So what IS going on with 4E these days.

[Josh_Kablack]

The latest batch of stealth errata is even more unpopular than the item rarity rules.
.

Summarize for those of us too lazy/scared/out of 4e to go to the WotC forums?

[Lago PARANOIA]

Okay, for people who haven't kept up with 4E:

Cleric used to be a really strong class, but it's strong in a way that isn't obvious. They do one thing really well but get a bunch of secondary crap that makes them an eclectic yet effective class. They started getting the nerf hammer right around the time the other leader classes (Shaman, Ardent, Bard, Warlord especially) started getting their best toys. So they've been teetering at the edge of 'barely effective' and 'worthless' for awhile.

The latest Dragon articles renamed the cleric and implemented a lot of across-the-board nerfs that not only pigeonhole the role but also make it worthless since the only real draw of the cleric was being good at a handful of things not related to healing. But even the healing isn't all that great anymore, Recovery Strike/Astral Seal shenanigans aside. Mostly because of the monster redesign which makes damage multipliers worth a lot more than healing.

So yeah. Iconic character class goes down slow slippery slope from 'awesome' to 'weaksauce' and this was the last straw. There are fanboys with 3000+ posts saying that this is the worst thing ever and they're seriously considering dropping.

Or to put it in 3E terms, imagine if the Book of Nine Swords was released at the middle of 3.0E rather than the end of 3.5E. Then imagine if they completely redid the classes so that they were on-par with the Barbarian.

[Data Vampire]

Here's the actual changes.

Name Page Change
Turn Undead 62 Changes the damage die from d10 to d8. Removes the damage increases at all levels except 11 and 21. Removes burst increases.
Consecrated Ground 65 Removes the user’s ability to move the zone.
Spiritual Weapon 65 Clarifies that allies gain combat advantage against the target while the weapon is in the target’s space.
Flame Strike 67 Changes the target from “enemy” to “creature” to better reflect the power’s intent.
Astral Refuge 67 Removes the teleportation keyword, since the effect is removing the target from play. Clarifies when the target returns to play.
Holy Spark 68 Updates the damage roll applied to the target’s allies to a static value, aligning it more with the ongoing damage.
Purifying Fire 68 Reduces the power’s damage from 3d10 to 2d10.
Seal of Warding 68 Changes the damage dice from 4d10 to 4d6. Updates the zone language in the Effect entry to clearly define the effects on allies and enemies.
Enthrall 69 Reduces the power’s burst area from 3 to 1. Tightens the wording on the additional effects in the Hit entry.
Thunderous Word 69 The allies’ shift granted by the Effect entry now requires a free action.
Fire Storm 69 Reduces the power’s burst area from 5 to 3. Changes the target from “enemy” to “creature” to better reflect the power’s intent. Reduces the power’s
damage from 5d10 to 3d10. Clarifies that the damage timing in the Effect entry occurs at the end of a creature’s turn, not at the start.
Holy Wrath 69 Changes the damage from 2d10 to 2[W], replacing the implement keyword with the weapon keyword and making the power a weapon attack.
Clarion Call of the
Astral Sea
70 Removes the teleportation keyword, since the effect is removing the target from play.
Healing Torch 71 Reduces the power’s burst area from 5 to 2. Reduces the power’s damage from 3d8 to 2d8.
Nimbus of Doom 71 Adds a Miss entry to the power.
Sacred Word 71 Reduces the power’s burst area from 5 to 1.
Seal of Protection 71 Changes the damage from 3d10 to 3[W], replacing the implement keyword with the weapon keyword and making the power a weapon attack.
Astral Storm 72 Reduces the power’s burst area from 5 to 3. Changes the target from “enemy” to “creature” in each Target entry to better reflect the power’s intent.
Reduces the power’s damage from 6d10 to 4d10. Removes the resistance explanation from the Hit entry, since the rules cover it. Updates the
formatting of the Effect and Sustain entries for the secondary attack that occurs when the power is sustained.
Astral Wave 73 Reduces the power’s burst area from 8 to 1. Updates damage type from 2d8 to 2[W], replacing Implement keyword with the Weapon keyword and
making the power a weapon attack. Changes the Attack type from Wisdom to Strength.
Angel Ascendant 73 Adds a Target entry to the power.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Yes, and as you can see from all that Clerics lost the ability to safely and consistently spam big AoE powers. It's not that big of a deal until you get into paragon tier, but the fact is that:

A) In addition to the powers, clerics also had a key PP path completely neutered.
B) Clerics lost one of the few things that differentiated them from other leaders (big controllerish party-safe AoEs). Granted, this is one of the worst ways to play a pure cleric, but it'd be like taking Weapon Specialization away from 3E fighters. Even though it's a trap option it's the only thing that made them special.
C) They didn't get anything substantial in return.

