Are the new Essentials Classes too powerful?

[Saeviomagy]

I think at the core, essentials classes are hard to mess up. At the same time, they're hard to do anything really obnoxious with.

I think if you're seeing an imbalance between your players in terms of effectiveness, it's more than likely that your non-essentials players have done something wrong.

 

[Mentat55]

I think the fighter, archer/two-blade ranger, rogue, warlord, and wizard are still some of the best and "most powerful" classes for 4e. Is there a better all-around defender than the PHB1 fighter? Do any strikers match the PHB1 ranger and rogue? And tactical warlords are even more ridiculous with the Essentials classes, which seem to, in general, have better basic attacks than most pre-Essentials classes.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Skirmishers that can leave without provoking AoOs make the Knight Struggle, because once away they don't even take the -2 penalty to attacks. While other defenders with a mark have the same problem, it isn't as debilitating because the creature at least will end up with a -2 penalty.

The -2 penalty that a Fighter or other defender can inflict, even if the monster they marked moved away is a minor advantage, yes. But, it's rarely enough to change the monster's target choice - if it's bothering to circumvent the mark punishment, it's clearly going to ignore the mark (and cares about mark punishement). The fighter's mark punishment is every bit as easy to evade as the Fighter's, /and/ the fighter's is strictly 1/round, and is a vanilla MBA, while the Knight's is stance-enhanced, and does damage on a miss. So, while the -2 penalty is a nice consolation prize for the Fighter, it's not a huge deal. Same goes for the fighter marking at range with barely-effectual heavy thrown weapons. It's better than twiddling his thumbs, but not really up to snuff.

 

[Aegeri]

The problem is mark penalties can have other penalties frequently stacked on them. A -2 penalty that follows you around is extremely difficult to deal with on top of other penalties imposed as well. Additionally, something is always absolutely better than nothing and if I told you "Here is a way for me to give you a free +2 to all defenses" would you say no?

The fighter's mark punishment is every bit as easy to evade as the Fighter's, /and/ the fighter's is strictly 1/round, and is a vanilla MBA, while the Knight's is stance-enhanced, and does damage on a miss.

While true, the Knight will rarely get equivalent to the fighter because monsters don't need to fear their OAs and can move away. A fighter has damn scary OAs because you cannot move away and their accuracy is boosted. So while the fighter will usually only get his immediate interrupt punishment once, he never concedes OAs as it's simple suicide for a monster to attempt to move. A knight who isn't using defend the line isn't as accurate and has no threat beyond just an MBA whatsoever - creatures can just depart and hit whatever they want.

Also a knight doesn't do any damage on a missed OA - which is what monsters will provoke and NOT their battle aura (why shift and provoke battle guardian when you can provoke a regular OA and ignore the Knight anyway?). This is why of course I say Defend the Line is an absolute must for the Knight. Defend the Line slows enemies on a hit and is essential for preventing enemies just walking away. Without it, the Knight can severely struggle and it's why the best Knights I've seen use Defend the Line + World Serpents Grasp - it just fits! Defend the Line and the knocking prone of WSG gives the Knight a lot of teeth - but without it they are practically toothless.

Whereas a fighter moves into difficult terrain (where enemies couldn't shift) and uses come and get it. Good luck leaving. On the other hand, if your Knight somehow gets into that position (difficult in itself, because you can't just pick it out ala the Fighter) and you made the mistake of not taking defend the line, monsters in that scenario are nowhere near as punished - they can leave pretty easily.

Same goes for the fighter marking at range with barely-effectual heavy thrown weapons. It's better than twiddling his thumbs, but not really up to snuff.

-2 penalties that are stacked with other -2 penalties, especially as this doesn't ever need to hit to be imposed is pretty amazing actually. I mean, would you rather be facing a dragon you can't reach with at-will "Impose a -2 penalty on all this creatures attacks that don't include you, perhaps combined with the controllers at-will penalties?" or "Twiddle your thumbs and hope for the best?".

