The Essentials articles are atrocious.

[EarthSeraphEdna]

I believe that the quality of the Warlord Essentials article can, despite all of the other subtle, yet horrendous recommendations and analyses that its writer makes, such as suggesting Commander's Strike for an Inspiring Presence warlord, stating that a Tactical Presence warlord is somehow a "secondary defender", noting down Viper's Strike and Wolf Pack Tactics as the two at-wills for a Tactical Presence warlord, emphasizing that a Tactical Presence warlord should strive for heavier and heavier armor proficiencies (instead of sticking to hide), and stating that a reach weapon should only be secondary (they got it right on 116 of Martial Power in saying that polearms are probably the most optimal weapons for a warlord, so there is no excuse for this), be summarized by one quote:

An inspiring warlord is not a front-line warrior, but instead commands from behind, urging allies into action, shepherding them to victory.

It is statements such as this that show that WotC really does not know what it is doing with these Essentials articles. For comparison, the second sentence of the warlord section of the Player's Handbook:

Warlords stand on the front line issuing commands and bolstering their allies while leading the battle with weapon in hand.

 

[Garthanos]

I disagree. Information glut is a huge problem with beginning players, especially one with access to DDI and its overwhelming number of character options. When learning this game, most adult players I've inducted have wanted to get a bit of information on what would be good for them to do (without the why) so they can jump in and learn on the go.

Information that doesnt target their characters core concept maybe...we arent talking about that... and the people I have run in to still want to decide.. if they just want it built for them... having character builder do it for them is sufficient.

 

[Nahat Anoj]

I believe that the quality of the Warlord Essentials article can, despite all of the other subtle, yet horrendous recommendations and analyses that its writer makes, such as suggesting Commander's Strike for an Inspiring Presence warlord, stating that a Tactical Presence warlord is somehow a "secondary defender", noting down Viper's Strike and Wolf Pack Tactics as the two at-wills for a Tactical Presence warlord, emphasizing that a Tactical Presence warlord should strive for heavier and heavier armor proficiencies (instead of sticking to hide), and stating that a reach weapon should only be secondary (they got it right on 116 of Martial Power in saying that polearms are probably the most optimal weapons for a warlord, so there is no excuse for this), be summarized by one quote:

An inspiring warlord is not a front-line warrior, but instead commands from behind, urging allies into action, shepherding them to victory.

It is statements such as this that show that WotC really does not know what it is doing with these Essentials articles. For comparison, the second sentence of the warlord section of the Player's Handbook:

Warlords stand on the front line issuing commands and bolstering their allies while leading the battle with weapon in hand.

While I do see the "disconnect" between the more fundamental portrayal of warlords in PH1 and the "lead from the rear" portrayal for inspiring warlords in Warlord Essentials, I'm okay with them changing their minds about what an inspiring warlord "should" do. However, right now there just aren't any powers for playing this kind of warlord. In order to make their powers work, warlords need to be in the thick of melee, hitting things.

In order to play this "lead from the rear" warlord, they need to give it some powers that work from a distance. Perhaps a close burst version of Commander's Strike, or a power that lets an ally in a close burst charge an enemy in the burst. It would almost be like the equivalent of a shielding cleric for the warlord - a PC who doesn't make many direct attacks himself, but who uses his allies' attacks for great effect.

 

[fuzzlewump]

great way to try to get the last word...

I'm not trying to throw in the 'last word', I just see that we are just arguing our standpoints and the discussion is going nowhere. I always enjoy seeing mindsets change a bit as a result of discussion, because that happens to me all the time, but this time we'll just have to throw in the towel. Good luck and good gaming to you sir.

 

[Tav_Behemoth]

The low quality of these Essential articles overall is a sign of how hiring freelancers is simply not working out for Dragon Magazine.

I shall concede, however, that the Warden Essentials article is the most tolerable Essentials article of them all.

Since the most tolerable was written by freelancers rather than staffers, but is still not as good as the guides that were written by fans, I think you mean to say that hiring in general is not working out for Dragon!

Seriously, I see that this is a topic that folks feel strongly about, and I respect your feelings. I agree that fans have created some great content for 4E - character optimization guides being one of the best examples - and I think it'd be great if some of that was featured in Dragon (especially if it benefited from the same kind of editing and development that made the Warden article that was published substantially better than the one Eytan and I turned in.)

 

[ProfessorCirno]

I'm agreeing pretty hard with Cadfan, which should say how bizarre this conversation is.

I don't and perhaps never will understand the hate for CharOps handbooks. Most of the handbooks are made FOR new players. They let you understand what powers are good and which are bad, and they typically tell you why. They also tell you what stats are good for what, how the builds work, what feats are good ideas, etc, etc.

The non-handbooks threads in CharOps can be rather horrible and irritating to the max. But the handbooks? That stuff is gold.

If there's anything I understand less then the CharOps hate, it's the idea of "I hate having math in my game!" The game is built on math and spreadsheets, from the day the game was created, to the day the WotC employee made the newest 4e book while thinking about balance. D&D has, and always has been, and always will be, about math.

