Hybrids and Armor

[keterys]

I don't think anyone thinks BCL is overpowered for battle clerics, it's just less balanced against the other options available to, say, a barbarian. Hybriding in 4e is one of the easiest ways to unintentionally make a terrible character, but BCL makes hybrid cleric often better than a pure class, for almost any application. The fact that clerics have access to phenomenal damaging and control powers as well as a top-notch defender paragon path and excellent utility selection is all icing on the BCL cake.

Yep, hybrid cleric for BCL is stronger than _many_ pure options, which I find somewhat unfortunate.

It's also sufficiently better than Healer's Lore that almost all clerics, even those focused on healing, should take it.

Personally, I would have preferred if they just gave clerics more armor proficiency or did it in some way other than loading three great features into one feature.

It is true that it fixes some AC bugs, where classes have no good options for maintaining reasonable AC, but it also creates AC bugs and does so in an undesirable fashion. This is _more_ obvious for those who use the multiclass feat Divine Healer to get Healer's Lore, then swap that for the class feature Battle Cleric's Lore, tacking that immense package onto an already excellent PC.

 

[Sunseeker]

...which, of course, proves exactly nothing since it might simply be a bug.

Possibly, but I find that unlikely, since the purpose of "class features" is to do exactly what this one is doing.