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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Tony Vargas" data-source="post: 5517078" data-attributes="member: 996">Essentials introduced a surge of power inflation.  The wizard and cleric - and any other classes whose E and E+ sub-classes are highly compatible - rode that wave.  The Fighter didn't (the Rogue was thrown the SA upgrade the Theif got, so snagged a little more).  I've only ever seen the Knight and Slayer in play at low level, and there's not question in my mind that, between the power inflation since MP2, and the dynamics of AEDU vs basic-attack classes at very low level, the Knight and Slayer significantly outperform the Guardian and Greatweapon builds.  (The Knight & Slayer don't get dailies, and don't get encounter resources significantly greater than AEDU classes, they're compensated for their lack of dailies by more powerful at-will resources.  At 1st level, when AEDU classes have only one daily, that compensation is quite adequate.  How the features they gain at higher levels stack up to 3 or 4 dailies, I haven't yet seen.)That in no way calms the misgivings of those who want to see continued choice, complexity and balance in the Martial source, though.  By giving the Knight, Slayer & Thief an extra boost, especially at low levels, the more complex classes are marginalized.  Why would play a 'weaponmaster' (who actually doesn't hit as well with weapons as your Knight or Slayer, whose weapon talents are accross the board) who is more complicated, but not as good, initially, as the simpler builds?  (Fair warning, guys, I'm knowingly moving into tin-foil hat territory, here.  But, remember, just because you're paranoid, doesn't mean no one's out to get you. )So, the Fighter has received virtually no benefit from Essentials, due to the relative incompatibility of the Knight & Slayer, while the Cleric and Wizard have gained a number of new powers.  For the WIS Cleric, warpriest powers open up new melee options, and include many powers, even at wills, with good Effect lines (often comparable to those that existing Cleric at-wills deliver only on a hit).  For the Wizard, the Mage offers a number of new and upgraded powers, including the largest-area at-will attack ever, and upgrades to some (eventually, all, the developers have hinted) encounter attack powers.Going forward from HotFL, the Knight, Slayer & Rogue got a dragon article about using quarterstaffs - not the first choice of weapon for any of them. The Wizard got the Pyromancer.  There's nothing further in the offing for the martial builds.  The Cleric and Wizard get more material coming their way in HoS.While there are reasonable explanations for all of this:  The only intent was to create tiers of more and less complex classes.  That all the less-complex classes happened to be martial is a 'coincidence' or to match player expectations based on classic D&D.  Of course new material isn't going to be added to the simpler classes - that would defeat their purpose.  The Wizard has a wealth of only partially tapped old ideas in the form of schools, so of course, they're going to expand upon them.   There are also some much less reasonable explanations like 'the wizard was underpowered.'  Yeah, right.  But reasonable rationalizations of the designers' motives don't help if the results are still the same.What would quell these misgivings?(OK, tinfoil hats off...)I'm not sure, but, for me, I'd feel more confident about the 'new direction' if...- Simplistic sub-classes begin apearing for other sources, not just martial.  As it stands, new players 'learn' that martial classes are simple weapon-swingers, and that casters are complex and interesting.  That's not true of the broader game, so (best case) they'll have to un-learn it at some point.  (Worse case it will become true of the broader game)- Simplistic sub-classes receive zero support going forward (because more options would defeat the purpose, afterall)- But, simplistic classes also recieve the needed mechanics for an 'upgrade path.'  So that when players become bored with the limited options of their Theif or Knight or whatever, they can seamlessly translate it to the more option-rich parent class, either piecemeal or through a straightforward conversion process.- The fighter and rogue are updated into line with the power inflation that occurred in essentials.  (So, rogue and fighter weapon talents expanded; fighter mark-punishment becoming per-turn)- Greater emphasis on maintaining class balance for the whole game, and DM cautions about mixing simple and complex classes in ongoing campaigns.While that would help, it's still not ideal.  Ideal would have been never abandoning the class-balance of the AEDU structure in the first place, and not trying to reverse the parity among sources - both of which 4e delivered for the first time in the game's history.A non-narrative frequency could make it easier to balance different levels of resources, by being more consistent and predictable.  But, what would such a system be?  And how could it be done without making it even more gamist and less simulationist and more 'video gamey?'  In any case, 4e does not use such a sytem, so encounter powers vary in relative effectiveness to at-will powers depending upon how long encounters tend to be, and daily powers vary relative to at-will/encounter powers based on how many encounters there tend to be in a day.  So, no, they quite litterally /can't/ be perfectly balanced.  They can't even be as balanced as all-AEDU classes are.  Why anyone would argue the point is beyond me:  every previous incarnation of the game clearly demonstrated the lack of balance inherent in giving some classes unlimitted-use abilities and other limitted-use ones compensated with greater power.  Anyone clamoring to go back to that clearly doesn't want class balance.  Whether they're willing to sacrific it to get some retro-feel or class differentiation or 'realism'/verismilitude, or whether they just hate balance on the face  of it, because they want the opportunity to puzzle out the most overpowered character possible, I can't say.  I just can't agree with giving class balance a low priority in a game like this.</blockquote>

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