Idea: Let's discuss the best classes for doing what their role is. That is to say, which class is the best defender, strictly from a standpoint of staying up and diverting damage to himself. So, this is not saying "what are the four best classes" but rather "Which defender is the best at defending, which leader is the best at leading" etc. So a leader class may be super awesome, but if he isn't a good leader, he doesn't make the cut.
Declaration: I have not had a chance to play every class from level 1 to 30, so most of what I say is based off of what I have read. If you want to correct me, please do so, but be nice about it.
Defender: There are 4 defenders, one for each power source. Defender stand up, stay up, and prevent monsters from chewing on the mage. First and foremost thing I look at for a defender, is survivability, and second is directing damage at the defender (or," preventing the dragon from chewing on the mage," as I like to call it.)
Fighter-A good all-around defender. Solid defense, with good armor and the ability to have a shield, and a defending fighter need only consentrate on Strength (for hitting) and Constitution (for staying up.) with maybe a sidebar of Wisdom or Dex, depending on their build. They have a few abilities that let them heal and slow down enemies, preventing them from going after other party members. Downside is that they don't have a lot of self-buffs.
Paladins-Paladins can heal and keeps themselves up pretty well, don't get me wrong, but I feel that they spread their stats too thin. They require Con, Wis, and either Strength OR Charisma, OR both if they want to have a full range of powers, so I tend to discount them, seeing as they can't focus their stats.
Swordmages-Interesting, very interesting. They have a great deal of teleportation powers, letting them go where they are needed. Additionally, their Swordmage Warding, and generally high Int give them comparable AC to Fighters and Paladins. However, their options for damage are limited, as they pretty much HAVE to use certain weapons.
Warden-We have a winner. Con-based wardens get use their Con for AC, Fort, HP, and most of their attacks, making them a single-stat type character. In addition, they get some incredible forms that augment their ability to stand up. Add that to their ability to make saves at the beginning of their turn (so they are possibly unaffected by them) and you have a winner.
Strikers: Strikers deal damage. But not is it just damage, they deal damage to one source, and one source only. There are two things I consider for best striker, First and foremost, damage dealing ability, secondly, survivability. There are Six to get through, so let's get started.
Rogue- A great melee striker, Rogues can deal staggeringly exorbonant amounts of damage, especially with the right build and setup. Their only downside is needing combat advantage. While it is fairly easy to get combat advantage, it is not always the possible, which looses the Rogue some points
Warlock-Another good striker. Blasting the crap out of something from a distance is all great fun, and the Warlock can do it well. However, their survivability is a bit questionable. A con-based warlock might have a fair number of hitpoints, but no warlock will have a great AC, so if they draw the attention of some creature, they are in trouble, especially if they find themselves in melee.
Sorcerer-To be honest, as much fun as they seem, I never quite understood the sorcerer. Sure, they can do some great damage, but they just seem like an elemental version of the warlock. Their ability to ignore resistances makes them quite handy, but, like the warlock, they lack survivability.
Barbarian-A great melee striker. I mean, what other class has a paragon path power that allows for a 7[w] strike!? The only minor downside is that to use some of their class super-abilities, they have to put their survivability into jepordy. Additionally, I find that ranged strikers are generally better than melee, as they have the ability to shoot the mage in the back without finding a way through his hordes of minions.
Avenger: Avengers are capable of dealing enormous damage to a single target, which is great, but they have a bit of a problem. Most of the time, they need to engage in a series of "Gentelman's duels" between them and an enemy, and can't stop until their target is dead. This makes them not terribly adaptable to situations, which can be bad.
Ranger-Winner, but only Ranged Rangers. To be honest, this was a pretty close race in my mind. To be honest, most Strikers are pretty good, and any of them are REALLY good at messing people up, but the ability for a ranger to shoot twice and do some serious damage to anyone they can see makes them very adaptable, and very good. Plus, a ranged ranger is still capable of holding their own in melee, as several power that let you shoot twice ALSO let you hit twice with melee weapons. Also, Hide armor +high dex nets you good survivability.
