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2 years ago ::
Apr 18, 2011 - 9:35PM
#1
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Date Joined:
Apr 27, 2006
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Dragon 398
Class Compendium: The Fighter (Weapon Master)Get the most up-to-date version of the fighter—the weapon master—right here, right now! Talk about this article here. 
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2 years ago ::
Apr 18, 2011 - 10:36PM
#2
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Date Joined:
Jun 26, 2009
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Oh boy even more nerfs! My favorite! I sure do love this series of articles that nerfs all my classic classes to make them as weak and pathetic as essentials classes!
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2 years ago ::
Apr 18, 2011 - 11:17PM
#3
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Date Joined:
Jul 13, 2006
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Honestly, Come and Get it nerf is long overdue and it's still the strongest level 7 defender power.
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2 years ago ::
Apr 18, 2011 - 11:25PM
#4
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Date Joined:
Jun 29, 2007
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Oh boy even more nerfs! My favorite! I sure do love this series of articles that nerfs all my classic classes to make them as weak and pathetic as essentials classes!
Oh, bull puckey. It's still the same Fighter.
The only really significant change is to Come and Get It, and that's mostly because every single Fighter ever made has taken it, for obvious reasons. It might as well have been a Level 7 class feature. And you know what? It's still a great power, and likely still the best of the lot - it's just maybe not an auto-pick. It loses auto-pull and +mod damage, and in return it gains improved accuracy (weapon vs. will) for the damage part of it, and the ability to mark everything in a close burst 3, hit or miss.
Also, if it will put an end to twenty-page forum debates about "o noes my versimilitude! you haz lazor'd my simulation!" it will be worth it.... But then again, we will apparently still get overdramatic posts like "o noes essentials sux!" as the cost.
-O
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2 years ago ::
Apr 18, 2011 - 11:48PM
#5
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Date Joined:
Sep 19, 2007
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Oh boy even more nerfs! My favorite! I sure do love this series of articles that nerfs all my classic classes to make them as weak and pathetic as essentials classes!
Oh, bull puckey. It's still the same Fighter.
The only really significant change is to Come and Get It, and that's mostly because every single Fighter ever made has taken it, for obvious reasons. It might as well have been a Level 7 class feature. And you know what? It's still a great power, and likely still the best of the lot - it's just maybe not an auto-pick. It loses auto-pull and +mod damage, and in return it gains improved accuracy (weapon vs. will) for the damage part of it, and the ability to mark everything in a close burst 3, hit or miss.
Also, if it will put an end to twenty-page forum debates about "o noes my versimilitude! you haz lazor'd my simulation!" it will be worth it.... But then again, we will apparently still get overdramatic posts like "o noes essentials sux!" as the cost.
-O
o noes essentials sux!!!!!1
On a more serious note:
At first I was like "oh look nerf to that power".
Then I realized while damage wise it became worse, the AOE mark became better, as did its accuracy.
Overall I'm actually surprised how tame some of these changes are.
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2 years ago ::
Apr 19, 2011 - 1:02AM
#6
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Date Joined:
Oct 28, 2010
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Seems pretty solid to me.
Are some of those utilities new?
Specifically, I don't remember Battle Awareness and Defensive Training.
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2 years ago ::
Apr 19, 2011 - 1:42AM
#7
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Date Joined:
Sep 26, 2001
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The nerf to C&GI is not as extreme as it could have been. This is the second time the power has been updated. It was a bit badly put together, at first, causing enemies to 'move.' The first update, making it a pull, was sensible. Either way, though, it was one of the most flavorful and fun of Fighter powers (even though actually using it could be damn near suicidal), that really illustrated how much more creadit 4e gave the martial source. Really, it's amazing it survived, at all.
anyway, nerf analysis: Making it weapon keyword, STR vs Will means it hits more often. This is the only improvement, and it's even less of an improvement than it apears to be at first glance. Moving the pull to the hit line is the big nerf, it means that not every target is pulled next to you. Every target is still marked, but the mark is only enforceable against those you hit. Before, C&GI, meant every enemy w/in 3 that could be pulled adjacent became adjacent and was marked, thus subject to mark punishment. Even if you missed them, they were pulled, so you could also use an Action Point to deliver a second Close Burst 1 attack to them, if you really wanted to lay it on thick. So, no mark-punishment, and no follow-up attacks vs enemies whose WILL you miss. Finally, the damage is nerfed: you lose the STR bonus. This probably makes up for attacking WILL as far as average damage throughput is concerned. Sadly, even with all that, this will likely do nothing to stop the whining. It's now a Weapon attack STR vs Will. That exceeds the reach of the weapon. (how does a weapon help you hit what you can't reach? how does STR help you manipulate enemies with words? How does luring enemies close to you with words result in an /automatic/ hit with a weapon?) The flavor text is still the same lame thing it was, even though there's 3x as much of it. The added flavor text could have been used to present alternate ways of visualizing the power, but, no, we're stuck with it. It can still pull non-melee types, it can still pull helpless characters.