It's just a nerf for the sake of a nerf. There's been grumbling on the WotC boards for a while about the errata onslaught--in addition to the Magical Item Rarity mishaps, a lot of the littler things like the Melee Training and free action attacks were building up discontent. But this is just a nerf for the sake of a nerf.

[Fuchs]

All those nerf-patches are further evidence 4E is just a WoW wanna-be.

[Koumei]

Have you seen their villainsdark edgy antiheroes book? It is clearly the Lich King on the cover. They're not even pretending.

[Fuchs]

And yet their remaining fanbase is still in denial.

[sake]

I find it rather odd that while Radiant Servant got nerfed to be cleric only, and Warpriest was finally made viable and then nerfed to worthlessness in the space of two blocks of text, Divine Oracle somehow made it through untouched.

Also, I'm pretty ticked off that they didn't do the one god damn thing everyone really hoped these class updates would do and finally make the cleric an 'A' class.

Also in other fun news, the game studio making the Not Really But We'll Call It That Anyway 4E based Neverwinter video game is having a lot of trouble with Atari. And there's a good chance Neverwinter is actually just vapourware. Which is probably for the best really.

[Swordslinger]

It's just a nerf for the sake of a nerf. There's been grumbling on the WotC boards for a while about the errata onslaught--in addition to the Magical Item Rarity mishaps, a lot of the littler things like the Melee Training and free action attacks were building up discontent. But this is just a nerf for the sake of a nerf.

I can understand it. Leaders are already super powerful anyway because short of orb of imposition, all the healing word style powers are the best class abilities in the game.

Toning down the cleric some doesn't bother me at all.

[DSMatticus]

"X and Y are overpowered leader classes. Z is also a leader. We should nerf Z."

Something about that doesn't quite add up... Hm...

[Archmage]

Leaders are already super powerful anyway because short of orb of imposition, all the healing word style powers are the best class abilities in the game.

How exactly are powers that don't actually get you any closer to winning the encounter the best powers in the game?

[Swordslinger]

How exactly are powers that don't actually get you any closer to winning the encounter the best powers in the game?

Because the amount of effect they have over the battle is the largest. The longer you stay in the fight, the more damage you can do.

4E ain't 3E where you're gonna win a battle in one round. 4E is a battle of HP attrition and healing word gives you a huge edge in the attrition battle. You can pretty much be okay without any of the other three roles, but a leader is almost a necessity.

[Koumei]

Now, I haven't paid much attention to the specifics (and have avoided the shitty patch notes) since the core 3 books were leaked. Can (+Str race) Clerics still slap people to add their Str as a bonus to everyone else's attack rolls?

[Doom]

Pretty sure that got nerfed back to a flat +3 a long time ago.

[Sashi]

The latest batch of stealth errata is even more unpopular than the item rarity rules.
.

Summarize for those of us too lazy/scared/out of 4e to go to the WotC forums?

Items used to come in two flavors: regular and artifact. Anything that was a regular item could be bought/made by the players at any time.

Items now have four flavors: common, uncommon, rare, artifact. Players can only buy/make common items.

So they literally Oberoni'd the "some items are completely overpowered, while others are essentially worthless" question.

[Swordslinger]

Pretty sure that got nerfed back to a flat +3 a long time ago.

Yeah it did.

[sake]

4E ain't 3E where you're gonna win a battle in one round. 4E is a battle of HP attrition and healing word gives you a huge edge in the attrition battle. You can pretty much be okay without any of the other three roles, but a leader is almost a necessity.

Somewhere between 4e's release and now, they actually fixed the padded sumo problem slightly. Cutting monster's hp and upping their damage so that they hit hard enough to actually hurt players every now and then. Also they've seriously shit on ALL resourceless forms of healing. While the Healing Words were always the worst form of healing even from the start, since they're so limited.