I will do a type-up of Leaders and Controllers in a while
Leaders, you really need to split into buffing and healing. Healing is clerics, pretty much hands-down. Buffing is probably taclords or shamans. This is further complicated by party size issues. A cleric's buffs are frequently single-character. A shaman's buffs are small-group. A warlord tends to be full-party.
I think Fighters are still the best Defenders as yet.
They have decent defenses and can push them higher if they want, but their ability to Mark whatever they attack as well as the Combat Challenge feature which prevents enemies from going anywhere and discourages them from attacking allies is the main piece. Interrupts are better than Reactions most of the time.
Their damage output is almost never minor even if they go sword and board, so they keep themselves a viable 'threat' regardless of what the rest of the party does. If the monsters can't forget about you even putting aside the mark because you're a real threat, that's much more effective than cleaning up after the fact how hurt you are, which gives the Leader something to do.
I'm not willing to say who the absolute best Striker is, but while Archer Rangers are versatile their damage output in my experience is much lower than what a Sorcerer or Barbarian can put out, and "Ranged 40" is pretty much always unnecessary. I'm leaning to Sorcerers being the best Strikers in terms of pure damage and not getting pinned down, even if they are kind of boring in my opinion (also think they're a bit overpowered with certain builds).
The reason I chose Wardens over the others is their sheer survivability. They simply have more HP, can dump all their stats into Con without major trouble, and they get different forms which can add greatly to their survivability. Lastly, they roll saves at the beginning of their turn, making them able to possibly bypass entire problems. True, they may loose out in 'stickyness' (a paladin's mark deals auto damage, and swordmages can outright stop your attacks, which is great) but it's hard to argue with just how hard it is to take a warden down.
The reason I chose Ranged Rangers is likewise twofold. First off, I have seen optimized rangers out damage optimized backstabbing rogues by a LOT. I haven't compared them directly to barbarians, but a ranged ranger seems to be able to do similar (maybe slightly less) damage, but to any target he can see, where as a barbarian must be right next to the guy. Now, ranged 40 doesn't come into effect too often, true, but ranged 20 does and very few other classes have that ability. In addition, they can wear hide, and are DECENT in melee if they find themselves in a pinch (obviously, not where they are supposed to be, but hey when has DnD always gone exactly to the player's plans?), greatly adding to their survival over warlocks and sorcerers
Personally I've only once "needed" Range 20, and that was for a single round before the rest of my party closed in. Almost regardless of your damage you won't get much accomplished at extreme range by yourself, unless you're sniping minions or are only expecting to soften up a target that can't get away or hide.
With tough Wardens, or super tough or hard to hit anything, there's the psychological component that also goes into what character the monsters (controlled by your DM) choose to go for.
If a target proves too hard to hit, or if the hits don't actually seem to accomplish anything, moderately intelligent monsters notice that and move to different targets if possible. So you want to balance your personal defenses and toughness to be high, but not necessarily super-high to where enemies don't even want to attack you. Of course, depending on your party you might be able to be the only reachable target for most monsters regardless of your defenses, which I did with a Fighter with super-high AC (to the exclusion of damage) as pretty much the only melee character and allies with avoidance powers (premade adventure).
Damage is also a large draw of attention, which Fighters are quite good at. Just like a Striker can make himself too much of a nuisance with his damage, a Fighter always keeps up a decent amount in addition to his stickiness and being in the monsters' faces.
The Interrupt vs. Reaction factor is also big psychologically. The monster might get smacked for trying to hit someone else, or he might get smacked after he's already accomplished (or tried to) something.
Definitely the player's goals and the party's makeup affect a lot, but if there's a Leader the Fighter probably doesn't mind getting hit or even suffering a few status effects occasionally (that is, if those effects go away real fast). Lets the monsters know he's somebody they can hurt, even though the Leader usually will nullify that when it gets too much.
Fighter-We had a fighter for 10 levels in our group. Being able to shut down enemy shifting is a hude deal with their stickyness. And they have striker level of dpr if built with that in mind without loosing much of what makes them a defender
Paladins- We have had two palies in our group one defender (cha) and one striker (str). While i agree their stats to tend to spread themselves thin with planning its not that bad as they start with high surge and hp to make up with a lower con. And sanction doubles as a possible minion killer which is nice.
