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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Vayden" data-source="post: 4689005" data-attributes="member: 57791">Okay, I promised myself I wasn't going to necro this thread, but I do have one more significant thing to add. This is the list of classes/builds you want to subtly discourage your players from playing if you're having problems with grind. As a disclaimer, I would never forbid a player from playing anything if they want to play it. This is just something you should suggest to your players if you're having problems with grind - if they don't want to change their concept, don't push them, and there are of course exceptions to all of these cases, but in general, if you see too many of these classes/builds, you can expect a bit of grind. The concepts are all tactically viable and can help a party survive, they just turn your combats into grind by doing so. 1) Shielding Swordmage - by far the worst offender in my book. If you've read the thread, you know my philosophy is that lots of damage on both sides is what leads to good dramatic combats. Not only do Swordmages in general do less damage than other defenders, the Shielding Aegis is doing less damage to the enemies and preventing damage to the PCs (less drama on both sides). I'd discourage Swordmages in general, but if you have your heart set on one, please go Assault. 2) Infernal Pact Warlock - this is a trap. Not only do warlocks in general do less damage, the Infernal Pact Boon is defensive and grindy (temp HP are inherently grindy), and the Con-based warlock ends up with less power selections and is sad panda. Fey or Dark pact are drama's friends, if you are stuck with a warlock. 3) Bow Ranger - this is a bit of mixed bag. The bow ranger does fantastic amounts of damage, but it is grindy in 2 ways - if the bow ranger is constantly staying out of range, they're in less threat and there's less drama, and the ranger class in general has a tendency to fall into "move - twin strike - repeat" which can be a little boring for some players. This is less grindy than the first two, but I still think melee ranger makes for more excitement. 4) Laser Cleric/Inspiring Warlord/Resourceful Warlord - these three get lumped together as being the leaders more focused on healing and defense. Smashy Clerics, TacLords, and Bravura Crazy Warlords all focus on getting everyone a chance to hit more often and deal more damage, which is what you want if you're fighting grind. 5) Charisma Paladin - again, the defense/healing oriented build is bad for drama. The only situation in which I recomend a Charisma Paladin is if you don't have any true leaders in the group, and even then I think the Strength Pally is better based on my personal experience. That's about it - again, all of these builds can work well and are tactically viable - any one of them will be fine in a group, but if you have several of these in a group, don't say I didn't warn you. I also have a personal belief that all Rogues should be Brutal Scoundrels, and I hate Orb Wizards because they keep putting my big bad boss monsters to sleep, but those are more matters of personal taste. <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=":)" /></blockquote>

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