Which Niche?

[Nightgaun7]

The appearance of a thread on the Bladesinger, and working on an Avenger patch, made me wonder what niches are left for classes, if any.

The Bladesinger (or at least, an idealized version of one) has the niche of melee controller, though it overlaps there with the Druid.

The Avenger is a melee striker, and although I've never seen one in action it seems like it would be a lot like the Barbarian, Rogue in terms of singling out a target and like both of them plus the Monk in terms of mobility. Of course, this is a feature of the Striker role in general, but still, it's easy to see why people don't play Avengers as much when you could play another striker that may do the same job much better.

Then there are the Essentials classes (Blackguard, Binder, Executioner, etc.) which add even more overlaps.

So what niches are left to fill, or at least badly-served? What could a fixed up Avenger or Bladesinger bring to the table, or what could a whole new class do? For example, there are several homebrew Necromancers that do various things via minion-mastery.

[vasharanpaladin]

First, a correction: A "melee Controller" is a Defender. All Defenders are Controllers.

The Avenger is unique among Strikers in that it plays up accuracy rather than damage; rolling twice on the attack roll is roughly equivalent to a +5 bonus to-hit, which in turn is +25% damage. Deals less damage than a rogue or a barbarian, but more often, with a side order of casual repositioning and behavior correction to suit its own ends. An interesting niche for an avenger might be that of an "anti-Defender," handing out a penalty to hit himself and using that to force a similar choice of setting off the "anti-mark" or the avenger's Censure damage.

The Essentials kits, on the other hand, need to die in a fire. The "ideal" Bladesinger actually appeared years beforehand in the Forgotten Realms Player's Guide (hint: a "melee Controller" is a Defender, and a Bladesinger is a Swordmage), the Mage strips non-wizards of cognitive space (Pyromancer should have been a sorcerer thing) and the kits generally look better on paper than they do on the table. While I love Hexblades to death, they were still far better before Wootsie stripped out the Pact Blade Manifestation feat. And the summoning thing was kinda uninspired anyway.

That said, let's take the Hexblade for a spin. Start with the core warlock, keep Warlock's Curse and add from the Hexblade kit to taste. You'll want more melee spells, to start with, and probably a more intuitive way to use the pact weapon (say, just convert the implement into the weapon itself?), but otherwise it's pretty simple. Just an ACF, probably replacing Prime Shot and the normal pact at-will, and then Arcane gets a half-decent melee Striker.

[Nightgaun7]

First, a correction: A "melee Controller" is a Defender. All Defenders are Controllers.

I tend to agree, more or less, but it's still listed as "Controller".

The Avenger is unique among Strikers in that it plays up accuracy rather than damage; rolling twice on the attack roll is roughly equivalent to a +5 bonus to-hit, which in turn is +25% damage. Deals less damage than a rogue or a barbarian, but more often, with a side order of casual repositioning and behavior correction to suit its own ends. An interesting niche for an avenger might be that of an "anti-Defender," handing out a penalty to hit himself and using that to force a similar choice of setting off the "anti-mark" or the avenger's Censure damage.

We've had a similar discussion before; given the degree to which other classes can buff their accuracy, the Avenger is not as good as it seems compared to the others, and it shines the most against the hardest enemies, where it needs to pack more punch than it does.

[vasharanpaladin]

I tend to agree, more or less, but it's still listed as "Controller".

That would be part of the problem, yes, is that Wootsie can't keep it straight half the time. The Bladesinger, as I've noted, already existed and was only printed in the Neverwinter Campaign Guide because someone whined at them enough. The Bladesinger is, ultimately, shut down by its lack of real at-will attack powers (MBAs don't get Arcane support) and utter lack of dailies (encounter powers set to daily frequency don't count). Any attempt to fix this is basically patching a reinvented wheel that doesn't look anything like and honestly didn't need to be reinvented in the first place.

No, I don't like it when people remake classes without legitimate reason; as far as I care, if you want a "better Bladesinger" you need to play a Swordmage.

