4E Class Survivor - Round 8

[Belphanior]

Invoker is so far the only class in 4e that actually disappointed me. I like their concept, their fluff, their place on the source-role grid... but the execution is so bland. A divine wizard, big deal.

You can clearly tell apart the powers from a fighter and a swordmage. Ditto for a cleric and a shaman. Even the druid has his own thing with the shapeshifting. But after you strip away the flavor text, what's so special about an invoker? There's really nothing new or unique about it. I can barely believe that such a superfluous class even made it this far.

 

[Dice4Hire]

This is my thrid or fourth round voting for the invoker, and looks like he will be gone, finally.

 

[FireLance]

Could you make one more column to include the power sources?

I think I'm sensing a pattern here...

The only other pattern I'm sensing, apart from Leader-hate, is new-class hate. With the exception of the Bard and Cleric (Leaders) all the other classes voted off so far were introduced late in 3e (Shaman, Artificer, Warlock) or in 4e (Warlord, Warden).

 

[ZzarkLinux]

Lots of Ranger Love

Since we are all nature-boys here, let me explain why I dislike the Ranger

1) Simplicity is not always good
: The ranger is "simply" effective and "simply" fun because he's "easily" overpowering and overshadowing other classs
> The "rogue" is boring because he does 1d4 + DEX damage in some rounds
> The "wizard" is boring because his ranged attack damage sux
So the ranger is a direct downfall for several other classes

2) Cool abilities don't make the class fun either
> Quarry is a 3.5 sacred cow, adding more damage to already overpowered class
> The warlock has a near identical curse, and warlock is voted off of "Survivor"

So I've seen that the Ranger has both:
: Stayed the same-bland-nature-boy of 3.5
: Stolen the thunder of several intriguing and fun classes from 4e, rendering them "sub-optimal"

So yea the ranger needs to be next to disappear.
As does the avenger.

 

[Dice4Hire]

: Stolen the thunder of several intriguing and fun classes from 4e, rendering them "sub-optimal"

Exactly how? Your post does not really support this view at all.

Sure, Rangers can be overpowered, but that is mostly thanks to WOTC neglecting to adequately fix the stacking rules in 4E (Thanks WOTC) STacking was crazy in 3.5, and in 4E is is jsut about as bad with feats that do not give feat bonuses, and magical items taht mostly stack with each other. When you can laugh off the +6 or +7 dex bonus on your bow as unimportant you know you have a problem. (Or str for melee)

Ranger is a poster child for non-stacking rule clarifications, like sayting all magic item bonuses do not stack, and all feat bonuses are feat bonuses. That would hslp a lot.

But htey are not a bad class, though I would probably not play one.

 

[Cadfan]

The only real flaw I see in the ranger is that they didn't make Prime Shot a big enough deal until paragon tier. People tend to ignore it completely.

This tends to be true for the warlock as well.

I'm not sure why people keep arguing that the Avenger is overpowered in terms of damage. Rerolling your attack is very different from the ranger's dual attack system, and generates almost uniformly lower damage. Yes, its incredibly accurate, and leads to a nearly 100% hit rate. But that's not the same as broken. An Avenger rolling twice to deal 2[W]+Wis is nice, but a Ranger rolling for two attacks, each of which deal 1[W]+Dex, is going to be far higher, particularly once the Ranger player figures out to start stacking static damage bonuses.

Although pseudo-banning Bloodclaw and similar weapons in my game has made a significant difference in terms of keeping the Ranger fair.

 

[Dice4Hire]

Well, with at-wills the avenger is not so special, but with any encounters and especially dailies they are a lot nicer. Yes, Twin-strike basically auto hits with one arrow every turn, but the Avenger nearly auto-hits with every pwoer he or she has.

They will be my next to vote off.

And yes, a few magical items being banned does wonders for the chincery in 4E stacking.

 

[Minigiant]

Avengers. Why do you exist?

We have enough 2 handed weapon beatdown already.

 

[Nifft]

Can't believe the Sorcerer has lasted this long - what do you all see in it that I don't?

It's like a BOOM-wizard, but it doesn't suck.

Cheers, -- N

 

[FireLance]

And yes, a few magical items being banned does wonders for the chincery in 4E stacking.

For what it's worth, I would rather tweak items than ban them, either by limiting the frequency of use (e.g. allowing the bloodclaw property to be used 1/round or 1/encounter) or tinkering with the numerical bonuses (e.g. take 1 damage for +2/+3 damage with heroic-tier +1/+2 weapons, take 2 damage for +4/+6 damage with paragon-tier +3/+4 weapons, and take 3 damage for +6/+9 damage with epic-tier +5/+6 weapons).

I would only ban game elements that I had a fundamental conceptual problem with (and so far, I can't think of anything that I would ban offhand). For everything else, it is simply a matter of adjusting the mechanical expression to something that I am comfortable with. As an aside and IMO, one of the key improvements introduced by 4e is making the 1/encounter frequency so pervasive in the game. This has made balancing the game much easier because the benefits that are not significant enough to be restricted to a 1/day usage but which are too good to be used at-will (or, even if there are multiple uses in a day, too good if they are used two or three times in a single encounter) can be made into 1/encounter abilities.