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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Tony Vargas" data-source="post: 5540744" data-attributes="member: 996">HoS is not technically an Essentials book, but, it builds exclusively upon classes from Heroes of the Fallen Land and Heroes of the Forgotten Kingdom (both Essentials books).  If you don't have both of these, most of the stuff in it won't make much sense.  Starting  with PH3, the designers began deviating from the basic structure of 4e classes.  Before, a class would always have features and at-will powers up-front, then gain utilities and addtional encounters and dailies at specific levels.  PH3 psionics tweaked that just a bit with PPs instead of encounter attack powers.  Essentials goes much further. Some classes lack dailies, some get powers at different levels, some have no choice of what powers they get at certain levels, and all get class features spread out over their level progression.  Also, the Character Builder has gone from an off-line client implementation to an on-line-only one.  If you liked the consistency and class balance of 4e, I'd reccomend cutting off things at the PH3 (that is, not using psionics classes, at all).  Simply standardizing on the last release of the off-line CB you have (assuming you didn't make the mistake of 'upgrading') is also a workable cut-off.</blockquote>