Ownzor3d by Rogues

The rogue is the best class in 4e. I feel pretty comfortable saying this, though I realize some qualifiers are in order. It’s not the deadliest class (ranger) or the twinkiest class (swordmage), the most versatile class (wizard), the most nuanced class (fighter) or even the all around MVP (I go Warlord for this, but that’s softer). Instead, it is the class that is, as presented, most in tune with the rules of the game.

See, first and foremost 4e is a game about movement and engaging the board. Every class has some movement capabilities and has reasons to engage the board, but rogues have a very synergistic setup with their backstabs. This ability gives a strong incentive to move and a clear lens through which to view the board that provides an array of meaningful choices as the rogue looks for opportunities to seize combat advantage. That combination is important since some classes may excel at one point or another – rangers and some warlocks are more mobile, fighters have a clearer lens and so on – but for those other classes it takes time and experience to find the sweet spot for play. Running around the edges of a fight or standing toe to toe with the big bad can be cool, but they don’t necessarily offer the same clear set of meaningful choices a rogue gets every turn.

Still, if that was all then it would really just be a difference of learning curve – other classes get rewarding too and the rogue is just the fastest route. But the rogue has another advantage – his advancement is just that much cooler than everyone else.

Now, I’m not asserting his powers are cooler. Everyone has cool powers, so I consider those to be a wash. Where the rogue gets more interesting is in the domain of feat selection. I have made a lot of characters, and there’s a pattern you start seeing with feats that is perhaps most obvious when your wizard hits 2nd or 4th level and loudly declares “These feats all suck.” And the thing is, he’s kind of right, at least for a wizard. There aren’t a lot of feats that help him do the things he does better or more interestingly (and even the ones he might want, the keyword ones, tend to have crappy reqs) so he’s stuck taking generic feats for a lack of anything more interesting (at least until he changes tiers – higher level feats are a wizards saving grace). In contrast, I have never made a rogue and not wanted more feats. So many feats interact well with how a rogue is played that you can never get enough of them.

This is a really big deal, and it exists as a sort of spectrum from the rogue at the top to the wizard at the bottom, and if there’s one reason the game needs more feats, it is to get to the point where the wizards and clerics and others of the world have more options than the same handful of feats, then nothing until they change tiers.

Lastly, and this is a point I’ve touched upon before, rogues probably have the best model for how to handle the interplay between stats and character effectiveness, allowing for one clear primary stat, and branching off from there based on substats. Building a rogue that mechanically satisfies your vision is just easier than doing so with, say, a Paladin.

Anyway, all this is important because it means when I’m faced with a general question about how something should be done, I tend to look at the rogue first as an example. That is not to say I want other classes to have powers and effects like the rogue, but rather that I want rules to introduce options that make things as clearly engaging for other classes as they are for the rogue. My hope is that eventually there will be enough support that other classes have equally clear paths to engagement (and some come close already – Martial Power was a nice bump for the martial classes in general) but doing so is going to take some work. There are a few roadblocks built into the core rules that need to be knocked down or worked around, but I think that’s doable.

1. justin, December 22, 2008:

   Oooh! Declaring a “best class”. Internet fight! Eight classes enter, one class leaves.

   One glaring omission from the rogue is, of course, rituals. Clerics have a lot going on. Though they lack the mobility of the rogue, they do have a lot of versatility on the battlefield: ranged and melee attacks, buffs, rituals, and — one of my favorite pieces — zones (which the rogue is sorely lacking).

2. rob, December 22, 2008:

   Yeah, once you get into actually grinding out the individual powers, rogues have some gaps, but they definitely have a lot more breadth than may seem immediately apparent, especially with some really sweet AoE stuff. But this is in part why I considered powers to be a wash – everyone’s got cool powers, so I’m good on that front.

   That said the cleric (my very close #2 choice for MVP) is an interesting illustration of the stat trap. On paper, clerics have a lot of versatility between range and melee, but buildwise it seems to be much more of an either-or thing. You can be a badass laser cleric, a badass smashing cleric, or a kind of ok versatile cleric, and that’s a poor tradeoff.

   Clerics also get a bit shafted on feats (though laser clerics more than melee clerics – the fighter feats fill some slots) at least in part because channel divinity ends up being so good as an idea and so uneven in implementation. If they had a little more awesome in that arena – especially if they had _choices_ in that arena – that would really flesh them out nicely.

   Clerics also have a bit of nuance to them (#2 after the fighter to my mind) and it’s tricky to adapt to since it’s very much NOT the classical cleric model, and if you try to play it that way, it’s very limiting on the class. Now, baggage is not the class’s fault, clearly, but it’s still a reality that needs to be worked through.

   It also occurs to me that I’d probably put Cleric’s as #2 for most versatile, so I’m now tempted to start describing the cleric as Best Runner Up.

   -Rob D.

3. Michael P, December 22, 2008:

   Please elaborate (either here or in a future scramble) about how the Ranger is the deadliest class. I have not been able to find the nitch that Rangers fill in the Striker role, other than their vercatility to switch-hit between melee and ranged. I would like to better understand how they work within the 4E play space.
   –Michael

4. rob, December 22, 2008:

   Ok, so deadliest is easiest to measure in pure damage output, so it’s going to be a striker. Right off, I eliminate the rogue – in a good party where he’s backstabbing all the time, he’s damage king, but that’s situational. Warlocks and Rangers are less bursty, but more consistent, so it’s going to be one of them.