We've had a similar discussion before; given the degree to which other classes can buff their accuracy, the Avenger is not as good as it seems compared to the others, and it shines the most against the hardest enemies, where it needs to pack more punch than it does.

Yes, and I agree, but I did point out what can be fixed here. An Avenger's individual attacks don't deal much damage, yes. The solution is to make more attacks. Avengers get, without multiclassing or abusing Dilettante, one off-turn attack power of note (relentless stride at e3, Pursuit kicker) and two off-action attack powers (fury's advance at e3, with a Unity kicker, and soulforge hammering at e17, which is a standard action but repeats 1/turn as a minor action until the end of your next turn), but no multiattack powers. Give them some, and they should be happy, or at least produce more variety than every last Avenger possessing the aforementioned powers.

The "anti-marking" bit I suggested was, as I pointed out, an interesting niche. The Avenger, like any Defender, benefits from a solid Catch-22, but has little ability to create one. In the Avenger's case, we have a full build that benefits if your chosen target turns away from you (Censure of Pursuit), but little ability to encourage that behavior (Power of Darkness, Power of Madness, temple of shadow at d9, but little else), so a Chaser might appreciate access to powers that penalize the target for attacking him, which might further encourage the target to move on and attack someone else. Basically, "ignore me at your peril" versus "touch me and suffer."

Similarly, a Revenger/Martyr would want powers that make the enemy think twice about ganging up. Especially if those powers have kickers along the lines of "push each adjacent creature 1 square before the attack." The Chaser wants his target to cut and run, the Martyr wants to be beat on by everyone but his target and then get out of that furball so that he can focus on said target. I'm focusing on these two because Unity's censure and kickers can be controlled entirely on the players' side of the screen, and are thus stronger for it.

That said, the most glaring thing I see that needs fixing (especially in the post-MM3 game) is that Retribution's kickers should be based on Con, not Int. Monsters deal more damage now, so trying to go Martyr with the indicated stats is pretty much a death sentence.

[Dimers]

Attribute scores can say a lot about a character/build as they tie into skills and various attribute checks, and skills can say a lot in how they tie into rituals. So some niches left to explore are based on attribute scores.

First, I'd like to see -- no, wait, let me amend. FIRST I want to see WotC publish an apologetic fix for ritual casting in general. Second, I want to see effective ritual users who don't rely on Int+Wis. I've created a race-based ritual caster concept based on Acrobatics for ritual dancing to please the spirits, so that's good for any Dex-heavy class. I could also see substituting Charisma for other stats in ritual skills to make a caster who convinces reality to see things his way, and I'd like to see more effects that you can boost with use of healing surges so that Constitution can play more of a role too.

After that, well, there's no Dex-primary defender, no Dex or Con leader (Int is a strong secondary for many), no real Int or Con striker (depending on how you view warlocks), no Con or Dex controller (depending how you see lots of things). If you include fighter and warden as melee controllers, Strength serves every purpose.

I'd like to see a pesky, taunting Dex-based defender class with secondary Wisdom or Charisma and little call for Constitution ... a Con-primary melee controller ... a vulnerability-exploiting Int-based single-target striker ...

[Tegu8788]

I've got a list of wholes missing, let me pull out the link. I'm working on filling as many of them as I can with me homebrew attempts. I don't have a Dex Defender, I swapped the Arcane Archer for Int. Made more sense for a caster to have a solid Arcana check.

Edit: Here it is.

[vasharanpaladin]

melee controller

Please stop saying things like this. A fighter is a "melee controller." A warden is a "melee controller." Your Con-primary "melee controller" already exists, it's in PH3 and it's called the Battlemind.

Again. A "melee Controller" is a Defender and every time someone says otherwise kittens die.

[Dimers]

Disagree -- defenders are melee controllers, but not all melee controllers are defenders, e.g. druid.

