It shouldn't be irrelevant, no. Your opinion should matter (and does!). But it shouldn't be the most listened to voice.
You're not meant to like every class. If there's no class for you that is a problem: if your favorite class doesn't work for you that's a deal breaker. Which is the issue; if sorcerer fans are losing their favorite class so it appeals to non-sorcerer fans the edition is failing.
And what about me? Who loved the sorcerer in 3E, loved it even more in 4E and really enjoys the way this dragon-heritage sorcerer looks? I'm already looking at how to convert my campaign setting from 4E to 5E, and seeing the sorcerer was a major impetus behind that.
It isn't a wizard clone.
This is an issue. The sorcerer is the class for people who like wizards but dislike the default magic system. As such, it should still feel similar to a wizard. There should absolutely be differences, but they should have more in common than not.
I actually see this as its major strength. A class should be more than just a name. it should be a unique play experience. Playing a Sorcerer whould be very different from playing a wizard, and not just because they get to choose their spells on the fly. In the same vein, playing a ranger or paladin should be very different from playing a fighter, druid or cleric, despite their shared heritage.
The solution to sorcerers being too much like the wizard isn't to remove similarities but to add differences.
I agree. And this is what WotC has done. I do think the Sorcerer spell list needs to be expanded to encompass the entire Wizard list, though.
It's very tacked on.
The new sorcerer hook (transforming as spells are used) is brand new. It comes out of nowhere, having no real relation to prior sorcerers in the game or in the fiction. It's not an evolution like the fighter's mechanic or clerics channeling divinity.
Actually, I view it as a natural evolution of the lore. In 3E, the sorcerer write-up hinted at a powerful ancestor in the bloodline, and dragons were mentioned (Pathfinder would even take this and run with it, making sorcerers choose bloodlines at creation). Later, there would be numerous splatbooks printed that built off the idea of that draconic heritage of the sorcerer. In 4E, a sorcerer chose a sorcerous heritage, one of which was draconic, and it included powers that could physically transform (in the flavor text, anyway) the sorcerer when used. Next is pretty much just talking it to the next step.
Even the flavour seems like a justification. The fluff in Legends & Lore doesn't mesh with the fluff in the playtest. It reads like they added the mechanic and started changing and tweaking the story to fit the mechanic.
I'm sure they did. Honestly, I'm not a huge fan of the "second soul" idea. I think it's great for a single character (or small number of characters), but not as a general rule. I'll be sticking with the fluff in the playtest packet, myself.
The unique mechanic doesn't mesh with the unique flavour.
The hook for sorcerers is that they have inborn magic. The class' unique mechanic is that they transform as resources are spent. There's no overlap.
The willpower system doesn't count, as there's likely to be an optional module that lets wizards use it. Sorcerers exist so there's a core option that uses it for players whose DM only wants to use the core.
The sorcerer's unique mechanic should directly relate to their inborn magic, to spells being instinctive to them, to magic being their heritage.
I highly disagree. In the case of the Draconic sorcerer, the mechanic of transformation fits very well with the flavor. It makes sense to me that since dragons are innately magical creatures, someone with dragon blood in his veins would come to resemble a dragon as he uses magic.
It should also bee noted that, at GenCon, Mearls stated that there are currently no plans to make spell system modular. A wizard will be Vancian. If you want a spell-point wizard, make a sorcerer and call it a wizard. The caveat is that, should the demand be high enough, they'll look into swapping spell systems or, alternatively, swapping heritage for wizard tradition. But, as it stands, if you're playing a Wizard, you're a Vancian caster.
It shouldn't affect what it does
In the current iteration of the rules, bloodline determines hit dice, armour proficiency, weapon proficiency, all in addition to bonus powers.
So... granddaddy was a brass dragon so you know how to use a greatsword? That's just effed up.
It's not like that. Sorcerous Heritage is really nothing more than a more flavorful cleric domain. The Dragon heritage is the analogue to the War cleric.
The dragon sorcerer has probably had dreams of adventure for a long time, and he probably learned how to use a sword (dragons must protect their home and hoard with breath and claw, after all).
Besides, the dragon sorcerer may have a greatsword in its gear package, but its not proficient with it. You can check that in the packet. The dragon heritage grants proficiency with martial weapons, and the greatsword is a Heavy weapon. He should have been given a bastard sword in his gear package.
It steals the swordmage thunder.
We'll eventually have a Gish class. We need one. Whether it's a bladesinger or swordmage or duskblade or magus is irrelevant. It's a solid niche to be filled.
Forcing the sorcerer into the melee caster role does a disservice to both.
The sorcerer hasn't been forced into the melee caster role. The dragon sorcerer has been given the ability to engage in melee fairly competently (kind of like in 4E, where my dragon sorcerer had Strength to rival pure Fighters). Other heritages will likely be more focused on pure magical damage. It will all come to the choice you make at character creation.
It means we get a less than ideal sorcerer and a less than ideal swordmage.
It'd be like calling the war domain build of the cleric "the paladin". It does the job fine and is an adequate compromise, but no one is really happy.
But no one's calling the sorcerer the swordmage. Or the bladesinger. Or whatever. I imagine the swordmage will probably have attack bonuses closer to those of the Fighter, making him a more effective melee fighter off the bat than the dragon sorcerer. I also imagine that the swordmage's class features will key off specific weapons, since that's the thing that struck me about them in 4E: the bond between swordmage and weapon.
Long story short ("Too late!"): I loved the sorcerer in 3E, and I love it even more in this iteration.
