What 3 classes will be in the Arcane power book?

[Aristotle]

Do we have confirmation that Sorcerer is arcane? It makes sense given it's current state, but the title is generic enough that they could take it almost any direction to divide it further from Wizard.

Bard (leader) and Swordmage (defender) seem likely, unless covered elsewhere (but my preference is that the PHB and power sourcebook encompass all of the available classes for a power source), So I'm going to go with them. I could see them being the only two.

As for other power sources. Primal and Psionic are safe bets for the next set of core books. Shadow has gotten some discussion, and is likely the third. I hope martial and psionic have divided and eaten Ki. I cringe every time it's mentioned. Spirit could be interesting. Artifice/Tech could be interesting (tinkers were always fun in concept, and 3rd edition took great steps toward making them fit in better mechanically). I don't think the Artificer can wait long enough to be in the 3rd PHB, as it is needed for Eberron, so it'll either be in the arcane book as a class or path/destiny or handled as a new class in the Eberron setting guide.

 

[Steely Dan]

Do we have confirmation that Sorcerer is arcane?

No, I believe it will be a Primal controller or striker, depending on what role the druid and elementalist take up.

 

[Aristotle]

No, I believe it will be a Primal controller or striker, depending on what role the druid and elementalist take up.

I think it could do well in Primal too, given the right fluff. Wasn't there a rage based arcane prestige class? Maybe sorcerer could kill it and take some of it's stuff, for more primal goodness.

 

[Steely Dan]

I think it could do well in Primal too, given the right fluff.

As they have said that the bard will not be arcane, I could see it as the Primal Leader – take it back to more of its Celtic 1st Ed roots (I could see them being close to Fey etc).

 

[Lackhand]

As they have said that the bard will not be arcane, I could see it as the Primal Leader – take it back to more of its Celtic 1st Ed roots (I could see them being close to Fey etc).

There's an extra "not" in that sentence -- they've pretty much come out and said that they're Arcane Leaders. They also said that they (currently) draw powers from extraplanar patrons.

Which is very very different from the patron'ed arcane Warlock.

 

[Sitara]

The sorcerer seems similar to the wildmage from 2E, except insteadof producing wildly unpredictable results with a spell, they produce a beneficial side effect from that spell (which may or may not be unpredicatable)

 

[maggot]

Warmage has got to be in there.

 

[MaelStorm]

If they are determined to fulfill all the roles for every power source. (We don't know their plan on this, but this thread is what its for), so let's play the game of speculation. It could be fun.

There are only 2 Arcane classes confirmed for the PHB1:
Warlock (Arcane Strikers)
Wizard (Arcane Controlers)

So there must be a possible Arcane Leader and a Defender (for the first year)
The Warmage could be a good candidate for the arcane defender.
Then, who is the arcane leader?

 

[drothgery]

Warmage has got to be in there.

From what we know of the 4e wizard, I'm not sure warmage has a niche that a fighter 1/wizard x (or wizard with fighter training, depending on how 4e multiclassing works) can't cover well.

 

[drothgery]

If they are determined to fulfill all the roles for every power source. (We don't know their plan on this, but this thread is what its for), so let's play the game of speculation. It could be fun.

There are only 2 Arcane classes confirmed for the PHB1:
Warlock (Arcane Strikers)
Wizard (Arcane Controlers)

So there must be a possible Arcane Leader and a Defender (for the first year)
The Warmage could be a good candidate for the arcane defender.
Then, who is the arcane leader?

There doesn't have to be an arcane leader or defender, any more than there has to be a martial controller, or a divine controller or striker. The 4e design team has mentioned time and time again that they aren't interested in creating symetry for symetry's sake.

I think there will be, because they've mentioned over and over again that the bard is an arcane leader, and that the swordmage basically came out of a design experiment of 'what would an arcane defender look like'. But it's a virtual certainty that the grid won't get filled out for every power source, especially ones launched after PH1.