Paladin. Disappointing

[Andor]

I dunno. The fighters damage output may not be the most impressive, but I don't see any other class with the ability to shape the flow of the combat as much as the fighter can.

If the fighter is dominating the field, he still the king of combat, even if the warlock gets more kills. It's like Sam Spade slapping around the gunsel in The Maltese Falcon. Sure, technically the gunsel would have done more damage, except he was too busy getting smacked around like a red headed stepchild.

 

[Incenjucar]

The new fighter is pretty powerful in combat.

It's not that they're protecting the "real threats" so much as they're protecting the "easier-to-splatter" threats.

 

[Kordeth]

It is not remotely the same. To be blunt, the previous archetype of the fighter was hitting monsters. The primary role of the current fighter is to get hit by them.

Old skool: The fighters attack and kill the monsters (unless there's a whole bunch of monsters in which case the wizard fireballs them).
New skool: the fighters stick to the monsters and force the monsters to attack them (even though the monsters would much rather attack other party members who are actual threats to them) and the strikers kill the monsters.

It's a complete change in archetypes.

That might be a valid point, except that the fighter is still hitting stuff while he's forcing the monsters to attack him. Frankly, I just don't see how you can call a +6 o hit and 1d10+5 damage, plus knocking monsters around the battlefield or smacking two critters at once, is anything other than a respectable damage output. Sure, the strikers may be able to do pinpoint damage that's higher, but that's a far cry from "fighters stand around and wait for the strikers to kill stuff."

Consider the humble kobold: The fighter hits on a 9 or better, inflicting 1d10+5 damage. That's a 60% chance to hit for an average damage of 10.5. On average, then, it takes her four rounds to kill the kobold, if I'm doing the math correctly.

The warlock, with her Curse, hits on an 11 or better (10 or better if she's closest to the kobold) and inflicts an average of 13 damage. She kills the kobold in...just about four rounds too. Without the curse or the Prime Target, her time to kill drops to 5 rounds.

The ranger...okay, the ranger kicks some butt here. He hits on a 5 or better and hits for 14 damage. He's got a good shot at dropping the critter in two rounds, but averages out to three rounds.

If the current statblock is any indication, the fighter is actually not very good at hitting monsters.

The strikers lead in damage and kill time, but not by much, and I really don't think the numbers bear out "fighters aren't good at killing things." Also remember that both of the fighter's at-will powers let her do other stuff too--the strikers are doing nothing but straight damage, the fighter is pushing monsters one square or stinging their friends.

She can't "smack fools around" except once per day (just like everyone else).

Erm, Iron Tide at-will power to push monsters one square per hit? That qualifies as "smacking fools around" in my book.

She has some decent opportunity attack related powers, but the new cleave is a joke. When a 1st level kobold has 27 hit points (see the preview on the front page of ENWorld), doing 3 points of damage to an adjacent enemy when you hit with your main attack is not going to add up very quickly.

I'm guessing you missed the reveal that "minion" class critters die if they take any hp damage, huh? Because automatically killing one guy because I hit his buddy seems pretty sweet to me.

Interesting. When I look at the fighter posted, I see nothing but defender and that is the essence of the complaint. The fighter archetype, up until this point has included the role of striker. It seems to me that it no longer does.

Really, I've never seen this. Fighters have always been stuck with weapon damage + Strength + specialization, which even at low levels was quickly eclipsed by magic, backstabs, and the like.

Hopefully there will be some other fighter powers that actually enable fighters to hit reliably and do more damage. I am going to REALLY dislike the game if the only guys who get to do damage are either A. hiding in the back and using bows or wands or B. sneaking up in leather and wielding a dagger. If the fighter can't pick up a longsword (or greatsword) and kick some ass, the game isn't D&D.

Once again, I think if you look at the math you'll find the fighter is a pretty decent damage dealer--and we're looking at a weapon-and-shield build fighter. I imagine if we see a fighter who focuses on greatsword or greataxe combat we'll see rather more damage output.

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

Does anyone else think the Paladin's AC seems too low?

He's got Plate Mail, a heavy shield, +1 dex, and small size going for him, but...

The Dwarven fighter with Scale, a heavy shield, and +1 dex has only got 19 to his 20.

 

[Fallen Seraph]

Some people are thinking plate gives a +0 Dex bonus, so that would account for the 19 to 20.

 

[Stalker0]

I dunno. The fighters damage output may not be the most impressive, but I don't see any other class with the ability to shape the flow of the combat as much as the fighter can.

The big X factor we haven't taken into account is opportunity attacks. We don't know how often these will come up. I mean, for god's sake if all of that forced movement these powers allow provoke opportunity attacks the fighter is going to get extra attacks all the time while the bowman will be stuck at 1 attack.

Further, there's something so evil about the fighter running into a fight using an action point to get right up to the controller. If the controller attacks with a spell, fighter gets an OA. If the wizard moves away, the fighter gets an AOO. Basically, unless the wizard type has a close ranged spell he is hosed.

 

[Xath]

Xath, can you tell us about the Frost Warhammer? Did the "Frost" property add to damage over the +1? Did all the damage you inflicted with the weapon count as Cold?

As an Encounter Power, I could choose to do an extra d10 damage. Also, any time I critted, I could add an extra d6 to damage.

 

[themilkman]

Hey guys. This is my first post here! (Woo.)

I just finished playing the two LFR preview games earlier today at DDXP. (The last session finished 90 minutes ago.) I played the Eladrin Ranger in one game, and the Dwarf fighter in the other. I thought I would share some of my impressions and try to answer some questions that came up in this thread.