Swordmages- Aoe is interesting but their low damage is a turn off for me. Also their ageses seem to me to loose their potency as it gets higher on in levels.
Warden- We have had a warden for a few sessions. Con wardens still need to invest in strength as their primary stat. As such your looking as lower reflex and will. while the sheild might help reflex your will defence is stil not great. also their punish attack just dosent lock down enemies as well as a fighter does IMO/ You also suffer the same thing as swordmage, low damage.
Strikers:
Rogue- Rogues have 2 things. 6 skills and high damage (if they have combat advantage) thats it. we had a rogue for two sessions before it was killed by a trap. I wasent that impressed.
Warlock- we had a warlock for a few sessions. Their damage output, even with curse, is on the low side and they dont get primeshot as often as they like. Most will have int as a secondary so their ac isint horible.
Sorcerer- Yes their defences are not that great (if you are strength/cha that is) but they have really nice damage, much better than a warlock and deal out aoe.
Barbarian- Barbarians can be nice. We have had a con barb in our party for three levels almost and they have defender level hp and ac (with the primal power feat) with still insane damage. And Whiling barbs can subsitute as a half decent controller.
Avenger: Avengers are accurate but their damage is lackluster. And now they cant use leather armor so their ac has dropped. Ive played around with oath personally and while it looks good on paper you would be surprised at how often you roll low on both.
Ranger- We had a ranged ranger for like 9 levels. at low levels she wasent that effective but as she got some feats, she became more effective. However like a warlock their prime shot was often negated so they suffered some accuracy problems (since bow is only a +2). Honestly to me it seems that a meele ranger would be better at dealing damage and more accurate with both a +3 weapon and flanking/combat advantage (heck they even get toughness for free to shore up their survivability)
Leader: We all know what we really want from leaders-healing. There are three things a leader needs to do, and first is healing, followed by survivability and buffing/debuffing. I know that I put survivability up a lot as a class requirement, but for the healer, it is really true, if he/she goes down, then the rest of your party is SOL unless they have backup healing.
Artificer-An interesting idea. The artificer is very good at spreading around healing surges, something that is a rare ability in DnD. For this, they get high praise, but their healing isn't the best, and, in addition, they get relatively few healing powers. Secondly, most of their buffs only affect themselves, debuffs are limited to one person, and their survivability is mediocre, what with their leather armor and no shield.
Shaman-Another interesting idea. They can park their spirit companion next to the defender and help him out greatly, both with tactical placement, and with all the powers that help allies next to the spirit companion. Unfortunately, they, too, suffer from a general lack of additional healing powers, and with only leather armor and usually low Dex/Int, their survivability is less than the artificer
Warlord-A great leader to be sure. Full party buffs, some abilities that are always active, and several things that will help out strikers or defenders, a warlord is by no means a poor choice. HOWEVER, they are only proficient with chain and a shield, and when you are a front-line guy (because of their powers) this can lead to poor survivability.
Cleric-We all know that a cleric does one thing really well. Healing. They do a lot of healing. They have many, many healing-based powers, they heal a lot on their own, and they get plenty of feats that increase their healing. Their buffs are decent, but limited to one person, usually. The only downside for them is that they MIGHT have to be frontline (if a strength build) and with only chain and no shield, and low con, this could be a problem.
Bard-Another good choice, they have the same survivability as a Warlord (chain and shield) but could have even more with an int build (Hide and High int) and they have the option of hanging back. This gives them a great deal of versatility, as they can handle themselves in melee, but they don't need to be there to be effective. They also have a great deal of buffs/debuffs, and their heals are not on par with a cleric, but are still decent.
Winner: I am torn between the Cleric and the Bard. I have seen both be very effective. Clerics heal more and bards are more versatile. I'm honestly split on this one
Controllers: Perhaps the least understood and least-defined character type, controllers seek to mitigate problems on the battlefield. Their job is equal parts AoE damage (for getting rid of groups of minions) and lockdown stopping the big bad from doing stuff whilst you get up to them. There are only three, so let's get to it.
