanced choice, despite the existence of an Easy Button that could make it boring if the player has no imagination.

 

[Marshall]

Unless you havbe some objective measurement of "boring", I'm sure you will agree that you are only expressing your opinion.

(Boring), note the parentheses was an opinion, ineffective was the analysis.

Slayers trade off* nova capability in the form of daily attack powers for higher at-will damage. It's similar to how avengers trade off a striker damage mechanic for higher accuracy. If you like, think of it as activating a daily attack power that grants a bonus to the damage rolls of at-will attacks until the end of the next extended rest**.

No, Slayers trade off the Defender role abilities for a Striker bonus damage feature. That, at least, is the standard trade off between roles. They trade their dailies and any chance at a real Nova without MC/Hybrid shenanigans for a minor increase in defenses over a Barb.

* You are familiar with the concept of "trade off", aren't you? It means giving up one thing for another, and is the foundation of the "class balance" you seem to value so highly.

** I know I've mentioned this before. Fortunately, repeat ignored argument is an at-will power.

Yes, I also know when you are making a poor trade. In this case, you're making a very poor trade.

"Only miss on a one"? You know, it's hard to take you seriously when you engage in hyperbole like this.

Yeah, "Only miss on a one." It annoys the crap outta my DMs when they see me roll a two and I say AC21 at 5th level. Why are you even trying to get your Thief in melee range? Halfling Shortbow Hunter, Drow Ruthless Hunter = "Hi guys!, I'll just stand wayyy over here and barrage them to death!" thats before RM for snap shot and other tricks to add in multi-attacks.

[/quote]
Unless, of course, they are somehow "optimized", right? It's amazing how "optimization" can flip a class from "the bottom" to "broken" with, apparently, no middle ground.[/quote]

Yes, they are ridiculously easy to optimize since they broke the standard power assumptions from 4e. MBA's were set up to be little used, off action attacks that you only made when you couldnt do anything better and were supported as such. E-martials, and Arcanes now, broke that mold and enhanced the MBA to encounter+ level equivalents with absolutely no brakes in the system to prevent a PC from piling on e-enhancements and 4e enhancements. The worst part is, they keep compounding this mistake. Now we get MME which takes an MBA enhancer(PA) that already hits encounter+ level equivalents with WS and throws even more benefits on top.

Yes. I actually played one myself.

Just for clarification, so have I.

Warpriests have at-will attack powers, like ..... Based on the above information, what is your current assessment of the warpriest: woefully underpowered, or hopelessly broken?

Woefully underpowered. The powers give up very useful effects on a hit for minor situational bonuses as an effect most of the time. Drastically lowered top end usefulness for a supposedly raised floor. Yes, there are a few good powers in the Warpriest list. You just hope you get one good one for every POS you get stuck with. Your Channel Divinity options are crappola in most cases, WotC seems to have forgotten all the decent ones they had released and done a major backtrack on the power levels.
As for your wonderful Class Features? Ever heard of Ritual Caster? You know its great that a Warpriest can Raise Dead his allies for free...of course a Cleric is just better at preventing them from dying in the first place.

 

[MrMyth]

Because...Any class /with/ an 'easy mode button,' yes.

(I know nested quotes get anoying, but we just looped this little tangent for lack of them.)

It might be that alternate meanings are being given to 'easy mode button'. I've been interpreting it as, "A build or tactic that is easy to use while remaining effective", rather than, "An approach which makes the game trivially easy."

Plenty of folks might find a Slayer with few options boring to play. They don't need to play him. Others will enjoy playing that way, however. Hence, I don't see the problem with having it as an option.

These characters aren't boring by default, any more than non-Essentials characters are - yet both can be played that way. Neither indicates an inherently flawed design.

 

[Marshall]

Well, the warpriest as presented lets them choose just freely from the cleric list.