The 'Force the Battle' nerf is also egregious. This is a capstone power, it shouldn't be outperformed by Rain of Steel or Reaper's Stance - but, as far as sweeping away lesser foes foolish enough to start their turns adjacent to you, it is. Sad.
One thing that's not a nerf, but still notable, is that Combat Challenge is still an immediate interrupt, limiting the fighter's mark-punishment to once/round. The Knight's aura-punishment is 1/turn.
It's similar to the boost the Theif recieved, with it's SA damage being changed from 1/round to 1/turn. Similiar, except for the fact that the Rogue promptly got errata'd to have the same benefit. Not that I held out much hope that the Fighter would get an upgrade to his mark-punishment to bring it closer to the Knight's.
Love 4e? Concerned about its future? Join the Old Guard of 4e"You want The Tooth? You can't handle The Tooth!" - Dahlver-Nar. "If magic is unrestrained in the campaign, D&D quickly degenerates into a weird wizard show where players get bored quickly" - E. Gary Gygax
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2 years ago ::
Apr 19, 2011 - 3:58AM
#8
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Date Joined:
Jun 26, 2009
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I really am glad the psionics classes are too smart to be dumbed down for essentials so this crap won't happen to my most beloved classes.
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2 years ago ::
Apr 19, 2011 - 6:32AM
#9
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Date Joined:
Jun 29, 2007
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Making it weapon keyword, STR vs Will means it hits more often. This is the only improvement, and it's even less of an improvement than it apears to be at first glance.
Negative. It's now a burst 3 attack, rather than an effect in a burst 3. This means that the Fighter can mark everything in that area, whether or not they can be pulled adjacent. While I grant these are unenforceable at range, a mark penalty is still a pretty noticeable debuff.
-O
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2 years ago ::
Apr 19, 2011 - 7:17AM
#10
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Date Joined:
Oct 20, 2008
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Like Tony_Vargas, I was really hoping that Combat Challenge would be declared a one time per turn attack rather than a one time per round attack. At the same time, deep down, I knew it wasn't going to happen simply because the WotC developers have kind of painted themselves into a corner on this one. Here's what I mean: The figh... um, er ..."weapon master" already comes with a bonus to OAs (Combat Superiority) and also there are many feats and powers that apply to CC attacks or OAs, but not both. So turning the CC attack into an OA would clearly have been a bad idea on many levels. At the same time, since The Rules Compendium has clarified that an opportunity attack is simply an opportunity action used to make a melee basic attack, they couldn't go the route of declaring the CC attack to be an opportunity action that just happens to be an attack --- the distinction no longer exists. (Honestly, that was such obvious double-think BS that it's a good thing they did away with it, so I'm really not complaining on this point.) So to pull off the one time per turn CC attack, they'd have had to make up some other sort of action (the one time per turn interrupting attack that isn't an opportunity action attack ... yuck) which would have been disastrous. So I think there really is no hope on this one.
(As I'm writing this, something has just come to mind. The CC attack could specify that at the end of the triggering enemies turn, the fighter regains the use of his/her immediate. This would mean that the fighter who has not used an immediate action for any purpose other than to make CC attacks since the end of his/her last turn could make a CC attack during each combatant's turn. I don't know what all of the ramifications of this might be, but maybe it's doable within the framework of existing attack types. If something like this was done, it would certainly make any fighter power that operates as an immediate action less attractive though.)
What I was really hoping for, and I thought it was a no-brainer, did not come to pass. I strongly feel that the Pit Fighter errata declaring that Dirty Fighting only applies to Fighter and Pit Fighter weapon attack powers *should* be further clarified to include the all important melee basic attack. (I mean, if there's any class that relies on their basic attacks almost as much as an essentials martial character, it's a fighter.) I'm fine with the developers excluding any other class's power that's masquerading as a melee basic attack, but without a doubt, the plain vanilla melee basic attack should always be treated as one of the fighter's class attacks.
In fact, if the developers want to make a good, common sense rules change, they could add a sentence to the melee basic and ranged basic attack powers that reads something like this:
"This power (but not another power acting as this power) is always treated as a class power, regardless of the class in question."
Granted, this would benefit some classes more than others, but I honestly don't think that's a problem.
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