Feats & Fighters

[Aegeri]

You can use Power Strike to boost the damage and add the Specialization rider on not only at-wills (which is all the Knight and Slayer can usually do), but also on Encounter and Daily powers.

You can only use it on MBAs actually (the trigger specifies melee basic attacks) making its utility for fighters pretty much useless. Unless you're doing some kind of charge build actually, then it might be useful but I suspect there are better powers anyway.

To be honest I can't see a Fighter/Rogue really wanting Powerstrike or Backstab in the first place. In this situation, the Knight/Slayer/Thief get a lot more out of these feats than their original classes do. A slayer getting rain of blows is getting a much better deal than a Fighter taking powerstrike.

 

[Klaus]

You're right on Power Strike (just went and re-read it). It does seem the PH classes have the least to gain from taking Essentials features. Essentials characters gain more versatility, otoh.

 

[Tony Vargas]

The Knight however is immensely vulnerable to a simple 1 square push.

We've had this discussion. You greatly value the durrability of the -2 of a mark compared to the defender's aura; I put greater value on the threat of mark punishment and ease of establishing a mark-equivalent, even when it's not your turn.

What you characterize as a 'vulnerability' to forced movement is a consequence of the Knight being on 'easy mode' (having the aura with no need of ever declaring a mark or deciding who to mark or track who has been marked); there is a symetrical consideration, though, in that allies can use forced movement to put enemies next to the Knight, as well. That's not a good balance, because either the Knight has a party with lots of forced movement or he doesn't, while the monster he faces will vary (soe with, some without).

The advantage of mark punishment as an OA vs an Immediate action is over and above that rough balance. It's also over and above the more potent MBAs and class features gained at higher levels instead of dailies. Like the Theif's 1/turn SA, it's just a flat-out improvement.

 

[Tony Vargas]

You're right on Power Strike (just went and re-read it). It does seem the PH classes have the least to gain from taking Essentials features. Essentials characters gain more versatility, otoh.

And, the Essentials characters pay one feat for the privilege, while the PH classes need two (yeah, I'm including Melee Training for the Rogue) or even three (not that anyone would ever take the School or Domain feats).

Greater benefit, lower cost.

 

[Aegeri]

We've had this discussion. You greatly value the durrability of the -2 of a mark compared to the defender's aura; I put greater value on the threat of mark punishment and ease of establishing a mark-equivalent, even when it's not your turn.

This is not valuable when it never happens.

In what DnD I have played with a Knight, I have yet to have the Knights mark be enforced more than a handful of times. It is really easy to negate or ignore a Knight entirely. That's the point here and what you refuse to acknowledge. At the same time, a mark penalty sticks around. It's there all the time. Your only ability to get rid of that -2 penalty, which later increases to -3 btw for many defenders is to knock the fighter unconscious.

Knocking a high HP, high surge and high defense character unconscious.

A 1 square push.

What would I rather?

there is a symetrical consideration, though, in that allies can use forced movement to put enemies next to the Knight, as well.

Yes, the wizard who is now unconscious because every enemy decided that attacking him without a -2 penalty of any sort was the much better idea

The advantage of mark punishment as an OA vs an Immediate action is over and above that rough balance.

If you can ever enforce it: Which the knight very often simply won't be able to do. I honestly wonder if you've played with a Knight - especially at paragon tier - that lacks Dwarf, Defend the Line and World Serpents Grasp. To say this is arguably one of the most frustrating things to do as a defender in 4E is an understatement. Skirmishers will mock you, controllers will trivially depants any ability you have to mark anything all combat and brutes/soldiers simply walk away because they don't care about you. You can go on about the parties "Forced movement" if you like, but it's rather a moot point when they're all dead because the monsters simply outright ignore the knight. A fighter is very hard to ignore: You can NEVER EVER provoke an OA from a fighter and you *must* shift or risk losing your entire movement.

I am quite serious when I say the only effective Knight I have ever played or seen played is a Dwarf, Defend the Line, World Serpents Grasp and multiclass Cleric -> Warpriest (or similar, "Get a real mark" equivalent). Anyone who makes a Knight into paragon tier without a real mark PP (Like Warpriest) will suffer immensely as a defender. At the same time, a Fighter can do this as well and be much more effective than the Knight in the first place. Warpriest at level 16 will give the fighter the ability to both combat challenge AND opportunity attack a shifting enemy.