Druid: I honestly don't know what to make of druids, and I've never actually seen one in action. While turning into an animal is, and has always been, cool, I'm not sold on how effective they are. Most of their powers seem to be in the vein of messing with movement, which is OKAY, but they lack AoE, and unless you are going to be throwing a LOT of enemies into pits, screwing with enemy movement is not a great lockdown technique. Additionally, many of their abilities require them to be in melee, and they don't have great survivability. Their secondary healing is nice, but not enough to tip the scales.
Invoker-Yay AoE. Invokers are all about the AoE, and it is radiant AoE at that (usually) meaning few things resist it and it does extra damage against everyone's favorite punching bag undead. Plus some healing on the side, and even some good survivability with chain, you might think that they are the winners, but there is only one downside, they have very few powers that lock down.
Wizards-The winner. Wizards are nothing but AoE and lockdown, that's all they do. And, though they have crappy HP, their survivability is higher than one might expect, what with their high int and powers like Shield. Not much to say about them, they can both do AoE and lockdown. It was a tough call between Invokers and Wizards, and anyone who wants to challenge me on this will certainly have valid points.
Through the roof healing just knocks out the other aspects of Bard. Moving around more easily or penalizing enemies isn't as good as healing a guy to full with a minor action. Bards inspire fear and despair with their powers, and a Cleric does it by utterly erasing all the work enemies just did.
My Bard observance over time has been low, but their "versatility" doesn't seem to help as much in a normal fight. They're great at fooling the guards and such but they have a kind of lower profile in a fight most of the time.
I've seen and made several Clerics though. If you stay "ranged" you can probably do the best healing and be free enough from harm, but even melee is significant (got to mix up power selection to not just be melee though). I'm not sure if it's a feature or a defect, but if the Leader is in melee and can strip off a few attacks which might otherwise go to his buddies, it's extra party HP. Not something to try for regularly but it can help to serve as a temporary defender (you're a huge target because how influential you are, but you're still wearing armor and getting better armor or a shield is easy).
People cite Wizards for having boring at-wills, and that's kind of true, but their Dailies are the most powerful in the game I think. After a few character levels where you can pull out a Daily nearly every fight, your impact is huge, and the low level Encounter power Color Spray never gets old. It's really easy to "mess up" when making a Wizard though, because of all those "trap" direct damage abilities, so lots of people just feel frustrated at how "useless" they wind up.
The wrong thing is being looked at when it comes to what makes a good 'whatever'. You do not, in any way possible at all, look at what makes a char good simply by what they can do. You need to see how well they mesh with possible chars. And honestly depending on what in blazes the rest of the party is doing, and how your DM runs things, each class can quite easily and possibly shine in different settings.
The best, the best you can honestly do here is look at which of each char is most likely to mesh best with as many other classes as possible..this needs to be a strong consideration. If you don't consider this, then you also are not considering the class as a whole. Also there seems to be an odd sort of leaning to just one part of a role over the role in its entirety. There is also some oddities in arguements in other places.
Wardens, for instance, are all two stat chars..all of them need STR to actually hit the enemy and have their effects take place. Con ones have high hp. But all Wardens wind up with relatively low Reflex saves, only the wisdom build gets decent reflex...while the con build gets a redundant defense stat as its secondary. So you wind up with someone who is not that hard to hit on one or two parts of their saves (though will is always slightly higher by default). Thats some decently glaring holes in my thoughts.
Then you give oddities with some of the strikers to..just one thing I found..different for instance.
The sorc writeup was also odd to me. Most sorcs will have a high will due to Charisma..then have either a high reflex or fort depending on flavor of sorc..if they go for the sorcs that use reflex they will have ok AC in cloth alone. But otherwise they have insane steady damage, with many builds getting +8 to +9 damage at level one...they can be very compentent in Melee for the cost of one feat (being able to cast even their daily's into melee if needed). Their damage goes up decently rapidly, they don't need to worry about quarying or having sneak attack...and they can have at will, melee, and encounter burst attacks that deal massive amounts of damage to several creatures. And the interesting thing is that a great deal of their damage tends to come from static bonuses, not from die rolls.
