The Warpriest starts with Heavy Shield and is con secondary. It can have a middling strength and make plate easily by epic tier (or just have 12/13 strength and get scale). Also again, con being secondary is huge because of the extra resilience. I don't know how much high paragon and epic you've played, but even 1-2 more surges is a lot more resilience to being murdered horribly than just "4 HP" as you say. If you honestly can't see how an extra surge giving you an additional 50+ HP by epic isn't significant, I just don't understand how to explain to you that it is (outside of a game). Especially because surgeless healing was thrown to the ground and beaten viciously by Wizards.
Edit: Some dirty maths to support my point.
If you are a strength Cleric you need both Strength and Wisdom (as Wisdom is important for Turn Undead, several powers you will want and base class features). So raising Str/Wisdom is usually the best strategy. If you're a Warpriest you need Con/Wisdom. Wisdom does everything you ever need so you don't need to worry about having different attack stats.
A Warpriest with 16 con and 18 wisdom starts against a 18 strength and 16 wisdom strength cleric. The warpriest has a tertiary strength of 13 (for scale at level 1) and the Strength cleric has done the same with con (13 for scale at level 1).
Every stat increase, the Warpriest raises con and wisdom. The Strength Cleric raises Str/Wis.
By level 21: The stats are 15 strength (plate for the Warpriest), 25 Wisdom and 23 Con. The con bonus the Warpriest gets is +6.
He will have 135 HP at level 21 and 13 surges. Each surge is worth 33 HP. 13 surges * 33 HP = 429 extra HP available over an adventuring day.
By level 21: The stats are 15 con (Plate for the Strength Cleric), 25 Strength and 23 Wisdom. The con bonus the Strength Cleric gets is +2.
The Strength Cleric will have 127 HP at level 21 and 9 surges. Each surge is worth 31 HP. 9 surges * 31 HP = 279 HP available over an adventuring day.
Now, you look at those numbers and tell me the con the warpriest will be investing in makes no difference
Noting that in reality, both are likely to invest more into con/strength (maybe 14 strength/14 con at level 1 to get plate at paragon). Especially if both use Warpriest (the Paragon Path lol, I love essentials naming stuff). But the point here is that with the increased damage in epic tier especially those extra surges count far more than you claiming "4 HP isn't significant". It becomes hugely significant. The amount of effective HP difference between the two of them is huge, in a game where MM3 creatures are doing ridiculous damage and effects at epic now (Numerous examples!) this is really important. If you're on the front line it's even more important again.Yes, but the Warpriest can use all the best ranged cleric powers very effectively (that are wisdom primary). Also as above, although it isn't immediately clear the Warpriest is actually more overall resilient than the Strength Cleric.
Nothing stops him from taking the really solid ranged wisdom dailies. These are the "game changers" that make a difference.
I mean, the Strength Cleric in my actual game had all those high level wisdom dailies - but couldn't utilize them fully because of the poor attack bonus - but the effects are so good that it is worth noting that made them worth taking anyway. Also he never used recovery strike once post surgeless healing nerf: It really should be purple.
The warpriest gets effective use out of the best the cleric has to offer: The really powerful wisdom based daily powers that pulled out make a massive difference. He starts with heavy shields (saving a feat arguably) and being con secondary he's far less MAD than the Strength Cleric (who is extremely MAD to be remotely effective).
In effect, the Warpriest does what the Strength Cleric does, gets the best of the Wisdom powers and then has a more solid base to work with. Let's be honest, the Strength Cleric was all about righteous brand. That's what it did. When Righteous Brand was nerfed the entire build was demolished in effectiveness.
Pre-Righteous Brand and Hero of Faith the Strength Cleric destroyed any encounter I made. He would put Hero of Faith's Oath of Emnity on the most important target. Then just use Righteous Brand for a +6 or +7 bonus to hit for the Barbarian. This enabling was pretty much the whole set up of his character. Then they nerfed Hero of Faith, then Righteous Brand and MM3 finished it off. Once the damage increased his healing could no longer keep up so much - incidentally this will be a problem the Warpriest will share - and monsters would be capable of tearing him into pieces.
The Warpriest is still better than the Strength Cleric though, which lags far behind. But I do agree with you: The Warpriest is not as good as the laser cleric by a long way, but he will be competent and isn't anywhere near as MAD as the Strength Cleric.
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