Class power level vs. tactical mastery

[Mercurius]

This has probably been discussed many times before, but I am trying to ascertain whether 4E classes have distinct "tiers" in terms of how powerful they are. On one hand I have noticed that, as with 3E (but not as much earlier editions), the tactical nature of the game rewards strategy and clever play. A former member of our gaming group who was only with us for a few sessions (had to leave due to real life circumstances) played a cleric and was simply awesome; he was much more experienced as a player than the other people in the group, and knew how to maximize the leadership powers - helping everyone with defense and attacks, and doing a fair amount of damage himself.

Right now we have an eladrin swordmage, a human rogue, a dwarf fighter; the human warlock and half-elf wizard were both killed in Tomb of Horrors (4E version) and are being replaced by a blue orc artificer (a unique race to my setting) and a human invoker. The swordmage and the rogue have been far and away the most powerful of the group; I am having a hard time differentiating what is tactical skill on the player's part and what is a possible imbalance in terms of class power level. My sense is that it is more the former but that there may be some of the latter as well, especially with regards to the swordmage.

Any thoughts on this? As a general comment, one thing I've enjoyed about 4E is that it seems the onus of character power is less on system mastery - how well you can tweak the rules to maximize your character - and more on tactical mastery - how well you can utilize the powers your character has. Is this the experience of others as well?

 

[DEFCON 1]

Just like poker... the more skill and knowledge you have in the game you are playing means the more successful over the long-term you are going to be.

Since how well you do is all based upon random dice rolls... the better you are at getting and giving modifiers to make your attacks and defenses better, the more success you will have. This means being really good at gaining combat advantage, saving encounter or daily powers until you've received bonuses to hit from other players, remembering you have the Action Surge feat, and most importantly talking with your fellow players to know when they intend on using some of their bigger powers, and then doing your best to give them the bonuses at your disposal to make their chances of success go up.

The more each player plays his character in a vacuum and doesn't pay attention to what is going on with the group... then just chooses a power to use at random from his sheet... the less success he/she will have over the long-term.

In my campaign even after two years of playing, I still have players who will try and use a daily power first, then play their action point to take an at-will...despite having a tactical warlord there giving bonuses to hit on attacks made via action point. I keep having to remind them "Why not use the action point for the daily power, so you gain the +4 to hit because of the warlord... or even better, hold your action until the person after you can get into flanking first, thereby giving you now a +6 to hit on that daily."

This kind of forward, overtly-tactical game thinking only seems to be present with certain types of players regardless of the amount of time spent playing the game... but it most definitely is the biggest contributing factor in character success over the long-term.

 

[Mercurius]

Yes, agreed, thanks for that. But what about the other question? Are certain classes objectively "more powerful" than others? I suppose by "powerful" I am specifically talking about combat - the ability to dole out damage and resist it. I am not talking about the "power of insight and perception," or how good one is at Arcana checks.

 

[Mad Hamish]

It depends.
Strikers do more damage to single targets
Defenders generally do better at absorbing damage

Leaders do the least direct damage, Controllers can be highly variable depending on what you're doing and encounters.

As a general rule a well built ranger will do the most damage (there are probably some extremely optimised builds in other classes that might do more), some warlock builds are probably the least damaging strikers.

Fighters probably do the most damage of the defenders
Wizard have completely encounter changing daily powers but (depending what sources you let into the game) their encounter and at will powers aren't as good as some of the other controllers (apparently the Seeker is pretty bad so far)

Clerics do the most healing of any leader but other leaders can provide more in the way of buffs and debuffs.

 

[Lord Ernie]

There definitely is a power curve among classes. A recent thread in the WotC Charop forums was all about covering the 'best class for each role'. While there were varying agreements and disagreements, there seemed to be a consensus on this short-list:

Best Striker: Ranger
Worst Striker: D&Di Assassin (not the Essentials one)

Best Controller: Wizard, with Invoker close-by
Worst Controller: Seeker

Best Defender: Fighter
Worst Defender: Non-Shielding Swordmage

Best Leader: Warlord
Worst Leader: Ardent or Runepriest
with the caveat that the difference between leaders is not nearly as noticeable as other classes; in other words, while there is a 'worst' leader (mostly because of feat support), there is no 'bad' leader.

Some posts in that thread detail more extensive lists with an explanation, but that's the gist of it. Note that Essential classes and the additions they make to some of the existing ones are not a part of this list.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Mechanically, I'd say there's not much in it. (Nothing by 3e standards). That said, some classes are a lot harder to play well than others.