This is debatable, as written. On the one hand you have a class and a concept(domains) that need to be intertwined to be meaningful. On the other hand you have a sidebar saying that they arent necessarily locked into each other.
The final arbiter comes down to this, if the Warpriest is NOT forced to accept his Domain powers as fixed power selections, then why the h-e-double-hockeysticks does the class exist? Its a Cleric with a couple of preselected rituals instead of Ritual Caster. Its either a blank slate filled by one choice, or its an entire waste of design resources to build the same class with another name.

 

[FireLance]

Not that I agree with Marshall's other points, but that much at least is true. It's fairly common for thieves to tweak their attack bonuses so as to hit on a 2 against an on-level monster: take high dex, accurate weapons, rogue weapon talent, combat advantage, nimble blade, deft blade, and a charge bonus, and we're talking an attack roll of roughly level+10 vs Reflex (with the average monster having Ref=Level+12). And that is without spending Backstab! With the extra +3 from backstab, you won't often miss on a 2, even against higher level monsters. Since Backstab is not needed to achieve this, this is also available for regular rogues, by the way. Also, this level of accuracy doesn't really result in broken amounts of damage (i.e. this is still below ranger levels), though it does put Avengers to shame in their alleged niche of ultra-accurate strikers.

Point taken, although I do note that you're adding a PH feat (for +1 with combat advantage) and a MP2 paragon feat (to target Reflex) into the mix.

 

[Marshall]

It might be that alternate meanings are being given to 'easy mode button'. I've been interpreting it as, "A build or tactic that is easy to use while remaining effective", rather than, "An approach which makes the game trivially easy."

Oh, probably.

Plenty of folks might find a Slayer with few options boring to play. They don't need to play him. Others will enjoy playing that way, however. Hence, I don't see the problem with having it as an option.

The problem with the Slayer(specifically) is:
1. It doesnt accomplish anything that couldnt have been done with a 4e Fighter or Barbarian.
2. It takes/took up design time/space that could have been spent adding these options to base 4e.
3. It is being expanded upon to the detriment of those base 4e classes.

By definition, Essentials should be a dead line. If these are supposed to be the new entry points to teach people 4e or they are there for those people who want a simpler play experience then expanding on them is anti-thetical to their design. If you designed a class to be simple to play, adding newer and more complex options to it instead of directing people who want more complexity to the parent class is idiocy.

These characters aren't boring by default, any more than non-Essentials characters are - yet both can be played that way. Neither indicates an inherently flawed design.[/QUOTE]

 

[Raikun]

Yeah, "Only miss on a one." It annoys the crap outta my DMs when they see me roll a two and I say AC21 at 5th level.

Trying to figure out how you got a +19 to hit 5 levels earlier than most Thieves do.

 

[Tony Vargas]

These characters aren't boring by default, any more than non-Essentials characters are - yet both can be played that way. Neither indicates an inherently flawed design.

I'd have to say that the e-martial builds are boring by default. Maybe not immediately boring, but they just don't get/do/develop that much. As for both 4e and the more simplistic of the Essentials classes being playable in a boring way, yeah, I suppose that's true. In the case of a 4e class, though, the boring option (I'll just keep using this same at-will all the time), is generally a /lot/ less effective than the many less-boring options (the simplest-to-play 4e class, the Ranger, being the closest to suffering from the phenomenon). With the Essentials classes, the - let's say 'potencially boring' - 'easy mode' is as or more effective than the few alternatives. While the Theif most clearly illustrates the way the Essentials 'easy mode' aproach can render a character boring, all of the simpler builds suffer from it.

Even that wouldn't be so bad if those most-aflicted sub-classes had a clear and easy path to the more choice-rich versions their native class in 4e. But, of course, they don't. In that sense, they're like training wheels that don't come off - you just have to get a new bike once you're ready to go without them.

 

[FireLance]

No, Slayers trade off the Defender role abilities for a Striker bonus damage feature. That, at least, is the standard trade off between roles. They trade their dailies and any chance at a real Nova without MC/Hybrid shenanigans for a minor increase in defenses over a Barb.