Also, I hate kittens, so there'snomeleecontroller there'snomeleecontroller there'snomeleecontroller there'snomeleecontroller there'snomeleecontroller there'snomeleecontroller there'snomeleecontroller there'snomeleecontroller there'snomeleecontroller there'snomeleecontroller

[vasharanpaladin]

Disagree -- defenders are melee controllers, but not all melee controllers are defenders, e.g. druid.

You are making an incorrect assumption here. Specifically, that a druid specializing in melee powers is still a Controller.

A melee druid is a Striker, and you'll notice that the best Beastform powers encourage the strategy of sitting on someone's head... in other words, exactly what any fighter worth his salt does. A melee Bladesinger is a waste of everyone's time.

A melee Controller is a Defender, end of story.

[p.d0t]

IMHO, anything involving archery is sorely underserved and undersupported.

[vasharanpaladin]

IMHO, anything involving archery is sorely underserved and undersupported.

Seconded! Also, in answer to Dimers's "pesky, taunting Dex-based Defender," I recall seeing a Swashbuckler floating around the homebrew forum at some point...

[shamgar001]

Thrown weapons have pretty terrible support too.

[Dimers]

Thrown weapons have pretty terrible support too.

Thrown weapons are especially problematic in a campaign with inherent bonuses, because only magical throwing weapons automatically return.

[vasharanpaladin]

Thrown weapons are especially problematic in a campaign with inherent bonuses, because only magical throwing weapons automatically return.

Except for boomerangs, but those have problems of their own (namely, that dwarven throwers don't upgrade).

[shamgar001]

Thrown weapons are especially problematic in a campaign with inherent bonuses, because only magical throwing weapons automatically return.

That's not really hard to remedy, though. Just declare by fiat that returning to a thrower's hand is part of the inherent bonus.

[p.d0t]

I dunno if this qualifies as a niche, but CON-primary anything is limited to one class in the entirety of 4e.

Conversely, it's the secondary stat for 3 essentials classes (Sentinel, Warpriest, Elementalist) for no real discernable reason.

Classes with Thievery as a class skill and races with a racial bonus to Thievery are also pretty rare.

[Dimers]

I dunno if this qualifies as a niche, but CON-primary anything is limited to one class in the entirety of 4e.

Battleminds and some warlock types use it, so let's call it two. But yeah, being tough doesn't equate well to having offensive force.

[Tegu8788]

1.5 at best. The majority of the Warlock powers are Cha based.

[Kurald Galain]

There's an int-based striker, and that is the blaster wizard

[Tegu8788]

Not officially, though at this point, what can't the Wizard do?

[Inevitability]

Not officially, though at this point, what can't the Wizard do?

Being a defender? Defenders may be melee controllers, but melee controllers don't have to be defenders.

[shamgar001]

Perhaps that's the niche that need to be filled: a melee controller that doesn't fit into the striker or defender category.

[Kurald Galain]

Perhaps that's the niche that need to be filled: a melee controller that doesn't fit into the striker or defender category.

That could work. Perhaps you'd end up with a character with melee and close burst attacks that focus on conditions rather than damage, and that instead of mark/retaliate mechanics has some riposte ability that gives enemies an incentive to not attack him. I'm willing to bet you can already kind of do this with existing classes, but no class has this as its primary shtick yet.

[Urpriest]

That could work. Perhaps you'd end up with a character with melee and close burst attacks that focus on conditions rather than damage, and that instead of mark/retaliate mechanics has some riposte ability that gives enemies an incentive to not attack him. I'm willing to bet you can already kind of do this with existing classes, but no class has this as its primary shtick yet.

That actually sounds a lot like a Rogue build focused on Brutal Riposte. But yeah, would be interesting to see it baked into a class.

[TomPliss]

Or a melee bard with the white Lotus feats ?

[GPuzzle]

I'd say slightly modified Sorcerer.

[squiggit]

IMHO, anything involving archery is sorely underserved and undersupported.

Archer rangers are pretty good. Shame that Seekers and ranged rogues are so underwhelming and that no one else has any real ranged weapon support.

That actually sounds a lot like a Rogue build focused on Brutal Riposte. But yeah, would be interesting to see it baked into a class.