   Between the Warlock and the Ranger, my money is on the ranger in a straight up fight. The Warlock has a lot of cool effects – lots of push/pull/slide, some interesting effects and so on, and the Ranger is weaker in that regard. Instead, the ranger is more maneuverable, versatile (from melee to range) and slightly more of a pure damage dealer. It’s not a huge margin, but it’s enough.

   This has been backed up in my play experience. Melee rangers tend to be fun, but only marginally more dangerous than fighters (since they’re also more fragile), but when an archery ranger is in a battle where he has freedom to maneuver, he tends to end up doing a ton of damage without taking any on his own.

   Now, deadliness will always be situational. Wizards are deadlier against minions (though the twin strike at-will makes Rangers a good anti-minion platform) and in tight quarters my money is probably on the fighter, but as all around guy who makes things dead, I go with the Ranger.

   As a curious aside, this is also the reason I think Rangers are only so-so interesting, and the best rangers I’ve seen have been melee ones, where the class is a little less optimized. If you make an elf ranger, I find play gets very predictable: Stay away from the enemy and kill them from there. Warlocks at least get cool effect triggered by deaths and such, and generally have more tactical choices. In contrast, a Dwarf melee ranger will be a little less bulletproof, but he’ll make up for it by being super exciting.

   -Rob D.

5. Matthew G, December 27, 2008:

   Interesting post. I always enjoy your insights. I’ve often loved playing rogues in a variety of rpgs, whether some edition of D&D or (more often) some other system. They have interesting choices in combat and they usually have some fun out-of-combat features. I guess 4E’s emphasis on movement means it’s the “Rogue edition” of D&D. I like it.

   I’m enjoying my tactical Warlord in my current game. I do often think of him as an MVP.

   I’ve asked elsewhere but I’ll ask here too. What do you deem twinkie about Swordmages? They’re great against minions but their single target damage seems to suffer relative to the other defenders I’ve seen in play. (Dwarven Fighters, particularly Battleragers, are absolute terrors) Also, in my reading of their power choices outside the low-heroic tier they seem to suffer in potency relative to both Paladins and Fighters. No actual play experience at that level though.

6. rob, December 28, 2008:

   So, minor qualifier here in that I’m terrified of the prospect of a dwarven Battleragers but I have only seen them on paper so far, but they may take the twink crown once I see them in action

   Short form on the sword mage is that they’re defenders with strong crowd control and very high mobility, which feels like dipping into two different pools. That’s annoying, but would not be terribly bad if it were not compounded by two other concerns, one reasonable and one which I will admit is probably a little spurious.

   On the reasonable side, Greenflame blade is broken. It’s AOE, enemies only and on a defender, and I’d be skeptical of an at-will that was only two of those. Now, one broken power does not break a class, and it’s easy to say that power isn’t allowed at the table, but I hold At-will’s to a slightly higher standard.

   Less reasonably, I resent that they decided to make the light armor fighter in this fashion. I never really envision my guys in full plate, even if they must wear it mechanically, so I like light armor options. They’re an acknowledgment of the cool we want from books and movies. Giving it to the Forgotten Realms guy bothers me for weird reasons. Basically, I feel like the FR stuff is all just a *little* bit better than the baseline, but I feel like the baseline could use that improvement so you would think I would welcome it. Instead, I feel like this decision was just made as a sort of FR fan service rather than something thought out with an eye towards the game at large. I have no actual evidence to support this thinking, but I must acknowledge that it is there.

   Now, all that said, I haven’t seen high level swordmage action yet, so maybe it does level out with time, and my initial concerns are mitigated with time, but finding that out will probably wait on the character builder getting out of beta.

   -Rob D.

7. Charles Tan, December 31, 2008:

   Hi Rob. Regarding the Swordmage, I do agree that he’s quite versatile in the early levels, but looking at it on paper, at higher levels, he doesn’t really have much in terms of damaging Attack Powers. The [W] values are lower than the usual, although this is partially made up for the fact that his attacks tend to be Area attacks. That’s a stark contrast to, say, a Fighter which can still dish out huge damage outputs against BBEGs despite not being a Striker.

8. rob, December 31, 2008:

   Some of that is the fighter’s particular awesomeness, but I haven’t seen a swordmage anywhere outside of the heroic tier yet, so I’ll concede the point, especially because there’s a powerful logic to it. AoE is more potent at lower levels (based on the role/use of minions) so the AoE schtick probably doesn’t pay out over time unless accompanied by something else, and I can’t think what that something is (though that does not rule out it existing).

   That said, there’s still some cheese. For example, I’m not sure why swordmages get a ‘make basic attacks with int’ feat while rogues and other classes do not*. But for all that, I’ll concede their hold on the twink slot has gotten mighty tenuous, and my crumble to nothing next time I get to really review their higher level tricks.

   -Rob D.

   * Possible generous explanation – they didn’t have space for it in the PHB. I don’t remember seeing such feats in Martial Power, but that doesn’t mean they’re not there.