Now dosn't that count towards something? Attacking NADs, attacking several enemies at once, quite capable of doing huge damage when hitting multiple enemies..yeah a ranger can twinstrike one or two targets at will, a sorc can blazing starfall up to 9 (though usually 2 or 3 seems the common number), does that not count as well? And hey if you just want single target damage 1d10+8~9 off an at will at level 1 ain't shabby either. Especially when you throw in the single targeting encounter and daily powers.
The writeup on warlords was also strange...knocking off points because they 'only' wear chainmail? They have massive healing, the ability to provide saving throws, able to strongly buff, if you go any of the int builds you get a high bonus to ac from int, as well as wearing hide armor, the right build does crazy adds to damage on action points, commands striker is quite silly in how strong it is with the right striker..or use brash strike to give it to ranged strikers.
For controllers I ain't going to say much...I've had very little experience with non wizard controllers...other than to point out that pretty much every non-beast druid power is ranged, they have powers that summon creatures, they get 3 at wills instead of 2 to pick from, and yeah they do alot of movement control over stat effects.
And just as a finisher..I think in the end this will need to be nothing more than a thought excersize...all the classes I've seen have their own lil unique slice of an area...and each one does each role in its own way. And a strong part of whats effective isn't really up to the build...its often how the player uses the powers, how other players use a chars powers, and what enemies you face.
To Starfir: Yes, you are right. As I said in my opening arguement, this is not "make the bust build" or who is best under certain circumstances, but rather, my thoughts as they pertained to a very narrow field. Of course, a swordmage with the sheilding aegis is going to be indispensable to a party of 'squishies' and a warden won't be as good if the rest of your group consists of a barbarian, warden, and Invoker. I was just making an overall, generalized review of each class as I saw them, and opened the discussion up to others. I am not claiming to be the be-all-end-all of DnD.
As for a few of your concerns: First, I didn't have the time, space, or inclination to do a massive, in-depth review of every character, and I may have skipped out on some stuff, so let me revisit your comments.
First off: I find that AC is the most important defense (though obviously not the only one) so I tend to gravatate toward thinking along those lines. Yes, yes, I know that there are many, many attacks that target other things, but the basic, normal attacks monsters still make are attacks against AC, especially melee monsters.
Regarding Sorcs, yes, I know that they can do massive damage, and they are pretty good at that. A cold-based sorc with wintertouched is just crazy good, for example. The point I wanted to make with them, and didn't, was that they are limited to pretty much just one damage type (with elemental based) or random damage type (with chaos based.) This leaves them kinda lacking in versatility for an arcane striker. In addition, they have low survivability should they find themselves in melee. Compare this to rangers who have A)better range, B)Physical damage type, which is rarely resisted or a problem, and C) more survivability should they find themselves ambushed in melee.
As for Warlords . . . the thing I was trying to say is that they are good, yes, but they are meant to be frontline characters, people in the front. So while the pally has full plate and a shield, and the Fighter has scale mail and a shield, the warlord "only" has chain and a light shield. And if he is blowing all his healing to keep himself up, he isn't healing his party. Compare that with the bard, that gets the same (chain and light shield), can fight in melee if he has to, but can also do damage and help from the back, where he doesn't have to engage the giant melee monster of death to be effective.
Sorc..limited? This one is from personal experience...as I've got a boom boom wild sorc...he has a total of..two chaos attack powers.....one of those does psychic (now thats a hard one to find a resist for heh :P), the other is random....but I got that because of the fact even on a miss it can still be awesome heh. Otherwise? Cold, Lightning, and Radiant damage are the other types he tends to use so far. Spent a feat on leather (just because), he's dex based so he also has that benefit. Of course I tend to know how to stay out of combat, so I rarely need to worry...and if something happens? Well I could have chosen to blow my utilities on get the heck out of dodge tricks (immediate interupt to teleport away from being hit? yes please)...but honestly I just rely on sorcerous blade channeling and do a melee smack that pushes the enemy away from me. And otherwise I've got the resident strikers very jelous because of the small smattering of area powers the sorc has.