Can you tell me what happens to the fighter then Tony? I'll give you a big hint: They stop movement on OAs with a huge accuracy boost. Warpriest gives an OA on shifting. The fighter becomes a terrible black hole that is almost impossible to ever leave. Plus is usually packing a -3 mark penalty that lasts all combat. Albeit the Knight can equally take this, but the difference here is that the Knight doesn't get the ridiculous bonus to OAs that the fighter does. Also in fairness, the aura does become a neat secondary mechanic now that you have a "real" mark that can actually do the job you're required to do. You can keep important things marked for the encounter, but just passively mark other creatures that aren't so important (or that you don't want to consistently draw attention from).

Of course in saying this, Knights can now invest a feat to get things like come and get it (even in its current state) - vastly reducing their weaknesses. Powers like that will really help them out and are more than worth a power strike (actually it's unarguably one of the most uneven trades in 4E).

Edit:

You don't lose two features, you just lose Healer's Lore. And the domain features are nothing to sneeze at. For example, Earth Domain gives you and each ally within 5 squares a +2 power bonus to saves versus ongoing damage, and your healing word target takes half damage from the next attack that hits it before the end of your next turn.

You know, on thinking about it this is actually almost a stealth buff to the strength cleric. You can dump healer's lore to make sure you're not so MAD and take a Warpriest domain - probably getting a bigger benefit than if you tried to take too many stats (the usual strength cleric issue). This actually isn't a bad trade after-all, especially if you have a channel divinity power other than turn undead that doesn't rely on needing an implement (or wisdom).

 

[Tony Vargas]

Aegeri: I get that you don't like the Knight, but you're really wildly exagerating the one minor advantage the fighter mark has over the Knight's aura. That -2 is nice, but it makes a difference one time in 10. It's just not that huge. It will not result in a TPK before the Mage Beguiling Strands the entire encounter's worth of monsters adjacent to the Knight.

 

[Aegeri]

Aegeri: I get that you don't like the Knight, but you're really wildly exagerating the one minor advantage the fighter mark has over the Knight's aura.

It's really not an exaggeration. The amount of times I've seen marks been the difference between a character being knocked unconscious and getting a full turn of actions is innumerable to count. I've run over 8 games of DnD and I've never once seen marks never contribute to a combat. Also you again ignore the point that mark penalties will increase to -3 when most defenders take the relevant feats. So marks improve, while the Knight just gets worse as monsters increasingly get better powers.

I've played numerous encounters now with a knight and seen them fail to contribute a single thing (protecting the party wise that is) multiple times.

It will not result in a TPK before the Mage Beguiling Strands the entire encounter's worth of monsters adjacent to the Knight.

The problem is due to the Knights inability to hold those creatures attention, the wizard is already unconscious and won't be beguiling stranding anything. Followed shortly by the leader once the monsters decide to mob him next. That's uh, kind of the Knights problem when he can be disengaged extremely easily. Unless we talk about a completely character optimized knight (Dwarf, Defend the Line - which really is an absolute must have stance - and worlds serpents grasp).

Incidentally, the knights immense vulnerability to forced movement DID get a party TPKed actually. The Knights complete inability to handle a blizzard dragons aura got the party wiped in the capstone encounter of my IRL game Marauders of the Elemental Chaos. The encounter features all three young elemental dragons from MM3. It's arguably one of the most brutal encounters I've actually made, but the actual party survived it after taking heavy damage (they had a PHB fighter for their defender). We had a discussion - much like the one I am having right now with you - about the Knight. So we manned up, made a knight and subbed him for the fighter.

Surely if you're right the Knight won't be a disaster? Bear in mind the knight wasn't a dwarf with the stuff I keep mentioning. I suspect it wouldn't have been anywhere near this sadistic if I had optimized it in the fashion I mentioned, but whatever.

For pretty much the reasons I already told you the Knight was a total disaster. Especially when the Blizzard dragon decided to become his near permanent friend (you should look up the Blizzard dragon, it's misery on a stick for the knight). We quickly found that when a monster boots you away every round at the end of your turn there isn't anything you can do about it. I downed the controller first, then moved onto the leader (who got super unlucky to be killed by the dragons aura "explosion" effect), then the strikers and finally the little knight by himself was smacked down by the remaining monsters. On the other hand the Battlemind and Fighter we tried under similar circumstances got through the combat no trouble - as again, mark penalties added up. Especially when the fighter left the dragons auras - meaning all their burst attacks (heavily damaging) ended up suffering a -2 penalty.