There isn't really an option there

 

[Tony Vargas]

It is true that the Knight has no particular answer to the Fighter's Combat Superiority. Defend the Line, while superior, in a sense, to any Fighter at-will (only controller at-wills bestow conditions like slow), is not quite a replacement for it.

However, with regular OAs, you're getting into an area where DM style starts to make a big difference. A lot of DMs play most monsters as adverse to provoking, so Combat Superiority is not that big a deal. Monsters don't try to move away from the Fighter, but they don't try to move away from paladins or barbarians or rogues with Melee Training or anyone else who offers a half-creadible MBA. Other DMs play their monsters more fearlessly, and provoke OAs and mark punishment quite often.

With the former sort of DM, the advantage of Combat Superiority is minimal. With the latter, it's quite real, but then, so is the advantage of the Knight's per turn mark punishment.

And, yes, the Fighter can absolutely pull all kinds of awesome with a well timed, well positioned Come & Get It or other close burst 1 encounter power. That's a well-played Fighter, and, yes, it stacks up quite nicely compared to the Knight.

But, the Knight doesn't need timing or tactics to bring its defender mechanics into play. They're just sitting there, all the time. If the Mage pushes several foes next to him with Beguiling Strands, they're in the aura (and the Mage can do that as often as he likes). If he charges into a group of enemies, their all marked, he doesn't need to have taken Threatening Rush and given up damage to do it.

The lack of persistence of the Knight's 'mark' is a consequence of its ease of use, and is small price to pay, really. The flip side, that any enemy that finds itself adjacent to the Knight for any reason, finds itself 'marked,' immediately, quite makes up for it... /particularly/ for the less experience or more casual player, who doesn't have to keep track of which enemy he marked last round to make sure penalties are counted and punishments doled out.

 

[S'mon]

Essentials PCs seem to start out better than core PCs, at least for the average player, but they don't seem to increase in power as fast. Core Fighters get Rain of Steel at 5th; the Knight or Slayer gets +1 damage.

 

[Argyle King]

I don't think the classes themselves are necessarily better. However, it is my opinion that the new options are better. I don't think anyone can deny that the power level of feats as been ramped up quite a bit. Also, I think some of the newer powers are much better.

A PHB wizard with some of the essentials mage powers can be a little scary.

A monk with staff expertise is pretty nice too. (since most of the monk attacks are both implement attacks and melee)

 

[Obryn]

I don't think the classes themselves are necessarily better. However, it is my opinion that the new options are better. I don't think anyone can deny that the power level of feats as been ramped up quite a bit. Also, I think some of the newer powers are much better.

That's undoubtedly true. I think the designers have done a better job of dialing in the effectiveness of feats, recently.

A PHB wizard with some of the essentials mage powers can be a little scary.

And thank goodness for that! Wizard PHB1 At-Wills compared to most other Controller At-Wills are somewhat lacking in the control department. Thunderwave is still pretty good, as long as you've invested in Wisdom, but the others have fallen behind. (OTOH, PHB1 dailies are among the best in the game, still.)

A monk with staff expertise is pretty nice too. (since most of the monk attacks are both implement attacks and melee)

I don't think this works like you think it does.

"When you make a melee weapon attack with a staff, the weapon’s reach for that attack increases by 1."

Monks' powers are implement, generally with a range of melee touch, and no weapon keyword whatsoever.

-O

 

[kaomera]

Essentials PCs seem to start out better than core PCs, at least for the average player, but they don't seem to increase in power as fast. Core Fighters get Rain of Steel at 5th; the Knight or Slayer gets +1 damage.

Part of this seems to me to be that essentials sub-classes require fewer specific feats for support. Not only do they have more room for fun / fuff choices (IMO), but they don't have a "lag" while you're assembling the needed feats. Unfortunately I think that this, plus flexible stat bonuses, is pretty much stripping away the lure of human PCs, even though Heroic Effort is really nice.

 

[sigfile]

A monk with staff expertise is pretty nice too. (since most of the monk attacks are both implement attacks and melee)

Like Obryn said, monks don't quite work like that.

Hexblades, however...