As for the warlord..you totally ignored one thing I said..again with the 'chain and shield'. No, they can also be hide armor, high int, and shield. Infact I'm the black sheep playing the inspiring warlord myself....most others have one of the more int based builds and just say hit him repeatedly while dealing out healing as needed. They don't waste it, they give it to exactly who needs it, when they need it.
As for AC...just to point out, people look towards it too much. Some people have low AC for a reason...if they are in a situtation where someone is targeting their AC..then they are already boned. It isn't the end all be all. And in the end it won't do a lick of good if you allow an overzelous love of AC to overshadow what else a character can do. The only people who actually need AC are those who expect to heavily be in melee, or who expect to constantly get peppered with arrows. For the case of the sorc..if he's taking heavy concentration of fire then somethings gone terribly wrong with the picture. Because a sorc is nicely capable of staying in the back lines..not getting into melee, and blasting people from afar.
Hope I havn't come off too rough, its just...there seems to be a heavy amount of misconceptions about how things work....heck don't even get me started on the small bit said about the artificer....buffs only self? Wha? They are one of the kings of preventive healing and group buffing (preventive healing being temp hitpoints by the by)
What I am saying, and what the original idea of this thread was, was take the class, in a vacuum, and see who is best at a single, solitary role. From my experience playing an artificer, my heals weren't that good, and neither were my buffs, but I was pulling secondary randed striker stuff pretty well. Thus, while being a good character class, it is not the best leader, IMHO.
Again, I thought I adressed the warlord issue earlier. Sure, a Int Warlord wearing hide can have a decent AC, but he still doesn't have terribly good staying power, he doesn't have the HP, the surges, or the toughness of a Defender, and he doesn't have a lot of options for getting out of dodge if things turn south (unlike melee strikers, who usually do.) My big point was, I didn't think your primary source of healing should have to be on the front line to be effective. I didn't think it was the best build, that's all.
The one soc I've seen played was a chaos sorc, and the player played super-chaos. Halfling chaos paragon path-the works. Rolled for everything, and it boned her more often then not. Anyway, yes, sorcs do good damage, but so do rangers. I just like the idea of more staying power over more top damage, that's just my personal opinion for a good striker, you are free to disagree, that's what the thread is for. Make your case, and stop trying to poke holes in mine.
However, when your party is large enough that you need two primary leaders, a warlord and a healbot cleric are a wonderful pair to have.
Bard is a bit different. The typical bard isn't really great at anything in combat unless the build gives up most of the versatility that (as I see it) is the major point of the class.
However, a bard can be a decent to excellent second or third everything. Possibly all in one build.
So if your party consists of characters who are so-so at their primary roles but decent at their secondary roles, a bard can fill in several gaps at once. Or if you have a larger party of more focused characters, the bard's versatility can mean he's rarely completely out of the picture (although he's also rarely the star).
My role definitions
Controllers directly counter enemy strategies and disrupt enemy tactics.
Controllers use area of effect attacks to punish enemy formations. They use forced movement to disrupt those formations, and to position enemies in exposed and vulnerable positions. Controllers have access to a variety of status effects which temporarily hinder or disable key enemy units. Finally, Controllers use walls and zones to reshape the battlefield, forcing the enemy to contend with different battlefield conditions than planned for.
Defenders disrupt focus fire and prevent enemies from engaging their preferred targets.
Defenders use their mark to encourage enemies to stop attacking whichever party member they are attempting to focus on, and they have abilities that punish enemies who attempt to ignore the mark. Defenders have abilities that redirect or outright prevent attacks. They have abilities that help ranged and skirmishing characters avoid melee, and they have abilities that help prevent ranged and skirmishing enemies from escaping melee.
Leaders enable party tactics and enhance party efficiency.
Leaders boost the offensive and defensive capabilities of the party. They enhance the mobility of a party, helping party members get into optimal positions. They provide increased access to healing resources, enhance those resources, and help the party avoid and negate negative status effects, allowing the party to continue operating at full strength.
Strikers engage and neutralize priority targets as quickly and efficiently as possible.