It's interesting to note that many times the mark penalty was just enough combined with something else - like illusory ambush and disruptive strike. Very often the -2 meant powers like shield and staff of defense greatly increased a characters resilience, turning a certain hit into a very narrow miss. Without the mark the power hit by sufficiently enough that it wasn't going to be worth using.

Quite frankly, I think you have a very narrow view of how penalties can be used tactically to avoid an amazing amount of damage. A penalty that sticks around is better than absolutely no effect whatsoever. That's often the problem with the Knight. He can manage to mark a few monsters that lack forced movement powers or similar, or is rendered absolutely ineffective trivially. He honestly needs the advantage with the mark being 1/turn to remain anywhere near competitive with a fighter. Who is still superior in every manner.

You're not going to convince me the Knight is better, when my own direct play experiences show its crippling deficiencies mean it's simple to deal with. When a fighter takes Warpriest (or another permanent mark power that can grant OAs on something like shifting) the Knight is basically never competitive anymore. You can't argue with stopping all forms of movement trivially and a massive bonus to OAs ensuring you miss absolutely nothing. Well except for skirmishers that can leave without provoking OAs, but hey, at least they are still marked unlike what the knight achieves - which is something between diddly and squat.

 

[IanB]

Having played a bit with a knight finally, I would tend to agree that the defender aura is not nearly as useful as a PH fighter (do I really have to call them weaponmasters...) multi-marking people.

I'm not going to go so far as to say the Knight is lame or useless, but I've definitely found it overall weaker than the regular fighter in that particular aspect.

 

[Nemesis Destiny]

My impression of it from play experience (which so far has gone up to low paragon) is that they're fine at first, but as the creatures they face begin to have more and more unusual movement powers, they begin to lose their potency.

A 10th-level knight in one of our games recently was pretty frustrated by some burrowing bloodworms, in part because even the odd time they did provoke an attack from him, the knight was blinded and couldn't hit anyway (even with +19 vs AC).

I wonder how their aura could be improved without breaking the class? It might help if any creature within the aura were affected until the start of the Knight's next turn, but that might be very abusable, having the knight dash all around, effectively "marking" everything.

 

[Aegeri]

I do come off as very aggressive on this issue with regards to my opinion, but I think I should clarify that where the Knight (in my experience) has struggled has always been the big "capstone" encounters. The elemental chaos fight above with the 3 catastrophic dragons, the tembo (who just made a mockery of the poor guy) and the encounters where it really matters to be worth your salt. The aura is nice in theory, but is very DM dependent on how much he realizes it's simple to get rid of you. In many ways, the Knight IMO feels like it's perfectly built for the Dwarf. I'd never really looked at the resistance to a push 1 effect before and thought "Wow that's going to make or break a class", but the Knight is seriously made or broken by that feature. A Dwarf Knight is really impressive in play (I don't think I emphasize this enough to be fair to the Knight). Without the fear of minion bullrushes and controllers with push effects the Knight does really well.

Otherwise the Knight is heavily item dependent as he needs to stop forced movement, needs an aura-killer weapon to handle things like a blizzard dragon and a feyslaughter weapon to deal with teleporting enemies etc. The Knight almost reminds me of the 3.5 fighter in some ways, needing a golf bag of weapons to handle different creatures.

My impression of it from play experience (which so far has gone up to low paragon) is that they're fine at first, but as the creatures they face begin to have more and more unusual movement powers, they begin to lose their potency.

This is exactly my experience and what I'm describing in my posts as well. Throw on automatic sliding auras like the blizzard dragon, effects that cause movement even on misses (many controllers) and life can become very difficult really quickly for a knight. Not to mention blind is a knights bane: Every enemy just walks away (but not shifts, he will get his aura attack on a shift, but normal movement doesn't provoke OAs if the creature you're moving away from is blind).

Edit: Also in fairness, I should really make sure to try the Knight out again with these new feats (Returning to the topic). Many of my complaints are only a powerswap to get a power like come and get it to solve...