At the top of the DPR heap is the ranger. At the top of the defender's pile is the Fighter (serious damage, toughness, and support) - with dwarf fighters being probably the very top there.

Warlocks are notoriously hard to use well. They aren't especially lacking in power. But because it's a lot of effects work and some tricky class features, they often find themselves near the bottom of the pile. Wizards are getting stronger - but were near the bottom of the pile and are in the hard to use category.

Still, in 4e, tactical ability >> build at least below paragon. (And there are some good point and click builds).

 

[Joshua Randall]

Off the top of my head I'd categorize 4e classes into three broad cateogies: good, average, and bad.

Non-exhaustive lists...

Good: ranger, rogue, fighter, warlord, wizard, maybe invoker, shielding swordmage

Bad: pre-Essentials assassin, seeker, non-shielding swordmage, poorly built warlock, monk

Average: everything else, more or less

Avoding a "bad" class is far more important than actively choosing a "good" class.

Also, "bad" classes can become average or even good with additional support. The wizard and paladin are notable for taking this path.

 

[Herschel]

The more each player plays his character in a vacuum and doesn't pay attention to what is going on with the group... then just chooses a power to use at random from his sheet... the less success he/she will have over the long-term.

This, and it's something Mad Hamish, Lord Ernie and Joshua Randall (and char-op people everywhere) seem to be missing. I've played an Assault Swordmage for 15 levels and have a throwing seeker and they do their jobs very well. It's in how you play them WITH the rest of the party, and some work better than others in certian parties.

The Assault Swordmage works just fine if you don't have a party of glass cannons. If you want WoW, play WoW and don't expect your defender to take all the damage. Everyone needs to take damage otherwise you are wasting resources. For example, Warlocks can be built to WANT to be hit and an Assault Swordmage can make a baddie's life a tag-teamed abyss.

The Seeker is the throwing version and he's very accurate, can step in to melee to take some heat off the defender and other melee combatants, and make the defender very wicked. And if two baddies end up adjacent to eachother, there's a solid chance each will be hit and end up dazed at first level. The defender doesn't have to try and lock down the entire battlefield.

Each class/build also has secondary roles. You can play these up or down. I have a 10th level Thaneborn Barbarian with a Warlord multiclass (16 INT)to be the social leader of the party when the battle leader is a shaman.

He's not a char-op character, he's a party-optimized character that still dishes out the damage. When you think outside the box and in terms of the party at-hand, characters just work better. When your thinking is inside the box, then certain classes will appear better because of a limited field.

 

[Otterscrubber]

Yes, agreed, thanks for that. But what about the other question? Are certain classes objectively "more powerful" than others? I suppose by "powerful" I am specifically talking about combat - the ability to dole out damage and resist it. I am not talking about the "power of insight and perception," or how good one is at Arcana checks.

Barbarians and their highly effective dailies seemed to stand out to me. Also, Sorcerers had pretty insane abilities to both deal damage and to take/avoid damage, especially at higher levels. I don't know if I'd go so far as to say they are broken, but they are definitely more effective at their roles than some other classes, like Paladin and vanilla PHB wizards, that I think were just designed poorly from the get go.

In combat though, someone is only as good as their group. I think 4e was designed around a well balanced group, striker, leader and defender a must, with controllers being effective force multipliers if they are designed right. We did experiment with a striker heavy group without a controller once, it was fun, but things got ugly in a hurry without a leader. Some striker classes can certainly drop enemies in a hurry, but if they don't have someone to keep them from getting hit or to patch them up when they get hit they will have a hard time dishing out the hurt from negative hit points.

Don't discount fighters though, with the right build they will dish out significant damage in addition to helping keep the rest of the group safe. Maybe not as much as a dedicated striker, but the fighter in our group has surprised us with his ability to get several swings in a turn and to also throw in some controller effects as well. Fighters rock.

 

[Jhaelen]

It's very hard to measure 'power'. Reducing it to dishing out damage might work to compare strikers but not much else.

Best Leader: Warlord
Worst Leader: Ardent or Runepriest
with the caveat that the difference between leaders is not nearly as noticeable as other classes; in other words, while there is a 'worst' leader (mostly because of feat support), there is no 'bad' leader.

I think this caveat actually applies to every role/class. I have yet to see a class I'd consider bad. While there can be a noticable difference in effectiveness between two particular classes (or rather builds), the difference is never so pronounced that I would recommend avoiding the less effective class.

The only way to end up with an ineffective pc is to make a string of bad decisions when creating it. I've only seen this happen once and it was easily fixed by switching two powers and giving the player some tactical advice.