If it's an obvious choice then it's broken

[Herschel]

Huh. It's almost as if charop doesn't care about damage as much as Hershel thinks it does. Nah, can't be.

Or maybe you discounted what I said about it being better but still too tunnel-vision. But nah, that would be too easy. Sure, you point out some examples where they don't, I said as much, but there are also many that are. But hey, you and the CharOp herd can band together in your belief that you're some sort of superior gamer when people disagree with you.

 

[Herschel]

The Swordmage Handbook is well put together. It acknowledges up front that you have crap for damage and that of the 3 types of Swordmages, the Shielding type is best supported. That said, since when do they play like other Defenders? Paladins, Wardens and Fighters all try and keep enemies right on top of them. Shielding Swordmages play a game of keep away by marking enemies, then heading off to try and lockdown artillery types. The bad guys can go ahead and swing at their friends, b/c they will be hitting w/soft pillows once all the damage absorption is considered. Swordmage plays unlike every other defender.

They do play differently, but the author mentions repeatedly about powers to make them more sticky. That's not the Shielding Swordmage's strength, standing in front like a tank. Shielding Swordmage is also not really the best supported, but I will agree that Ensnaring is less supported. The handbook takes some really inside a tiny box view of it. For example, it talks about Assault Swordmages dumping strength simply because Intelligent Blademaster is there. Of course then you have an essential "feat tax" to do your job as well as marginalizing powers such as Greenflame Blade, Flame Cyclone, Burning Blade and Dragon's Teeth all at first level alone.

Instead of working with that it just basically gives all the builds the same array and says go with it and use up feat slots and skip these powers.

 

[mneme]

Hershel, watch your tone. I'm pretty sure ad homenim is prohibited (and for good reason).

All I did was look at the first few entries in each category (the ones where I thought damage was least relevant; obviously strikers and some controllers care about damage more), without cherry picking or leaving stuff out. Maybe you think I'd have done better starting at the end of the alphabet?

Near as I can tell, your argument against charop is completely specious. You're starting with 'they only care about damage and to-hit", and back away when shown evidence; the closest you can manage is that most builds have some damage feats. And centrally, you're basically saying "they stress mechanical optimization, so they're wrong" -- but that's the whole point of charop.

A valid claim (were it true), would be that c-o only stresses damage, ignoring other factors of the classes roles. But in every case I looked for, I saw the damage options deemphaiszed in favor of control, defense, and mark enforcement for defenders, and healing, defense, and enabling for leaders.

It may be that there's a broad prejudice towards idealized roles and damage, but you've failed to make an effort to show it; instead you keep bringing out isolated arguments, like attacking parts of the Swordmage handbook (looks inconsistently updated, with Versitile Expertise in gold despite trailing in levels 11-14 and 21-24, and the builds are kinda boring, but the ratings are pretty solid, with good ratings on plenty of strength secondary powers) rather than showing the pattern you aledge.

The closest I can draw from your claims is that "people are wrong sometimes" . Well, yes.

Also, one thing to keep in mind on that forum: there are builds and there are guidebooks. The reasons people like guidebooks have -nothing- to do with the builds in them, IMO. The point of a guidebook isn't to provide sample builds; it's to rate powers and give general advice. So attacking a guidebook because it has boring, unimaginative builds is kinda missing the point; it's a flaw, sure (particularly when, as in this case, all the builds have exactly the same array), but if you want to look at builds, look at the build threads or lists.

 

[tiornys]

CharOp does tend to come up with defined parametrics for what kinds of things a class with a given role should be capable of, look at the ways for a given class to meet those parameters, and then reject any approach that fails to meet those parameters as being a waste of time. In the cases where damage is relevant--primarily strikers, secondarily defenders who rely on damage to draw threat--they have a tendency to ignore builds and even classes (*cough*Vampire*cough*) that aren't capable of meeting certain damage baselines.

So, it's not like Herschel doesn't have a point. It's just that he's a bit confused about what exactly he's criticizing, and consequently has overstated his case in ways that are easy to refute.