Strikers have access to increased mobility and/or ranged attacks, allowing them to penetrate or bypass enemy defenses and attack their preferred targets. They have debuffs to hinder those targets and high damage output to kill those targets quickly. They also have defensive abilities that help them disengage and move to another target when necessary.
Controllers use area of effect attacks to punish enemy formations. They use forced movement to disrupt those formations, and to position enemies in exposed and vulnerable positions. Controllers have access to a variety of status effects which temporarily hinder or disable key enemy units. Finally, Controllers use walls and zones to reshape the battlefield, forcing the enemy to contend with different battlefield conditions than planned for.
Defenders disrupt focus fire and prevent enemies from engaging their preferred targets.
Defenders use their mark to encourage enemies to stop attacking whichever party member they are attempting to focus on, and they have abilities that punish enemies who attempt to ignore the mark. Defenders have abilities that redirect or outright prevent attacks. They have abilities that help ranged and skirmishing characters avoid melee, and they have abilities that help prevent ranged and skirmishing enemies from escaping melee.
Leaders enable party tactics and enhance party efficiency.
Leaders boost the offensive and defensive capabilities of the party. They enhance the mobility of a party, helping party members get into optimal positions. They provide increased access to healing resources, enhance those resources, and help the party avoid and negate negative status effects, allowing the party to continue operating at full strength.
Strikers engage and neutralize priority targets as quickly and efficiently as possible.
Strikers have access to increased mobility and/or ranged attacks, allowing them to penetrate or bypass enemy defenses and attack their preferred targets. They have debuffs to hinder those targets and high damage output to kill those targets quickly. They also have defensive abilities that help them disengage and move to another target when necessary.
Additonally, a lot of them are good at things OUTSIDE their main perview. A Warlord double-teaming with a rogue can DESTROY stuff, a druid can lock down a big bad, and keep him inside an invoker's AoE. A wizard can stop a guy from moving, whilst a sorc rains down firey death, I am not saying any of these classes are BAD.
Huh? It sounds like you're giving these examples as being outside the main perview of the classes ... and then give the Wizard and Druid (Controller) examples as keeping enemies locked down (controlled) and the Sorc (Striker) as blowing things up (striking). Am I misreading what you're saying?
Certain groups focus on mobility and battlefield control (my group, for instance, has no defensive line. We're always constantly moving/teleporting/shifting). Rogues, avengers and swordmages excel here, especially if they have bards or warlords.
Other groups have a solid frontline that doesn't move and doesn't allow anyone to get by. Fighters, barbarians and melee rangers are great here. Shaman and any kind of ranged striker will be awesome as well.
So while your initial outlook on the classes are valid, it's all somewhat circumstantial.
Cleric, Wizard, Fighter, Archer Ranger, Rogue - I don't think you can go far wrong with this group.
To me, bards are the best leader partly because they don't just lead. They end up doing more in a given battle to increase the overall party efficacy, which leads to less hitpoints lost/surges spent. They also have an awesome Word power. I'd much rather have healing surge +cha(attack stat) mod than healing surge +1d6(warlord). letting the ally healed shift one square is a minor benefit, but still nice.
And I think the power selection of the bard is superior, as well.
and if we're going for pure heals, the bard can basically cheat through multi-classing.
A prescient bard mc cleric would be win, as well. I'm not a big fan of the valorous feature, but I tend to slightly underrate temporary hitpoints.
just my 2 copper.
This is partly because when the warlord doesn't want to go blowing surges, he's got a ton of temporary HP options, which don't consume surges. Additionally, so long as you have enough surges to last you for the encounter, burning through them as fast as you need to is totally acceptable.
Much as in 3.X, where the adventuring party traveled only as long as the Cleric had spells left, a 4E party travels only as long as they have healing surges remaining. Because of this, running out of healing surges isn't as big a problem as it seems, because that just means that it's the end of the adventuring day. A Warlord will keep you alive for that one big, bad encounter more reliably than a cleric, which tends to burn out on healing faster than a warlord does.
To me, warlords just don't do enough to help the party avoid the need for healing for them to get top rank.