Well the rogue is probably the closest thing we have to a martial controller or a melee controller that differentiates itself from a defender.

Honestly I half think the rogue should have been built as a controller from the ground up, could have been interesting.

[GPuzzle]

Ranged Rogues? Underwhelming? Sure, Melee Rogues are better, but they have the ONLY minor action Ranged Attack in the game, can make a Sling have +4 proficiency, and can dual-wield crossbows. That's pretty good for me. Not top-tier, but certainly better than the Seeker.

The Warlord has some decent support, not overwhelming, though. And the thrown weapon attacks suck in a party that isn't too focused on Ranged attacks, but Eagle Shamans do it better.

[Inevitability]

A lot of arcane and divine classes may consider archery, because they can get to use their bow as implement with Moonbow Dedicate. A warlock, for example, can consider it.

Okay, we have Eldritch Strike, but how about Eldritch Arrow? One potential homebrew in the make?

[Nightgaun7]

Similarly, a Revenger/Martyr would want powers that make the enemy think twice about ganging up. Especially if those powers have kickers along the lines of "push each adjacent creature 1 square before the attack." The Chaser wants his target to cut and run, the Martyr wants to be beat on by everyone but his target and then get out of that furball so that he can focus on said target.

The Martyr certainly has the roughest job on the face of it. One fix is to make attacks trigger his censure, rather than hits. He's still got the issue of needing a stream of incoming attacks to fuel his Censure before trying to isolate the enemy to bring OoE online, so like you said, those pre-attack kickers will help. Might need some rejiggering to make sure every thing flows smoothly in the turn order, though.

That said, the most glaring thing I see that needs fixing (especially in the post-MM3 game) is that Retribution's kickers should be based on Con, not Int. Monsters deal more damage now, so trying to go Martyr with the indicated stats is pretty much a death sentence.

Unfortunately CON doesn't add enough to HP to make that worthwhile even if it were the main stat.

Attribute scores can say a lot about a character/build as they tie into skills and various attribute checks, and skills can say a lot in how they tie into rituals. So some niches left to explore are based on attribute scores.

To some extent that's true, but a power with the same wording that can be fuelled by two different stats will work the same either way, so while this can help generate ideas in the beginning I think that once you've decided on a class concept it's more important to focus on a play style, and there it can hard to find something to differentiate a class.

For example, if you're looking at Strikers...
Sorcerer - range, AoEs
Rogue - melee, sneaky and applies status effects, bonus for having CA
Barbarian - melee, tough, Big [w] powers, free hit on crit, charging
Ranger - melee, lots of hits, Hunter's Quarry, attack bonus, twin strike
Warlock - range, applies status effects, Curse
Monk - melee, hits multiple enemies, moves self and enemies
Blackguard - melee, tough, auto damage, bonus for having CA, ongoing damage
Slayer - melee, static bonus and extra [w] damage on hit
Assassin - stack and spend shrouds for damage, 1/enc big hit

What gaps remain to be filled?

A melee Controller is a Defender, end of story.

Marking is what distinguishes Defenders, not hitting people in melee. If you slide, stun, whatever, without marking, not a Defender. At least, that's what I would say the core difference is. PS: melee controller, dogs 4 lyfe.

Thrown weapons have pretty terrible support too.

But there's a whole class about that, the Seeke-oh, yeah.

That could work. Perhaps you'd end up with a character with melee and close burst attacks that focus on conditions rather than damage, and that instead of mark/retaliate mechanics has some riposte ability that gives enemies an incentive to not attack him. I'm willing to bet you can already kind of do this with existing classes, but no class has this as its primary shtick yet.

That was almost exactly what I was thinking to have the Bladesinger come into its own.
You know, I wonder if the Bladesinger could be related to the Bard somehow (in terms of mechanics)

Okay, we have Eldritch Strike, but how about Eldritch Arrow? One potential homebrew in the make?

How would that be meaningfully different from Eldritch Blast, though? Greater range?