Best of the Best - Tactical Warlord.

[DracoSuave]

Tiefling, because Fey Step, while useful, isn't as useful to a melee frontliner as the tiefling's upside in Bloodhunt, and their ability to hit back harder and debuff the opponent with Combat Advantage at the same time. Tieflings can make up for their lack of Strength by using their feats and fiery weapons to have the same damage output as with, and as well, should you decide you want the flexibility of a Charisma power, you're also boosting the other class secondary.

Warlords -do- need some melee to work well in battle, even Tactical ones, unless you don't want to do something other than Inspiring Word, an Action Point spent here and there, and Commander's Strike. Tiefling will help you out should you decide you want to use an Encounter or Daily power now and then.

And you're still good with the rest of it.

 

[Mengu]

Tiefling, because Fey Step, while useful, isn't as useful to a melee frontliner as the tiefling's upside in Bloodhunt, and their ability to hit back harder and debuff the opponent with Combat Advantage at the same time.

I know some melee characters who would give up that extra point of attack bonus to be able to teleport when they are grabbed, immobilized or restrained. Fey step is very useful for a melee character. It gets you where you need to be, and for an immobilized warlord that might be the difference between doing almost nothing, and buffing the whole party.

Tieflings can make up for their lack of Strength by using their feats and fiery weapons to have the same damage output as with, and as well, should you decide you want the flexibility of a Charisma power, you're also boosting the other class secondary.

Can't argue with this. But if I was going to play a Tiefling Warlord, I think I would want to be resourceful, with 16's across the board for lots of solid options and great defenses.

 

[tiornys]

Tiefling, because Fey Step, while useful, isn't as useful to a melee frontliner as the tiefling's upside in Bloodhunt, and their ability to hit back harder and debuff the opponent with Combat Advantage at the same time. Tieflings can make up for their lack of Strength by using their feats and fiery weapons to have the same damage output as with, and as well, should you decide you want the flexibility of a Charisma power, you're also boosting the other class secondary.

Warlords -do- need some melee to work well in battle, even Tactical ones, unless you don't want to do something other than Inspiring Word, an Action Point spent here and there, and Commander's Strike. Tiefling will help you out should you decide you want to use an Encounter or Daily power now and then.

And you're still good with the rest of it.

That's some solid reasoning, but I think Eladrin get better support feats. Eladrin Soldier is competitive with Hellfire Blood, Tactical Inspiration is at least as good as Unbalancing Wrath, and Fey Tactics is both excellent and lacks competition. Plus, the racial feats available through multiclassing are more synergistic for Eladrin. Furthermore, Dex is arguably more important than Cha to a TacLord since you can have all of your Warlord powers key off of Int with minimal power loss, while Dex helps you qualify for Heavy Blade or Spear feats (spending 3 stat points in Dex at creation gets you Heavy Blade Mastery at Epic, which is the easiest and likely best mastery for a TacLord to access). Dex also boosts your initiative, which is much more important for an offense-minded leader than it is for a more reactive leader like a Cleric.

t~

 

[DracoSuave]

Weapon Mastery feats on a character with suboptimal strength?


You're kidding right?

 

[tiornys]

Weapon Mastery feats on a character with suboptimal strength?


You're kidding right?

I'm not advocating the 16 Str at paragon build that someone talked about earlier. Go 16-16 pre-racial in Str and Int, pump both at every level, and you'll hit the 21 Str by Epic (should be 22 without a Demigod-style pump).

t~

 

[DracoSuave]

Yeah, but is Mastery a great enough benefit to deny yourself other more accurate possibilities?

I'm just saying that being at a penalty to attack for 20 levels just to break even at 21 isn't necessarily a compelling reason. A good optimized character build should get good after a minimum of levels. You should see a compelling case for it before paragon.

And your 'offense' as a TacLord is:

Tactical Presence. Passive. Initiative is irrelevant.
Commander's Strike. Requires another player to go first. Initiative is counter-productive.
Inspiring Word. Reactive. You're using this before the monsters?

Initiative isn't -that- important for a Warlord. You want to go after the monsters for the most part. It's not often you want to go first. That first round isn't a lot of upside.

Tieflings tho make up for their lack of strength with:

Rebuke: More accuracy and damage.
Bloodhunt: More accuracy and therefore damage.
Fiery Weapon: More accuracy and damage.

If the Taclord is an offensive leader, then isn't Moar Offense better?

And yeah, Tieflings make better Resourceful Warlords than they do Tactical. But they make better Tactical than most other choices, of which Eladrin is included.

 

[Kzach]

Genasi are not iconic to 4e, dammit! They're Forgotten Realms! The Warforged is Eberron!

Christ, next people will be wanting the Thri-kreen as an option for the ranger poll 'cause the preview has them Strength and Dexterity bonuses!

Enough!

*grumble*grumble*grumble*

 

[Tony Vargas]

I have to agree with Kzach on not including the Gensai. They're FR. This survey is to determine an iconic party makeup. FR isn't iconic, it's FR.

Eladrin may not get the STR bonus, but INT is tremendously valuable for the taclord, and one can manage quite a bit with merely-adequate STR. That still won't give them anything on the Teifling or any +STR race, by itself, but the feat and PP support they get is just obscene. It's almost like someone was paying favorites with the race just because they were trademarkable....

...nah...

 

[Mr. Wilson]

Well, Genasi are the obvious choice for stats, but it's not an option.

I voted for Eladrin, but I usually play human tactlords. Go figure.

 

[drothgery]

Genasi are not iconic to 4e, dammit! They're Forgotten Realms! The Warforged is Eberron!

Christ, next people will be wanting the Thri-kreen as an option for the ranger poll 'cause the preview has them Strength and Dexterity bonuses!

WotC seems to disagree; they seem to treat races and classes from *setting* Player's Guides as first-class citizens going forward. So there are Drow, Changeling, Genasi, Kalashtar, and Warforged racial feats in Divine Power. There are options for Swordmages in Arcane Power, and both Drow and Genasi-specific feats. There are Drow and Genasi-specific feats in Martial Power.