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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Kinneus" data-source="post: 5627505" data-attributes="member: 48215">Yeah, I don't know how I feel about it. I love the Swordmage, and I just really like the flavor of an arcane guy with a sword, so that alone tempts me into taking this class. A couple things are holding me back, though. Those melee basic-augmenting At-Wills are cool, and very controllery. Some, though, are -clearly- more powerful than the others (why on earth would you slow somebody when you could just as easily immobilize them?). This led me to the conclusion, on my first lazy read-through, that a Bladesinger got access to all of them. Now -that- would be interesting, and that would be new and bold design. It might even be worth giving up Dailies for. What it lacks in sheer, beat-you-over-the-head controlling power it makes up for with versatility! I don't know why I thought the Bladesinger got access to every At-Will, but I have to say, I like my misreading better than reality. Poaching Wizard Encounters is all well and good, but I really can't expect them to work as Dailies without some sort of compensation. I also can't help but feel like losing access to Dailies really cuts pretty deep into the controller role. When I think about controllers "doing what they do best," I think of damaging zones to break up enemy formations, conjurations and summons to block terrain, walls to change the battlefield, and powerful status effects like save-ends stun. Bladesinger can do exactly none of these, except for possibly an "end of next turn" version of the zones. Encounters-as-Dailies doesn't quite cut it. Now, if it was just plain Wizard Encounters, then we might be in business. Dailies are the part of AEDU design I'm least attached to, so I really don't understand why WOTC seems so dead-set on taking away my precious Encounter powers with every new class! Serious question: have there been any Essentials-style classes that have no Dailies, but At-Wills and Encounters, with some measure of choice to the Encounters (so no, the Slayer's Power Strike doesn't count)? I ask because this is a sort of class I'd honestly be interested in playing. My point is that the class right now feels like it's missing something. I'd prefer:1) It gets access to all those pretty At-Wills, so it can use the perfect one in the perfect situation. This would be the main feature of the class, a huge and interesting break from current design, and really give it some "controller" street cred.2) It should use Wizard Encounters as Wizard Encounters, and just plain not get Dailies. I'm not sure if this is a good change, but it's frankly the sort of class I'd like to play.3) The designers need to get off their butts and give the class its own, actual, Daily-level Dailies. Sorry for being so cynical, but I can't get over how easy this class was to design. Just poop out a bunch of controllery At-Wills, add an Encounter power that has nothing to do with the class role, and say "use Wizard Encounters as Dailies and poach Wizard utilities," and done. Instant class! Pretty sure I could write something like that over my lunchbreak. The way those At-Wills are deployed is new and exciting, but I simply remain unconvinced that Encounters-as-Dailies is going to cut it, especially when it's role is supposed to be Controller, all about reshaping the battlefield. Honestly, what good is a slide 3 if you don't have a Fire Wall or damaging zone to slide him into? Or some way of easily applying Slow without the use of an Action Point? (I know I'm going to get a billion anecdotal examples of the time you used a slide 3 to throw Orcus off a mountain, or whatever, but you can't always depend on the battlefield terrain working to your advantage or on your allies having Agile Opportunist. My point is Bladeslingers have no way of capitalizing on a slide 3 themselves, short of putting an enemy into flanking). So, I might give this class a try. It's probably the first Essentials-style class I'm actually interested in. Access to Wizard utilities might be its saving grace, but... anybody can get that with an Order Adept theme. So I dunno. Everybody says that Essentials design is "pushing the boundaries," breaking the game down and building it back up again, trying new and exciting things... but I just don't see that. Every Essentials class I've ever looked at in-depth (with the exception of the Warpriest, Sentinel and the Mage, since they can poach older powers) seems to be about restricting options. Taking away either At-Wills, Encounters, and Dailies, giving fewer (or no) options when you level up, restricting the sort of powers you have to choose from. To use an earlier analogy, Essentials doesn't feel like WotC letting us grow up and make mistakes. That's what O4e feels like, to me at least. Essentials feels more like that leash you see toddlers wearing at the mall.</blockquote>

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