It depends on the party. A warlord does best with a melee-heavy party (although a ranged-damage-heavy party is okay) with good basic attacks. Hand out extra basic attacks, charges, to-hit bonuses, and damage bonuses like candy at Halloween, and the enemy goes down faster thus doing less damage to your party so you don't need as much healing.
If he has only one or two allies that it's really useful to hand such things to, it's too situational and limiting - so the warlord is not very effective.
As a result, a warlord probably won't be effective in a four-person party unless it's pretty much entirely strikers. He starts to come up to par at five people with a couple other strikers, a defender, and a controller. Add more allies and he gets even better.
I suspect that most of the people who really like warlords are in parties of at least six PCs.
In my party my ranger is far and away the best damage dealer. He's a melee spiked chain weilding ranger. I play him that way mostly because it's more fun than an archer ranger, but I've noticed some surprising benefits of playing a primarily melee ranger.
1. I get lots of opportunity attacks. With "chain ward" my opportunity attack range is a 5x5 square in the middle of combat. That's pretty nice. Not many characters can get two attacks per round AND reach opportunity attacks.
2. If a DM isn't making your archer's job difficult with cover or with powers that screw around with ranged attacks, they may benefit from some tactical lessons. Allowing a ranger to roam freely and plunk two arrows at the boss each round is not something I generally allow as a DM, there's too many ways to mess with it.
3. Since my ranger is right in the middle of melee along with our rogue, that provides a much higher chance for combat advantage for each of us. My 10th level ranger with combat advantage has a +20 to hit. That equates to more hits and more damage from both the rogue and my ranger.
4. Rangers have many powers that greatly increase their tactical movement options in melee. Those include abilities to move through opponents without provoking opportunity attacks, abilities to slide opponents into different locations and abilities to move and strike opponents in the same attack.
5. When my ranger is in melee, he can draw off some attacks from the tank if the tank needs a moment to draw a second wind or if the tank actually goes down. With decent hide armor and good dex, a ranger can have pretty respectable AC.
I haven't played both, but it seems to me that an archery ranger with a greatbow may do more damage with each hit, but my melee ranger with constant combat advantage is probably not only going to hit more often, but his flanking will provide other strikers with higher chance to hit themselves, so in the end the overall damage increase for the party is not just what the melee ranger does himself, but what his flanking provides in increased hit potential for party members.
But really, it's just more fun. Given a choice between a melee fighter who dodges and weaves through combat like a deadly dancer, or a ranged fighter who plunks arrows at enemies from a distance, I'd take the melee fighter even if it were not quite as good at DPS. It's just more fun.
Besides, if it becomes absolutely necessary to use a bow, my melee ranger can do that too. I might lose a few bonus points to my attack roll, but I still get two shots per turn.
To me, warlords just don't do enough to help the party avoid the need for healing for them to get top rank.
It depends on the party. A warlord does best with a melee-heavy party (although a ranged-damage-heavy party is okay) with good basic attacks. Hand out extra basic attacks, charges, to-hit bonuses, and damage bonuses like candy at Halloween, and the enemy goes down faster thus doing less damage to your party so you don't need as much healing.
If he has only one or two allies that it's really useful to hand such things to, it's too situational and limiting - so the warlord is not very effective.
As a result, a warlord probably won't be effective in a four-person party unless it's pretty much entirely strikers. He starts to come up to par at five people with a couple other strikers, a defender, and a controller. Add more allies and he gets even better.
I suspect that most of the people who really like warlords are in parties of at least six PCs.
You speak truth.
also, I was rather impressed to see what two warlords were able to do in a massive battle that involved all of our players (we don't have the same number or composition at every game. there are 9 people total) and a ton of allies and enemies. Those "...allies who can see you" abillities become absolutely insane. My bard used battle field elocution, the warlords fought from the backs of griffons, and we pulled of a battle that otherwise would have been a route.
When the group is smaller, in normal encounters...not as awesome. that's why I'm making a new character. i have a bard. we work completely differently, but we overlap anyway, and I overshadow him a bit. As a striker, I'll have more fun since I won't be stepping on toes and having mine stepped on, and he and I will make one another more effective, rather than somewhat redundent, but still somewhat broken, as a group. :P
seriously, multiple leaders can make encounters too easy.