Is tactical Warlord really blowful?

[Uruush]

???

The Tactical Warlord has been the superior choice to the Inspiring Warlord since 4E came out. Their powers were just straight up better 1-30. They gave a lot of love to the Inspiring Warlord in Martial Power in part due to the chorus of complaints that the Inspiring Warlord was the weaker option.

A +2 to hit for your whole party's Daily Powers if they use their Action Point (+5 if they're humans with Action Surge) makes a big difference. Warlord's Favor and Lead the Attack are two of the better Powers in the game, are both available at level 1, and were made for the Taclord.

Having a Taclord makes the difference between a party just scraping by and breezing through encounters. Whenever you read players talking about the "whiff factor in 4E" and about how frustrating it is to miss with their Encounter and Daily powers, bet ya they don't have a Taclord in their party...

 

[frankthedm]

No. Do not play a warlord in a 2 person group.

 

[RefinedBean]

No. Do not play a warlord in a 2 person group.

On second thought, yeah, frank nailed it on the head. Warlords need a good number of allies to be effective.

 

[Uruush]

Agreed. A cleric would be a better choice for a two or even a three player group.

 

[MacavityCat]

I have a tactical warlord in a party of 6 and it works well. The big advantage we found is being INT based the INT stacks with AC making it a good secondary defender and meaning the front rank can be relatively self sufficient from the strikers and controller. Also being INT based it enables charcater stats to be targetted where most useful.

 

[Aust Diamondew]

A lot of the tactical warlord's at will and encounter powers are single person buffs.
So at least at low levels, if you team up with another melee character, you shouldn't loose much effectiveness compared to a large party.

Also, in my experience when DMing for a small group of players DMs will often allow for attached NPC ally or allies for the party.
If thats the case a tactical warlord will loose very little effectiveness compared to a normal party. So talk to the DM.

 

[jasin]

In a pick up game I recently played 6th-level eladrin tactical warlord in a party with a dwarf battlerager, a battle cleric, and a beastmaster ranger. We did kind of suck against flying opponents, but otherwise we were so awesome that the rest of the players convinced me to switch my swordmage in our usual game (now 2nd level) for an eladrin warlord (and I didn't need that much convincing).

The highest single damage we've seen in 4E so far has been a crit with a tactical warlord At-Will in the 6th-level game: I used Commander's Strike to have the beastmaster attack his quarry with his +2 vicious maul, and he scored a crit and rolled really well on the +2d12, for some 50+ damage.

Of course, a ranger critting with a basic attack would've dealt only 4 points of damage less, but twice the number of attacks from the highest damage dealer is twice the chance to crit from the highest damage dealer &c.

 

[Puggins]

I don't think the warlord is any worse in small parties- it might look that way, because of the "5 get +2 instead of just two" thing, but think about it this way- the party is putting out damage at a certain rate, regardless of number of party members.

If the fighter in a six person party misses, the damage output by the group goes down by a modest amount- maybe 20%, probably less, since strikers will make up for that damage.

If the fighter accompanying the warlord misses in a two person party, the output of the party just got halved, if not cut by 55 or 60%.

That +2 means just as much to a two person party as it does to a six person party, methinks.

 

[DrSkull]

Okay, thanks for the advice. I must admit, I'm surpised there's no love for the inspiring warlord. I've had great success with one, optimizing his feats for melee combat (scale male, toughness, weapon focus, bastard sword).

My biggest thought, was although warlord's favor looks nice +4 to hit and all for one guy, I'm really going to miss "Leaf on the Wind". In my big group Leaf on the Wind has repeatedly been really awesome for putting a bad guy just where you want him to lay down a serious beat-down. It also gets us out of narrow-terrain jams with great frequency.

 

[balard]

Okay, thanks for the advice. I must admit, I'm surpised there's no love for the inspiring warlord. I've had great success with one, optimizing his feats for melee combat (scale male, toughness, weapon focus, bastard sword).

Of course there is love! I have a melee ranger and a inspiring warlord in my group and both go very well. He did the same, maximized for the melee combat and is happy with the build. The can take some punishment, and deal very good damage.