Warlord At-Will Powers level 1 via June Preview

[Mengu]

If the warlord is weakened, blinded, marked by another creature, or in some other way, shape, or form, has attack/damage penalties, it's a good power to have.

There may be other obscure beneficial conditions, like you are fighting a fire elemental that does damage if you attack it, but your Tiefling rogue doesn't care so much about the heat, so you give him an extra attack. Or an allie may have a cold based basic melee attack that the fire elemental is vulnerable to, and it may be beneficial to give him an extra attack.

But generally if the Warlord is in melee range of something, there is probably some better at-will ability that does something better than granting a basic melee attack to an ally. Remember things like sneak attack and hunter's quarry can only be used once per round (though warlock's curse seems to work all the time). So you don't get as much bang out of such abilities when attacking out of turn, or gaining second attacks with action points.

Not a bad ability, just somewhat situational to use.

 

[Waneta]

There may be other obscure beneficial conditions, like you are fighting a fire elemental that does damage if you attack it...

Or say, an orc bloodrager who will smack you right back?

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Or say, an orc bloodrager who will smack you right back?

"Hey, Bob, you're the defender, how about you take the counter-attack?"

 

[Exen Trik]

AND there's no reason they can't use this on THEMSELVES.

Excellent point, and very cool use of the power... but the description seems kinda odd for it, with the warlord yelling advice at himself to attack.

 

[rkanodia]

I thought it had been established that characters aren't their own allies.

 

[prototype00]

So lets see if I get this right...

1.) Sticky fighter stands next to Big Bad
2.) Warlord stands behind sticky fighter with reach weapon (spear, halberd, e.t.c.)
3.) Warlord is in "melee" range with big bad and thus can give Fighter ally extra attacks with this ability.
4.) Or Warlord could just unload with his own melee encounter powers.

Seems like a good deal to me, or am I missing something?

prototype00

 

[GoodKingJayIII]

Yep, the warlord is still Leonidas, and seems unable to break out of that archetype.

Disappointing, but not surprising.

You're disappointed that you can model a Leonidas-type character?

If you're disappointed that Leonidas is the only archetype that fits the warlord, fear not! There are in fact other character types that fit the warlord quite nicely. They don't even have to be in the military!

 

[Kordeth]

So lets see if I get this right...

1.) Sticky fighter stands next to Big Bad
2.) Warlord stands behind sticky fighter with reach weapon (spear, halberd, e.t.c.)
3.) Warlord is in "melee" range with big bad and thus can give Fighter ally extra attacks with this ability.
4.) Or Warlord could just unload with his own melee encounter powers.

Seems like a good deal to me, or am I missing something?

prototype00

Well, assuming the big bad has no reach or ranged powers, he can always shift to smack the warlord--which opens him up to a basic attack from the fighter, but he can still pull it off. Also don't forget that the warlord is giving up his action to give the fighter extra attacks, which may or may not be optimal.

Personally, without having an associated attack from the warlord himself, I'm of the opinion that this is a pretty good candidate for a human warlord's bonus at-will power, but I don't think I'd burn one of my two at-wills on this. If it were ranged 5 or so, it would be a much more compelling choice, because it would give you something to contribute even if you can't get into melee range this round (i.e. you drop a monster with an OA, but the rest of the party is 5 squares away across difficult terrain, or you've been slowed, etc.)

 

[Incenjucar]

How much of a damage/effect advantage do people feel makes it a worthwhile at-will?

Keeping in mind single-target buffs, on-hit reactive monsters, damage types, and weapon abilities.

 

[Kordeth]

How much of a damage/effect advantage do people feel makes it a worthwhile at-will?

Keeping in mind single-target buffs, on-hit reactive monsters, damage types, and weapon abilities.

Based on the other at-will buffing abilities we've seen, from this preview, the older Warlord preview, and the DDXP cleric, the fact that the warlord gives up his own attack is what pushes this into "marginal" territory for me.

Likewise, the confirmation that you have to be in melee range to pull it off just stings--assuming warlords are mostly a melee class (which, granted, isn't a given but seems likely based on the powers we've seen), you're not even given the opportunity to convert an otherwise wasted standard action into an ally's attack in most cases; any time you can use this power, you could also hit the monster yourself.

I see a lot of potential warlord player frustration in the form of "well, the fighter/rogue/whatever has a better hit bonus than me, so I'll let him hit the orge again." That doesn't sound as fun or memorable as "crap, even with a charge I can't get to the big bad to help out this round--but the fighter's already there, I'll give him my attack!"