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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Psikus" data-source="post: 5646381" data-attributes="member: 66049">It does play out a lot like a striker - arguably better than a warlock (who is, in time, a better controller most of the time). But that's mostly a matter of labels.   The interesting question is: is it any good at whatever it does? What about fun?I'm about to start DMing a paragon game with a Bladesinger, and have been helping out my player in building his character (without access to the actual neverwinter book, mind you - we just found enough material to get going between the preview and the spoilers). Obviously this is not much of a playing experience, but I can talk about my impressions so far.The most important feature of the class is Bladesong, so let's start with that one. I think you make a relevant mistake in evaluating this power:The thing to keep in mind with Bladesong is that you'll be getting one hell of a round, with boosts to all your relevant stats, plus a myriad of random extra effects thrown in there. More importantly, it actually lasts for two of the bladesinger's turns, meaning that it will be in effect for at least two of his attacks, and often a lot more than that - after all, you'll want to throw in as many action points and daily attacks as you can afford for the encounter. You can get a lot of mileage out of the accuracy and hit bonuses, that way. For this reason, it's more accurate to think of Bladesong as equivalent to two encounter attacks, rather than one.Also, about the dailies. A wizard encounter may make for a crappy daily (though I'd say it can easily beat many mediocre dailies from other classes!), but once you throw in a free basic attack (or rather, a minor attack), it becomes a pretty decent deal. Granted, you'll be missing out on encounter-long effects, but for that one turn, you can add up quite a bit of damage - and with an extra bladespell on top of that, also a decent amount of control. I think it helps if you see these powers as wizard attacks used as minor actions (which is a decent enough approximation), to give you an idea of their true power. Not that I wouldn't take a regular wizard daily over these any day of the week, but wizard dailies are the very best of the game, and bladesingers get a ton of cool features over regular wizards.Oddly enough, I think these encounters-as-dailies are what provide the much-needed extra power at later levels. Heroic wizard encounters are strong, but at paragon and epic they get downright impressive, with straight stuns, area control, and straightforward damaging attacks that can easily target the whole enemy team.Also, your choice of paragon paths can help you a lot, here. You mention that wizards get up to four encounter attacks, but one of those comes from the paragon path, and nothing prevents a bladesinger from getting it - a real wizard-like encounter attack as an encounter! I admit I haven't read the full description of the default bladesinger PP, but borrowing from wizards looks like a very strong option. On the other hand, not all of the wizard paths are all that fitting for bladesingers, even if they can be taken - there are a lot of features referring to the use of wizard or arcane attacks, or burts and blasts, which the bladesinger rarely uses.</blockquote>

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