The big X factor we haven't taken into account is opportunity attacks. We don't know how often these will come up. I mean, for god's sake if all of that forced movement these powers allow provoke opportunity attacks the fighter is going to get extra attacks all the time while the bowman will be stuck at 1 attack.

Generally, any movement from pushing, pulling, or sliding does not provoke an AoO. Also, you don't get AoO against people that you push, even if you are allowed to attack creatures that shift in your threatened area. If he is doing his job, the fighter is going to get more attacks than other classes, but that is because he uses these attacks to control movement in his threatened squares. He isn't going to be as accurate or do as much damage as strikers, so the balance is still there.

Further, there's something so evil about the fighter running into a fight using an action point to get right up to the controller. If the controller attacks with a spell, fighter gets an OA. If the wizard moves away, the fighter gets an AOO. Basically, unless the wizard type has a close ranged spell he is hosed.

You have a point here, but it isn't as serious a problem as it may seem. If a Fighter gets face-to-face with a caster, the caster can either cast a spell and provoke an AoO or use a move action to shift back a space (which also provokes an AoO from a Fighter) and then cast from 1 square away. (Also, only ranged spells provoke AoO; burst spells don't provoke AoO, so casters can use those spells from melee.) Generally, as soon as you do get a fighter up close with a caster, the DM will have other NPCs come in to get between you two anyway.

Another important point to remember: Casters are not the glass cannons that they were in 3.5. They can take a pretty good amount of damage, and they don't dish it out much faster than any other class. In other words, there is no need to rush to the back and kill the caster, because they're not going to beat you up much more than the brutes, and it will probably take you three or four rounds to kill them anyway. Fighters are usually better served keeping multiple enemy melee units away from friendly strikers and casters because they can control the movement of every space that they threaten, rather than tying down just one caster.

One other interesting point:

The Paladin's Divine Challenge ability is thoroughly broken. We breezed through fights in my group by having the fighter (me) pin down a mob while the paladin challenged him and ran off. Every time the creature attacked someone other than the paladin (who the creature couldn't get to because we blocked him off) the creature would take 8 damage. The paladin just sat in another room and literally did nothing for round after round while his divine challenge did damage over and over again. Incidently, 8 damage is the maximum that the Paladin could do with any attack other than his daily, and the damage from the challenge always hit. Since you only tend to land 55% of your attacks in 4ed, a source of certain damage was very overpowered for us.

Word from the GMs at the conferance is that after some likely revisions, the Divine Challenge will now fade if the paladin does not move towards the creature or attack it somehow. Line of sight may also be necessary.

Edit: Regarding some skepticism about the ability of the Fighter to smack people around... The Fighter does it really, really well, just not in the way that some people might be thinking. He won't do a lot of damage, but he will absolutely control the battlefield. In the LFR preview games, casters are not controllers--the Fighter is the controller. He moves people around the battlefield when he wants them to, keeps people from moving when he doesn't want them to, and punishes people for movements that would have otherwise been perfectly safe. I felt more in charge of the fight as the Fighter than I did when I played the Eladrin Ranger, even though I was doing much more damage per round as the Ranger.

-TM

 

[Nymrohd]

May I point out that the pregen fighter is a sword and board fighter through and through? We really cannot tell what damage a two-handed weapon fighter does.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

The only explanation for the different in hit points for fighter and wizard is because the fighter is supposed to be absorbing damage, so the wizard doesn't have to. If the fighter's job didn't include taking the beating, then there's no reason for him to have d10 hit points.

Nonsense. The fighter had more hit-points because he was up at the front and more likely to get hit. He didn't use to have special magical "stay and play with me!" powers before. That's WHY he has the HP, because he's a melee fighter who job is to get in there and mix it up, which is clearly NOT the same as one who magically sticks mobs to himself.

The difference is very simple:

1) 3.XE or earlier Fighter - Is in a dangerous position, but tries not to get hit. Does not encourage people to hit him by any means beyond proximity.

2) 4E Defender - Actively tries to encourage people to try* to hit him. Includes quasi-magical powers to do so (I could understand the Fighter ability if it only worked on enemies adjacent to him, but when it works on a Gelatinous Cube in a silence field in another room? Dumb).

I'll say one thing though. The Fighter's bizarre and illogical "-2 to hit everyone who isn't me" is a lot less OP than the Paladin's "8 damage any time you attack anyone who isn't me!", which is so abusable it's just silly (and amaaaaaaaaaazing that it got through playtesting, makes you wonder about some of the other stuff we're going to see).

What you should realize too, is that it's not only "hardened gamers" who pick up on these differences. The most casual player in my D&D group, who is very casual indeed accused my Bo9S Crusader character of being "some kind of wierd martyr" when I used Iron Guard's Glare, which is basically the same thing as the Fighter ability. It's not logical, it's not normal, it doesn't make intuitive sense, and I'll go as far as to say these sort of abilities are dumb. Designing the game to rely on them is also therefore dumb.

* = At least this isn't QUITE as bad as some MMORPGs (like WoW), where you are RELIANT on actually TAKING damage to do stuff and ineffective if you're successfully defending yourself. I don't see any Defender abilities based around that yet. I sincerely pray that there are none. It's an idiot concept, particularly for non-magical types. It's one thing to go from soldier to rodeo clown. It's another to be a rodeo clown who can only clown if he gets gored.