If the scaaaaaaaary math is keeping you at bay, then I'm not quite grasping why you're playing this and not, say, Amber.

 

[nightwyrm]

I don't and perhaps never will understand the hate for CharOps handbooks. Most of the handbooks are made FOR new players. They let you understand what powers are good and which are bad, and they typically tell you why. They also tell you what stats are good for what, how the builds work, what feats are good ideas, etc, etc.

The non-handbooks threads in CharOps can be rather horrible and irritating to the max. But the handbooks? That stuff is gold.

+1

The handbooks are the best part of CharOps. Whenever I want to play a class that I haven't played before, I head to the handbooks to get a handle on the effects and rankings of the powers, analysis of the class features, crunch clarification and hidden synergies. Saves a ton of time that I would've had to spend on reading through all the books.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

The handbooks are the best part of CharOps. Whenever I want to play a class that I haven't played before, I head to the handbooks to get a handle on the effects and rankings of the powers, analysis of the class features, crunch clarification and hidden synergies. Saves a ton of time that I would've had to spend on reading through all the books.

The reason I get annoyed at them is because of the stuff that keeps being brought into my games that is clearly overpowered based on "I read it on the CharOp boards, there is no way they'd give me stuff that wasn't legal." Then, when I read the rules it always comes down to the way someone reads a specific sentence somewhere. If I choose to read it slightly differently the game stays balanced.

As for the handbooks, my ire to them comes from reading the Avenger one. It basically said that there were only two ways of making an Avenger: The guy who runs around enemies randomly provoking Opportunity Attacks and the one that does everything he can to get enemies to move away from them on their turns voluntarily.

Of course, it's fairly obvious that the way they are intended to be played is that, despite the names, the Pursuing Avenger wants enemies to stay next to him and acts as a sort of Defender, while the Isolating Avenger encourages all the other enemies NOT to attack him through the use of his class features while occupying one of the enemies by himself, acting as a sort of controller by preventing the enemies from working together.

Of course, in order to do the most damage possible, you want your class feature to trigger the most often. But to do so basically means playing the class in the exact opposite method it was meant to be played in. The guide never says this. In fact, it is written in such a way as to make it sound like playing the class in the intended way is stupid. It then goes on to rate all of the powers in the class assuming that you are using one of the two valid tactics for creating an Avenger. It rates a bunch of the powers that are GOOD for Avengers as bad because they cause the class features to trigger less often.

It then basically tells everyone that the best idea as an Avenger is to multiclass as Rogue and use a Dagger, since that's the only way to qualify for Daggermaster. It made comments to the effect that playing a single class Avenger who took a Paragon Path that was designed for Avengers was a fools game.

And yes, following the advice of the guide maximizes your damage output. It's a good idea if you care about nothing but damage output. But it was completely useless for me when deciding what to take for my Avenger. And it certainly shouldn't be advice for new players.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

I believe that the quality of the Warlord Essentials article can, despite all of the other subtle, yet horrendous recommendations and analyses that its writer makes, such as suggesting Commander's Strike for an Inspiring Presence warlord, stating that a Tactical Presence warlord is somehow a "secondary defender", noting down Viper's Strike and Wolf Pack Tactics as the two at-wills for a Tactical Presence warlord, emphasizing that a Tactical Presence warlord should strive for heavier and heavier armor proficiencies (instead of sticking to hide)

Yeah, this confused me a lot when I read it. My idea of the two types of Warlord is the exact opposite of theirs. Tactical Warlords should be the ones "leading from the rear", in the best way Warlords can. Using reach weapons to stand behind people and using Commander's Strike and things like Lead the Attack to give bonuses to everyone. He wears light armor since he can make use of his Intelligence for AC and it gives him better maneuverability to adjust to the changing battle.

Meanwhile the Inspiring Warlord leads by attacking himself, wearing heavy armor and "inspiring" his allies through deed. He stands up front to heal himself and his allies as they need it.

But the advice in the article is pretty much the exact opposite of that. It is then followed by a bunch of powers that feel like they SHOULD be in the flavor of Tactical Warlords(give your allies extra attacks) but then give special benefits to Inspiring Warlords for using these powers.

 

[EarthSeraphEdna]

The reason I get annoyed at them is because of the stuff that keeps being brought into my games that is clearly overpowered based on "I read it on the CharOp boards, there is no way they'd give me stuff that wasn't legal." Then, when I read the rules it always comes down to the way someone reads a specific sentence somewhere. If I choose to read it slightly differently the game stays balanced.

*snip*

It then basically tells everyone that the best idea as an Avenger is to multiclass as Rogue and use a Dagger, since that's the only way to qualify for Daggermaster. It made comments to the effect that playing a single class Avenger who took a Paragon Path that was designed for Avengers was a fools game.

Looking at the paragon path section of the Avenger Handbook (Whoops! Browser Settings Incompatible), I do not see anything you are referring to at all.