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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Aegeri" data-source="post: 5534922" data-attributes="member: 78116">Not really, because what else are a bunch of monsters going to do with no compulsion to attack anyone? Personally I would start eating the tasty looking guy without much armor with the big wooden stick first.In all seriousness though, the fact that enemies can trivially walk away from a Knight is the biggest issue with the class. A monster effectively has all of its actions and can use its powers to best effect, instead of having incredibly sucky choices (like the original fighter). The knight presents a clear best option: Walk away. So unless you heavily optimize with defend the line and world serpents grasp, nothing is going to bother standing next to you in the first place.The problem here is the Knight can't maintain that interest. He's a simple punt away from being irrelevant. Every other defender maintains relevance even in really difficult situations. In difficult situations, the Knight falls entirely to pieces. That's the problem.You've not seen owlbears obviously. Believe me, it takes one round and an owlbear (level 8 elite) will run through any squishy character faster than butter melts on molten lava. Or what the new dragons will do to a party when they can freely decide who to eat at their own whim.Actually I'm not even talking about epic tier. The terror that ended the Knight in the encounter I described, the Blizzard Dragon is a mere level 7 controller. Not that it would be better by epic for the Knight. The ancient blizzard dragon not only slides more with its aura, which the Knight is completely boned by but he ALSO knocks unconscious with his aura explosion. A Knight that ever gets knocked unconscious is the saddest thing in 4E (as they need to stand up, then take two minor actions to restore their stance and aura respectively). So it's only going to get worse.Now I'm actually going to use only low level examples here, because they actually demonstrate my points far better than any epic tier example would. Also I've only tried knights at heroic and paragon. I don't view one off playtests at epic tier worthwhile for anything, because epic becomes a very complicated metagame that is hard to assess through any individual poops and giggles one shot to try stuff.In my experience, where knights struggle are creatures like wraiths (level 5), shadows (level 3) and deathjump spiders (level 4). Wraiths turn invisible, so the Knight might not even bother turning up to that fight (as the Wraith can do what it wants and leaving while invisible means the knight gets no OAs against it anyway). The fighter has a <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> time as well, in fact every defender does but - here it comes - the -2 penalty is at least there. The Knight of course does absolutely nothing to the wraith and the wraith enjoys delicious wizard A la carte. The Shadow. Oh the shadow, how the Knight hates you. For one, they can teleport away if any creature drops to 0 HP, like the Wizard I keep mentioning the Knight fails to protect. So if the knight is marking a shadow, but someone goes down the Knight isn't going to be worrying the shadows much. Once there, they can meld with a targets shadow to gain +4 all defenses, move with them and gain +5 damage against them. Pretty nasty overall and very annoying for anyone to deal with. But again, at least normal defenders can impose a -2 mark penalty and the battlemind can force them to stay for a chat with loadstone lure.Deathjump Spiders: How the Knight learned to hate things with eight legs, while weeping into his delicious morning coffee. A move action to jump 10 squares? Without provoking? Why yes, I'll take that and a side order of jumping 6 squares as a standard action without provoking to make an attack. Did I mention they can recharge one of those powers and are ridiculously mobile?The point here is that mark penalties add up to a crapload more than "-2 to hit and that's not important", when it becomes important and you cannot hold the creature adjacent in the first place. The other thing is that in many cases, a simple push from a controller/artillery type creature ends the Knights relevance to a combat as well. Multi-marking for nothing is fine, but it also doesn't mean a lot when you have no way of holding the monsters interest. A mark always holds a creatures interest in some manner, by penalizing its attack.I could list quite a few more monsters, but the point is that I don't have to cherry pick. It's a BIG list and the current environment means defenders have to deal with things a lot harder than even what the PHB fighter dealt with (back in the day). Monsters are, frankly, better designed and now believe in effects for things like movement (both sliding and shifting themselves). Many skirmishers are designed with move X squares and attack powers (ignoring slow incidentally).Really, those -2 penalties start to look damn good when they are often the main thing you'll be using to protect your allies. That's kind of my point here.That is 100% correct and the entire point. The fighter can tough through a situation that the knight can't, due to superior powers and indeed, being able to contribute through that penalty. Of course it's worth noting in this discussion the Knight needs to be fairly reevaluated now by me. I am not sure, but the ability to pick up the odd fighter power like come and get it could be invaluable for the Knight. It could just be the little bit extra that pulls them from being particularly weak and vulnerable to forced movement/skirmishers to being more competitive.The enemies have to care first and don't forget: The aura goes where you do. If you get slid off into the middle of nowhere, your mark does absolutely nothing. Similarly, a knight that is dazed can't do a thing but watch monsters shrug and walk away.You severely overestimate the power of this, while ignoring the fact forced movement, multiple conditions (dazed), numerous monsters powers and similar make it rather hard for the Knight to actually use. Not to mention if the Knight gets unconscious he loses his aura and stance until he can take minor actions to bring them back.I am indeed, but it seems most of the people who have played the knight for a bit (particularly later heroic/paragon) seem to agree with me. You really need to have a good optimized base to make an effective Knight. I keep saying this, but compare a Knight with Warpriest and a Weaponmaster? Who do you think is more uncompromisingly sticky? The guy every monster just walks away from, or the guy who is a black hole of absolute doom that you can never hope to escape from unless you have a power (Like many skirmishers).Precisely. I tried my usual "provoke an OA and who cares" thing on a cavalier once. Big mistake. Wasted the entire creatures turn after it got dazed on being hit from the OA.</blockquote>

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