ObsidianCrane
First Post
Ok so 9 pages of people arguing about the significance of the use of the word Archon was just to much for me to even manage reading, little own trying to turn to mechanics discussion, so here is a thread for the mechanics of the Fire Archons to be looked at. 
What I really liked about the Fire Archon article was the stats and what could be seen of how 4E monsters work from examining the stat blocks of the Blazesteel and Ash Disciple.
The Blazesteel clearly occupies essentially a Defender or Brute tactical niche, but with a cool "don't let them gang up on you" ability. This makes it risky for the PC Defenders to use abilities that focus the attacks of the Blazesteel on themselves, and gives extra use to or benefit from the ability of Leaders or Controllers to shove things around the battle field.
You really don't want 3 or 4 of these things nailing your party Defender at once.
The Ash Disciple then fills a Striker role (what do they call that for Monsters?) - they stand back and zap the PCs, they can move about the battlefield quickly if there are Blazesteels about to pump their effect on the battlefield.
The fact they can ignore their own area effect attacks makes them a really nice team as well.
It seems to provide a strong basis for the exact sort of tactical encounter that the design team have been talking up around the place.
Also the defenses are interesting;
Immunity to Flanking - this looks like a 4E ability to me. We have reason to believe that Rogues will not need to be flanking to get opportunities to use their Sneak Attack abilities, and that in 4E we are told few things will be immune to sneak attacks, if any. So this ability says the Rogue needs to do something to make their Sneak Attack tricks work - not just jump into a Flanking position and hammer away. They will have to use per encounter or maybe per day abilities to get Sneaks on these guys.
The other immunities seem to be largely 3E "its an elemental" immunities that are just there because.
Immunity to Fire - replaced with a high damage threshold to Fire (and really Damage Threshold sounds like DR reworked - if you beat the DR all the damage goe through rather than none)
Immunity to Crits - probably gone in 4E
Immunity to Sneak Attack - gone pretty much certainly - see comments on flanking immunity above.
Immunity to Poison - Poison has to be much changed, and this is an immunity that I could see persisting.
Immunity to Paralysis and Sleep - These I could also see persisting into 4E. Sleep and Paralysis are not direct damage types, and 4E seems to be about letting direct damage effects happen.
Finally they look like high Hero tier, low Paragon tier enemies, I wouldn't be surprised to see the 4E version of them buffed up a bit more to make them sit firmly in low Paragon tier.
What I really liked about the Fire Archon article was the stats and what could be seen of how 4E monsters work from examining the stat blocks of the Blazesteel and Ash Disciple.
The Blazesteel clearly occupies essentially a Defender or Brute tactical niche, but with a cool "don't let them gang up on you" ability. This makes it risky for the PC Defenders to use abilities that focus the attacks of the Blazesteel on themselves, and gives extra use to or benefit from the ability of Leaders or Controllers to shove things around the battle field.
You really don't want 3 or 4 of these things nailing your party Defender at once.
The Ash Disciple then fills a Striker role (what do they call that for Monsters?) - they stand back and zap the PCs, they can move about the battlefield quickly if there are Blazesteels about to pump their effect on the battlefield.
The fact they can ignore their own area effect attacks makes them a really nice team as well.
It seems to provide a strong basis for the exact sort of tactical encounter that the design team have been talking up around the place.
Also the defenses are interesting;
Immunity to Flanking - this looks like a 4E ability to me. We have reason to believe that Rogues will not need to be flanking to get opportunities to use their Sneak Attack abilities, and that in 4E we are told few things will be immune to sneak attacks, if any. So this ability says the Rogue needs to do something to make their Sneak Attack tricks work - not just jump into a Flanking position and hammer away. They will have to use per encounter or maybe per day abilities to get Sneaks on these guys.
The other immunities seem to be largely 3E "its an elemental" immunities that are just there because.
Immunity to Fire - replaced with a high damage threshold to Fire (and really Damage Threshold sounds like DR reworked - if you beat the DR all the damage goe through rather than none)
Immunity to Crits - probably gone in 4E
Immunity to Sneak Attack - gone pretty much certainly - see comments on flanking immunity above.
Immunity to Poison - Poison has to be much changed, and this is an immunity that I could see persisting.
Immunity to Paralysis and Sleep - These I could also see persisting into 4E. Sleep and Paralysis are not direct damage types, and 4E seems to be about letting direct damage effects happen.
Finally they look like high Hero tier, low Paragon tier enemies, I wouldn't be surprised to see the 4E version of them buffed up a bit more to make them sit firmly in low Paragon tier.
