Essential Mage: The return of schools

[Budalic]

Psions are a badly designed class built around two level 1 at wills.

I agree with everything you said, but the fact that two Psion's level 1 at-will are effective cannot be denied, even if it is the worst kind of yawn-tactic in 4e (worse than even Twin-strike spamming - ranger is another badly designed but effective class).

 

[Aegeri]

I agree with everything you said, but the fact that two Psion's level 1 at-will are effective cannot be denied, even if it is the worst kind of yawn-tactic in 4e (worse than even Twin-strike spamming - ranger is another badly designed but effective class).

Admittedly, Psions are actually extremely poor controllers until they CAN spam those two at-wills. Until then they are shockingly bad, then once they get the PP to turn the augment 2s into at-wills they are supremely effective.

 

[Budalic]

Um, sorry for quote war, everyone.

Salutation stuns on a hit or a miss. In fact you deliberately miss with destructive salutation, because you can lock down every single creature in the game - even the most powerful solos like Lolth for three turns guaranteed. You don't want to hit with it and many good powers that aren't actually vs. will also.

It's a single daily power. There are even better ones in wizards power list. Rolling twice vs. will is better, because it applies to all your powers. Of course, YMMV.

Um, no. No they aren't. Bloodpulse used to be infinitely better, before they errata'ed it and you can still cut yourself to do considerably more damage with your spells. Chain lightning + cutting yourself + bloodmage can be a devastating combination.

Wizard's wrath (Or whatever the twice MM/round power was called) + Magic Missile was also good, but it has been nerfed (or as you say erratae'd). I think that Academy Master still has better damage, but you may be right here. Bloodmages may be better for damage. I will have to compare it.

Fighters are also equally amazing. On the other hand there are many classes with hordes of absolutely terrible PPs and very little good ones. As I pointed out, none of the PPs I mentioned are bad and all are good for Wizards. It's a bigger list than "Just Bloodmage" you realize.

Yes, but the fact that almost all PHB Fighter paths are cool should be guiding principle for future paths. We want more Pit Fighters and Kensai for all classes, and less Wizards of Spiral tower, Life Stealers or similar.

 

[Aegeri]

It's a single daily power. There are even better ones in wizards power list. Rolling twice vs. will is better, because it applies to all your powers. Of course, YMMV.

It's a single daily power that you can turn into an encounter with archmage, or just use 3 times per day. That's one of the single best controller powers in 4E, which oddly enough as I said you want to miss with.

What's better, rolling twice vs. Will or a 3 turn (Destructive Salutation x 3 epic missing deliberately every attack) guaranteed stun that very few solos in the game can do jack about by RAW? How long with absolute freedom to do whatever they want do you think it takes an epic tier party to dismantle any epic solo? I can tell you now it's not going to be 3 turns. Damage doesn't make you a controller, making sure things don't do anything makes you a controller and destructive salutation is supreme on the roost at that.

Wizard's wrath (Or whatever the twice MM/round power was called) + Magic Missile was also good

It was never that good and I've forever disagreed with anyone who claimed that. I had a PC who used it in one of my epic games and it never did anything important when it actually mattered. Partly because he spends a lot of his time, dazed, prone or needing his minor actions for something. That power very rarely did anything spectacular at all.

Also it's called Wizard's Fury and Magic Missile has always been terrible outside a few niche builds.

Yes, but the fact that almost all PHB Fighter paths are cool should be guiding principle for future paths. We want more Pit Fighters and Kensai for all classes, and less Wizards of Spiral tower, Life Stealers or similar.

This is completely irrelevant to the fact Wizards have a massive horde of good PPs to pick from.

 

[DracoSuave]

Admittedly, Psions are actually extremely poor controllers until they CAN spam those two at-wills. Until then they are shockingly bad, then once they get the PP to turn the augment 2s into at-wills they are supremely effective.

Any controller class with an encounter power: Free Action, invalidate a melee attack, potentially twice per day, is not necessarily a terrible controller.

 

[Aegeri]

Any controller class with an encounter power: Free Action, invalidate a melee attack, potentially twice per day, is not necessarily a terrible controller.

Psions are not really great, I've had one in most of heroic before and until they can spam mind thrust or dishearten (or just both in certain circumstances) the psion is not a great class. Once they can spam either mind thrust or dishearten every encounter that's pretty much the end of anything ever challenging the party again though - especially solos and elites.

Edit: I'd like to point out, just for amusement that this statement is ironic given Dishearten stops every attack, every encounter of every day. A -7 (or higher) penalty to hit is crippling for nearly every monster in 4th edition, can be done every round and done EVERY encounter. In an area burst 1 to boot. Why would you care if you can invalidate a melee attack twice an encounter, when you're doing it every round every encounter? Noting that, before you can do this at will it's not that great. Creatures can delay to get around the penalty, you can't always wait to catch them all off guard (because you can't use the augment 2 effectively at-will) and such forth. It's once you can use these for all 5 or so rounds of your average combat that they truly enter "ridiculous" territory.

Edit2: I think people are going to find when Mind Thrust and Dishearten are fixed that the Psion is going to be left wondering what to do.

 

[Budalic]

This is completely irrelevant to the fact Wizards have a massive horde of good PPs to pick from.

Massive horde consisting of Bloodmage and Phiarlan Phanatasmist. Academy master is any arcane class, ditto Master of flame; Divine oracle and Life singer are from other classes; Planeshifter is solid, but nothing spectacular, Arcane wayfayer is quite good, but doesn't sinergise well with any build; Bonded Summoner and Rimetongue Caller are nice, but only for summoners, and could be better - summoners will take them because they are synergistic with, well, summons, and not because they are at level of Bloodmage, or Divine Oracle.

EDIT: And Fighters are relevant because three of four Fighter paths in PHB were very good, and still are, and very well matched with each other. On the other hand, they did get a lot of worse paths afterwards ... Perhaps Wizards think Kensei and Swordmaster are too powerfull?

 

[Victim]

Massive horde consisting of Bloodmage and Phiarlan Phanatasmist. Academy master is any arcane class, ditto Master of flame; Divine oracle and Life singer are from other classes; Planeshifter is solid, but nothing spectacular, Arcane wayfayer is quite good, but doesn't sinergise well with any build; Bonded Summoner and Rimetongue Caller are nice, but only for summoners, and could be better - summoners will take them because they are synergistic with, well, summons, and not because they are at level of Bloodmage, or Divine Oracle.

EDIT: And Fighters are relevant because three of four Fighter paths in PHB were very good, and still are, and very well matched with each other. On the other hand, they did get a lot of worse paths afterwards ... Perhaps Wizards think Kensei and Swordmaster are too powerfull?

Spellstorm Mage is also pretty sweet too. The encounter power seems much better than the new blood pulse, especially since you can expand it normally with Resounding Thunder. Plus there's power recovery and a big selective daily, the AP feature is tasty (much better than bloodmage).

It definitely seems like PPs, as a general rule, have stepped back in general power from the PHB 1 picks. All of the PHB fighter ones are at least decent, with Pit Fighter and Kensai being really good and Iron Vanguard being very powerful situationally. Champion of Order can be nuts. Daggermaster. Etc.

PP selection may have been intended to be a somewhat less important part of the character. Also, most of the newer PPs generally aren't good enough to attract people from other classes. Which is probably part of the point.