All these changes cause the PCs' to want to kill things as fast as possible now, and make war of HP attrition tactics a lose/lose thing that just drags the game on longer and increase the chance of losing.

So Leaders who gave out damage buffs became even more awesome, while leaders who focused on healing become ass.

[Swordslinger]

Somewhere between 4e's release and now, they actually fixed the padded sumo problem slightly. Cutting monster's hp and upping their damage so that they hit hard enough to actually hurt players every now and then. Also they've seriously shit on ALL resourceless forms of healing. While the Healing Words were always the worst form of healing even from the start, since they're so limited.

While that is true, healing word is still hands down way better than the rogue's sneak attack, warlock's curse or fighter's marking/+1 to hit. The battlerager's temp HP or the wizard's orb of imposition are the only things that really come close to being worthwhile.

But healing words are just so crazy good in 4E, because it's a minor action and always scales. You always get back over 1/4th of your HP and there's really no cost to that. I don't find it ever becomes a bad form of healing. You get 2 of them per encounter, every battle and that's in addition to your attack for the round.

The thing is, it's not even a matter of focusing on healing. You're a pretty useful healer right out of the box. Because those healing words are free every combat and not to mention you can toss them out at range, so tactically they take virtually no real planning to pull off and the enemy has no way of stopping it. That's what makes healing word an incredible class ability.

[Koumei]

Who the fuck would waste a fucking turn trying to give their allies a whopping +3 to hit? Christ, I know that's still big at level one (and that's fucking sad, PLUS THREE TO HIT should not be something amazing) but you used to at least be able to go "Okay, every turn I'll hand out a reasonable bonus to the DPS guys." Best bit being you could just tell the MC your attack bonus and walk off to do something else.

Also:

Items used to come in two flavors: regular and artifact. Anything that was a regular item could be bought/made by the players at any time.

Items now have four flavors: common, uncommon, rare, artifact. Players can only buy/make common items.

Yep, to slightly modify a WoW joke from my gf, you can't buy Orange-Name items any more. The QQ from this is...



...Legendary.

[sake]

But healing words are just so crazy good in 4E, because it's a minor action and always scales. You always get back over 1/4th of your HP and there's really no cost to that. I don't find it ever becomes a bad form of healing. You get 2 of them per encounter, every battle and that's in addition to your attack for the round.

Still disagree with you here, but okay fine... Even if you're right that just means that the Warlord is still an insanely superior leader to the recently nerfed cleric since they can get one more whole extra usage of their healing word power than the cleric does, on top of effectively doubling the damage a striker class does in a round.

[Swordslinger]

Who the fuck would waste a fucking turn trying to give their allies a whopping +3 to hit?

The idea is that you're hitting the enemy and giving an ally a +3 bonus to hit.

That's actually a pretty big deal in 4E.

[Doom]

Righteous Brand isn't a write-off, since it at least does damage.

On the other hand, Astral Seal is still stupid good even with Righteous Brand not nerfed, and scales so much better with level and/or large parties.

[Koumei]

Who the fuck would waste a fucking turn trying to give their allies a whopping +3 to hit?

The idea is that you're hitting the enemy and giving an ally a +3 bonus to hit.

That's actually a pretty big deal in 4E.

That you don't see the problem with this speaks volumes.

[Swordslinger]

That you don't see the problem with this speaks volumes.

Care to elaborate?

You deal some damage and buff an ally with a pretty significant boost. For an at-will power, that's really not bad.

Now someone may not like the power because it's something you can consistently spam from round to round and isn't situational enough, but as far as effect I don't see a problem with it?

What do you expect out of an at-will power?

[Koumei]

The same I expect from every power: that when you use it, people can look and say "Oh look, he used a power there!" For all any observer can tell, you punched the enemy and then everyone else also happened to hit.

Sure, it's the weakest tier of power, and level 1, so I'm not asking for the formation or destruction of mountains (though the game not having that at all, ever, is a completely bad thing), but something visually impressive isn't too much to ask.

The fact that the bonus is still small, and doesn't grow, does not help. +3 is embarrassing to spend an action doing.