Dexterity modifier to damage is the basic bonus damage feature. This scales at just under the same rate as the average extra damage from the PH ranger's Hunter's Quarry (minus feat enhancements). The increases to 2 + Dexterity modifier at 5th level, 5 + Dexterity modifier at 15th level, and 8 + Dexterity modifier at 25th level are (IMO) the damage bonuses in lieu of daily powers.

Yes, I also know when you are making a poor trade. In this case, you're making a very poor trade.

I think you are under-valuing the slayer's damage bonus. It really is (IMO) a striker damage mechanic and a daily power replacement rolled into one.

Yeah, "Only miss on a one." It annoys the crap outta my DMs when they see me roll a two and I say AC21 at 5th level. Why are you even trying to get your Thief in melee range? Halfling Shortbow Hunter, Drow Ruthless Hunter = "Hi guys!, I'll just stand wayyy over here and barrage them to death!" thats before RM for snap shot and other tricks to add in multi-attacks.

I admit to being curious. How are you hitting AC 21 on a roll of 2 at 5th level? How often can you do it?

Yes, they are ridiculously easy to optimize since they broke the standard power assumptions from 4e. MBA's were set up to be little used, off action attacks that you only made when you couldnt do anything better and were supported as such. E-martials, and Arcanes now, broke that mold and enhanced the MBA to encounter+ level equivalents with absolutely no brakes in the system to prevent a PC from piling on e-enhancements and 4e enhancements. The worst part is, they keep compounding this mistake. Now we get MME which takes an MBA enhancer(PA) that already hits encounter+ level equivalents with WS and throws even more benefits on top.

I will admit that there are some good synergies. I'm not at all convinced that they lead to "broken" levels of good, though. Even the feats in Mordenkainen's Magnificent Emporium that enhance power strike don't strike me as being overpowered at first glance. First off, you are spending a feat to get the benefit. Second, you are enhancing an encounter-level resource, which means it won't be used as often. As always, you need to evaluate the package as a whole, and not declare something to be "broken" or "overpowered" by fixating narrowly on one element.

Woefully underpowered. The powers give up very useful effects on a hit for minor situational bonuses as an effect most of the time.

As I mentioned previously, a Sun warpriest's powers tend towards protection, healing and restoration, and a Storm warpriest's powers tend towards buffing damage and increasing mobility. None of these seem to be situational to me.

Drastically lowered top end usefulness for a supposedly raised floor. Yes, there are a few good powers in the Warpriest list. You just hope you get one good one for every POS you get stuck with.

As I mentioned, evaluate the whole package. Don't fixate on the warpriest's Utility 1 powers which are mostly flavor. Compare their at-wills with a templar cleric's at-wills, their encounters with a templar cleric's encounters, their dailies with a templar cleric's dailies, their channel divinity powers, and the 5th-level domain features with Healer's Lore.

Your Channel Divinity options are crappola in most cases, WotC seems to have forgotten all the decent ones they had released and done a major backtrack on the power levels.

The templar cleric's divine fortune grants him a +1 bonus to an attack roll or a saving throw. The Sun warpriest's grants a saving throw with a +2 bonus to himself or an ally, and the Storm warpriest's grants extra lightning damage to a melee attack (+4 at 1st level, increasing to +6 and +8 at 11th and 21st levels) to himself or an ally. I don't consider these powers to be useless, and frankly, they look more "leader-like" than the templar cleric's.

As for your wonderful Class Features? Ever heard of Ritual Caster? You know its great that a Warpriest can Raise Dead his allies for free...of course a Cleric is just better at preventing them from dying in the first place.

The templar cleric gets Ritual Caster as a class feature, and the warpriest gets two daily utility powers. This, to me, is another trade-off. And once the 5th-level domain features kick in (which I had omitted in my earlier analysis) the templar cleric's Healer's Lore doesn't seem to be that significant an advantage.