Neonchameleon
Legend
The thing is that almost all of those "tactically strong" things you list are things you gained the ability to do in character generation with the arguable single exception of the "casting spike growth in a narrow pass" because the narrow pass you need to make that spell shine is not on your character sheet and is not a generic enemy. When all your tactically strong choices are "using this thing I picked up in character creation for its exact intended purpose" then the tactics are in character creation.In 5e when you do something tactically strong - it tends to really change the encounter. Most of the tactically strong choices are fairly obvious at this point. But those choices grant huge advantages. Examples:
These kinds of things tend to really matter to outcome. Which likewise makes the choice of when and how to use them quite a bit more obvious. Contrasting that with 4e which tends to offer more 'tactical' play by making the impact of most abilities of fairly low value - and giving all abilities but dailies back to you after the battle (5 min short rest) really shows the difference I'm talking about in terms of how much tactical ability matters.
- Kiting with a ranged rogue
- Casting Hold Monster on a strong solo enemy
- Using your divine smite when you crit
- Polymorphing your low hp ally into a Giant Ape
- Casting healing word to pop back up an ally and still cantrip attack instead of using cure wounds.
- Casting spike growth in a narrow pass with your druid
- Casting Haste on your mount and engaging in hit and run tactics
- Using Action Surge + Trip Attack + Precision attack to down an enemy fast
- Using Maneuvering strike to get an ally out of harms way
- Rushing in and taking a dodge action with your monk, knowing that the first round of combat tends to mean there are more enemies that could attack you
- Or one of the strongest types of tactics - cast a lock down ability (preferably no save) on an enemy and then someone else cast a zone based recurring damaging effect
- Etc.
Meanwhile in my experience 4e's tactics are vastly more interesting and dynamic thanks to the forced movement and the flanking rules. Flanking is always a risk/reward choice because it invites you to go deeper into the enemy lines for a bonus meaning whether it is good tactics to flank right now varies. And the forced movement rules make you interact with this specific scenario you are playing right now because they are nigh on useless in an empty arena but mean that you interact with what is actually there. And a fire fifteen foot in front of you is very different to one ten foot behind in terms of how you use it, while both invite teamwork to make sure the enemy goes in and you don't.
Tactical ability is not about using the abilities you picked up in character creation to do exactly what they were supposed to with your only real skill apparently being target selection and possibly resource management. It's about responding to dynamic and varying situations to get the most use out of what you have and turn what looks like a losing situation into a winning one.
And the thing that doesn't reset at the end of a 4e fight is the battlefield. So you should never be in quite the same situation twice. Unlike every morning in 5e. (Of course if your battlefields are all the same in 4e that's a DMing issue and it makes for a tedious experience).
I've seen a couple of messed up 4e builds - mostly where someone had gone straight to a guide and picked high rated abilities that didn't synergise at all.Used to be true in 3.5e.
In 4e, turn by turn decisions, positioning and resource management were way more important than character builds. Heck, I would argue that it's nearly impossible to "funk up" a build in 4e.