Psions 4th Ed

[HMS Invincible]

After the debacle of a Disjunction and mass loss of loot, we decided to take a break and do a Dark Sun session. I was wondering how the 3 class of psions stack up vs the regular classes. You know, Psion vs wizard, Fighter vs battlemind, etc.
From what I can tell, Psions have VERY limited support since it's very new. And the power list is so short. What are some good tips and tricks for psionic classes? Are they any good or should I just roll up a fighter?

[dsmiles]

After the debacle of a Disjunction and mass loss of loot, we decided to take a break and do a Dark Sun session. I was wondering how the 3 class of psions stack up vs the regular classes. You know, Psion vs wizard, Fighter vs battlemind, etc.
From what I can tell, Psions have VERY limited support since it's very new. And the power list is so short. What are some good tips and tricks for psionic classes? Are they any good or should I just roll up a fighter?

From what I understand, the psion has few powers because he can augment. Not sure mechanically how this plays out, not having played a 4e psion and all, but it could be interesting.

[Urpriest]

Psions can be pretty good. Just remember that while your first level at-will powers (namely dishearten and mind thrust) will be useful and powerful for your entire career, your other powers will generally be less useful. You won't want to replace your old powers with new ones, and that's ok, even if it's not exactly design intent. Still, you match up well to wizards.

Battleminds used to be crap. Now that their follow-the-mark mechanic is a free action, they're ok, with a few great powers at mid-levels (Lightning Rush, Brutal Barrage).

Monks are cool. They're weaker single-target strikers than rangers, but they dish up enough multi-target hurt to balance that out. They're hard to optimize dramatically, but it's easy to make a solid one. Just figure out the Ki Focus rules first, they're a bit of a headache.

Ardents are alright. I personally don't like them, but they can make decent polearm builds. They're fine leaders, they just feel a little bard-y to me.

[Ihouji]

Psion: It feels really weak to me when next to wizard I have never played a wizard but have played with them and I have played psion and I just felt like I would have been more useful had I rolled a wizard.

Monk: I agree with Urpriest 100% but they are super fun to play.

Battlemind: I would say is on par with the other defenders but again super fun to play.

Ardent: again have to agree with Urpriest feels bardy and after playing I felt like I would rather have just played a bard. (basically If its a super serious campaign ardent, if you want some comedy bard because well...its bard)

[Loren]

I a game yesterday the battlemind made alot of moves while my fighter seemed a whole lot less impressive, but that was in part the situation. Because of having power points the player had to decide not only which power to use but how much of it, which replaces some of the lack of options during char gen. Personally, I'd rather have options while playing rather then during the 15 min it takes to draft a char.

The Ardent did ok (way out did my damage, due to a crit, and was useful healing an buffing) but I don't have enough data to give a comparision to other classes.

[Kurald Galain]

Does this help?

{table] |Strong|Average|Weak
Striker|Barbarian|Rogue|Avenger
|Ranger|Sorcerer|Monk
| |Warlock
Defender|Fighter|Paladin|Battlemind
|Warden|Swordmage
Leader|Warlord|Artificer|Ardent
| |Bard|Cleric
| |Runepriest|Shaman
Controller|Psion|Druid|Seeker
|Wizard|Invoker
[/table]

Note that the difference between "strong tier" and "weak tier" in 4E is substantially less than in 3E. And, of course, YMMV.

[dsmiles]

Does this help?

{table] |Strong|Average|Weak
Striker|Barbarian|Rogue|Avenger
|Ranger|Sorcerer|Monk
| |Warlock
Defender|Fighter|Paladin|Battlemind
|Warden|Swordmage
Leader|Warlord|Artificer|Ardent
| |Bard|Cleric
| |Runepriest|Shaman
Controller|Psion|Druid|Seeker
|Wizard|Invoker
[/table]

Note that the difference between "strong tier" and "weak tier" in 4E is substantially less than in 3E. And, of course, YMMV.

I take it that this is post-nerf cleric you are listing as "weak"? Personally, I use the non-updated version in my campaigns, and it turns out to be just as good as the warlord.

[Kurald Galain]

I take it that this is post-nerf cleric you are listing as "weak"?

That is correct. I believe the cleric and sorcerer were the classes that got hit hardest by the last two sets of errata. However, the cleric will get some new and better powers in 4.4.

[dsmiles]

Yeah, I've never played a sorcerer, but I didn't buy into the nerfing of the cleric. It just wasn't...right.

What happens when you take the "heal" out of "Healbot?" You end up with just a "bot," and who wants to play one of those?

EDIT: My campaigns don't use the nerfed cleric due to massive doses of lethality that I have injected into it (Far Realm, Mythos creatures, Elder Gods, firearms, warjacks, etc.).

[Reverent-One]

Yeah, I've never played a sorcerer, but I didn't buy into the nerfing of the cleric. It just wasn't...right.

What happens when you take the "heal" out of "Healbot?" You end up with just a "bot," and who wants to play one of those?

Silly answer: Warforged players

Serious answer: Removing the bonus hp from surgeless healing the cleric grants does not remove the "heal" out of "healbot". They're still one of the better healers out there, just not as good as they once were.

[Mando Knight]

That is correct. I believe the cleric and sorcerer were the classes that got hit hardest by the last two sets of errata. However, the cleric will get some new and better powers in 4.4.

I'm pretty sure you're wrong on the new position of the Cleric. Even though they've been nerfed a good deal, they've still got more out-of-the-box healing than any other class.

[Kurald Galain]

I'm pretty sure you're wrong on the new position of the Cleric.

That's quite possible. I haven't seen one in play lately, as most people around here appear to prefer Warlords and Bards. I'll keep it in mind.

[Mando Knight]

That's quite possible. I haven't seen one in play lately, as most people around here appear to prefer Warlords and Bards. I'll keep it in mind.

So long as you recognize that it's not a full analysis with a statistically significant sample yet.

Most of what got hit from the Cleric was surgeless healing, which the Cleric could do better than any other Leader by almost a whole degree of magnitude, and can now only do roughly as well as the others. The surge-based healing still sits nicely in the Cleric's pocket, since he applies one of his primary stats to all surge-based Cleric healing powers and possibly a second stat with a feat (that also encourages one to take most of the surgeless healing powers due to their lack of direct damage), on top of having almost a monopoly on "do stuff, someone spends a healing surge" powers. With that and the recent (slight) Taclord nerf (oops, Lead the Attack doesn't last the encounter anymore!), the Cleric's relative lack of "stab him again" and "I give you a small boost to your abilities for a turn" or "go there so you can get +10% to-hit" powers don't hurt the class much.

[chaotoroboto]

After the debacle of a Disjunction and mass loss of loot, we decided to take a break and do a Dark Sun session.

Did someone else take over DM duties?