CharOp has good reasons backing up its parameters, but those reasons are still founded in assumptions that not everyone agrees with, and there are some good reasons to question some of those assumptions. THAT's where accusations of groupthink could be constructively placed. Trying to argue from the other direction gets you lost in trivial details or leaves you incapable of mounting a rational argument against the relentless logic. (CharOp has good logical skills, and they don't make many mistakes in logic. Attacking their logic is generally futile. If you disagree with their conclusions, you need to attack their assumptions.)

t~

 

[Trebor62]

Do you have a link or book/article quote on this? I've heard this hypothesis now and again whenever the math-patch debates come up, but I don't think I've ever seen it confirmed from the design side.

Sorry I am not much help but I remember reading about it shortly after 4e came out. The article or podcast was on WOTCs sight as I recall and the gist was the the secret play testers where much more aggresive in seeking situational bonus from powers, flanking and otherwise setting up the enemy to help the next guy hit better or harder. An example would be use aid another to give the next player the +2 bonus as they cut loose with their encounter or daily power.

The average player turned out to be much less focused on these little advantages.

 

[Herschel]

The seeker was written off because it's awful. Look at some wizard encounter powers.

Besides, the Seeker Handbook looks pretty complete to me.

I'll be the first to say the Seeker needs more support. My point is a whole group just writing it off as "it sucks" instead of working with it. The new "handbook" is, well, new since the last time I visited the board (it's a month old, May 12) and is much better, but still stops at the multiclassing section and has lots of "reserved" space for the rest.

 

[Herschel]

But back to the OP's point.
D&D4e is really a tactical combat system with a skill system stuck on the side. When the game was first released, it was assumed that most groups would use maneuver warfare, focused fire, and harrying your foes so your allies could land a hit (aid another giving you a +2 attack bonus).
But the two tactics that most people have experience with are focused damage and attrition, so that is what people did, and the fights became long. Add to that the fact that the only other tactic employed was power timing, and the fights became astoundingly long because people would suffer choice paralysis. And then finally, most people moved toward strikers because they had the simplest roll to execute (nearly all power choices performed their primary roll in any situation) and gave an instant reward of being good at your roll.

So the math for the characters was reworked and "fixed" so you had a better chance to hit without aid. The monsters were then reworked so the fights were more brutal and swingy (thus more tension) but much shorter one way or the other. The character concept was reworked so even fewer tactics (with the elimination power choice and power timing) were necessary, and they started focusing feats on the two aspects of the game system that were really well defined, Attack and Damage.

"If you want the children to love you, you have to give them the candy." -Jon Stewart
People want to have tense fights where they heroicly destroy enemies, and they can only do that with the tactics they know, so that is what we have been given. Skill feats are wasted, in the classic sense, because they don't help the system achieve its goals (combat). Kinda like the way a Hummer H2 with 23" chrome rims is a waste at Jeep Safari because it won't get you any further off the road than a Stock Ford Tempo.

This is a really well-put section.

 

[Kzach]

I'll be the first to say the Seeker needs more support. My point is a whole group just writing it off as "it sucks" instead of working with it. The new "handbook" is, well, new since the last time I visited the board (it's a month old, May 12) and is much better, but still stops at the multiclassing section and has lots of "reserved" space for the rest.

Then why don't you make a handbook yourself?

 

[chitzk0i]

I'll be the first to say the Seeker needs more support. My point is a whole group just writing it off as "it sucks" instead of working with it. The new "handbook" is, well, new since the last time I visited the board (it's a month old, May 12) and is much better, but still stops at the multiclassing section and has lots of "reserved" space for the rest.

They've tried working with it. People have tried out a lot of Seeker builds, but in every case, they discovered that they could swap the Seeker part out for something else and get a better result. Thus, awful. Their class features are decent, so a Primal Power 2 could really turn things around, but since the Foo Power books seem to have been discontinued, who knows if that will ever happen.

 

[Marshall]

Except I did post one, but you're apparently not going to look at them. In that case, it's not worth spelling more out to because you're simply not going to get it regardless.

But apparently you havent. Seeker was written off for a complete inability to do a job, ANY job, let alone the role it was designed to fill.

I dont know what you're talking about with the Swordmage book, the absolute last thing you could say is that it wants to make a Shieldmage into a standard defender. How many nicknames for the class are there to describe just how different they want them to be ala Chicken-Defender? This one actually disproves your point in that Char-op refuses to even try to make a High-Damage Assaultmage.