What the FRICK is the Ardent [4e]

[DragonBaneDM]

Never heard of it before, but it sounds Divine, and there's a big ol' minotaur on the front of PHB3.

It just sounds like something I'd wanna play. Any help?

[Pramxnim]

The Ardent is the Psionic Leader, coming out with PHB3. A preview of the class is available with Dragon Magazine, Issue 382. It is sort of a consensus on CharOps that the Ardent is a bit underpowered, but I don't know too much about it to comment further on the class.

[Fishy]

Based on the 3.5 class in Complete Psionic, the book that introduced a lot of stupid nerfs but also Mantles and the Soulbow. Wisdom-based psionics user, best known for its ability to do stupid things with Practiced Manifester.

[Theodoric]

Never heard of it before, but it sounds Divine, and there's a big ol' minotaur on the front of PHB3.

It just sounds like something I'd wanna play. Any help?

Mechanically, he's rather Warlord-ish, at least, the build that we've seen.

[Samb]

Based on the 3.5 class in Complete Psionic, the book that introduced a lot of stupid nerfs but also Mantles and the Soulbow. Wisdom-based psionics user, best known for its ability to do stupid awesome things with Practiced Manifester.

Corrected it for you.

Ardents rule in 3.5. Don't know too much about 4s

[Optimystik]

4e Ardent is closer in flavor to a 3.5 Wilder/Thrallherd than a 3.5 Ardent. Very emotional use of psionics, to subtly inspire/compel companions to new heights.

From what I've heard, he seems a bit lacking in offense (compared to a Warlord, especially Bravura) and defense (compared to a cleric or Taclord.) However, he might lean towards being more of a controllish leader rather than being able to wade into the fray. Leading from the rear, so to speak.

The 3.5 Ardent is of course, totally fecking awesome and I hope they keep the flavor intact for a different class, perhaps a paragon path that combines divine and psionic abilities.

[Mando Knight]

CharOp definitely considers it underpowered, and I haven't even looked at their threads on it yet. Its big problem is that it lacks pretty much any amount of the feat support that would bring it up to the point where the others are. However, a polearm does go a good way towards boosting their melee survivability back up to around the Cleric's...