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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 5569278" data-attributes="member: 82106">I think the real issue though with Aegis of Ensnarement and Aegis of Assault is that they FUNDAMENTALLY don't work well from a tactical standpoint. Aegis of Assault requires the SM to teleport adjacent, which inevitably pulls the SM out of whatever other more desirable position he was in or forces him to make a choice to use or not use the feature. This isn't ALWAYS an issue, but the marked creature can often take advantage of this. AoE is even worse, as often the enemy will be better off if the aegis is triggered and is rarely worse of. There are times you can benefit from either one, but no other defender feature has the potential to be exploited BY the enemy. Even if the aegis is made stronger this issue still exists for the swordmage. The end result is that SMs are always pretty situational with these AoA and AoE. Couple that with the SMs weak power selection and quite limited damage output and you're really just not that great. Aegis of Defense works well and makes an adequate defender, but even then they're much more useful against a single enemy that unleashes large single-target attacks and not so much so against other types of opponent. Swordmage is a moderately nifty concept, but TBH I don't think the archetype is well served by being placed in the defender role. At the very least they should have something like a strong secondary striking or controlling role, which seems to be absent. Although I can see the allure of having an arcane defender I just don't think it worked out well as designed.</blockquote>

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