Let's stop you right there. SLAYERS ARE FIGHTERS. That's half the damn kerfluffle. Knights are Defenders. Weaponmasters are Defenders. Fighters are either Defenders OR Strikers, because Slayer.
I understand that you don't like it, but I don't see why. Paladins are defenders, but blackguards are strikers. Barbarians are strikers, but berserkers are defenders. Wizards are controllers, but bladesingers are weird. Why does Slayer stand out from this group?
When I'm saying these things, I'm considering Essentials "in isolation," in a sense. Of the Essentials classes, the martial-only classes (Rogue, Slayer, Knight) are all "simple," and it took a good 6+ months for any magically-inclined classes to meet that. Yeah, the Mage is probably a tad simpler than the Wizard generally, but still significantly more complicated than the Slayer or Knight. Then, when these classes are consistently promoted as the "easy" classes, the ideal for brand-new people, that is perpetuating a long-standing, and frustrating, idea that the Fighter generally is (or should be) "easy" while the other classic options (Cleric, Wizard) are for "advanced" players. D&D Next committed the same sin for a good portion of the playtest--remember how long it took for the Fighter to actually have maneuvers, despite them being discussed within six months of the playtest starting?
I get this. It's not the mechanics, it's the attitude that martial characters come in last place? My only problem is that this has been an issue with D&D for the longest time; except for 4e, spellcasters always outstripped physical combatants. Even Next leans a little in that direction.
Also, as the above has shown: there is a desire for an Int-y, "wizard-y" striker, and a simple controller, and a complex 2h striker.
I can agree to that. What would you like to have seen?
I don't see how Striker can have a range of complexity, but Controller can't. Perhaps it's harder to design a simple controller, but I definitely think it should be doable.
Well, the problem is that a controller deals with battlefield control, which means area-of-effect powers. Strikers deal their best damage to single targets; even when they have AOE powers, they tend to do less damage. That means a controller needs to monitor the whole tactical situation, and place powers where they'll do the most good. They may also need to watch out for friendly fire, something strikers generally don't need to deal with. (I have seen new players take on blaster wizards, who thought they were strikers and fired indiscriminately. They weren't very popular, because they tended to fry their own party.)
Yeah, I've heard that many Paladins will find it hard to resist multiclassing Sorcerer, just for the Sorcerer utility "Sudden Scales" because it's a hugely powerful defense bonus that can be a touch ridiculous on someone already wearing plate armor.
It is, but it was when I discovered Avatars of Chaos that caused DM's to throw up their hands in frustration. Basically, until your duplicates are destroyed, you can't be hurt or affected in any way... and if you spread things out right, that could take forever.
The argument then, is that the Slayer would be better served by being its own class, and then given a similar level of support in terms of paragon paths, utility powers, class feats, etc as the pre-essentials classes got.
I can see that. I suppose it was just easier to build off an existing chassis than develop a totally new one. Sometimes new ones work well, sometimes they dont: I've seen people complain that Vampire should have been a sub-class of something, instead of its own thing. Certainly it couldn't have been *less* effective.
Slayer came first, making it the poster boy for this kind of thing. Plus, the blackguard has access to more of their base classes powers without spending a feat, and doesn't also fit into the "fighters simple, magic complicated" stereotype as much.
What about berserkers and bladesingers? Berserkers get full access to barbarian powers, but using a lot of them can get problematical. And while bladesingers can take a lot of wizard powers, they follow such different rules that they don't play the same at all.
Student of the Sword, the fighter multiclass feat. A Slayer might want to take this feat to diversify and get access to marking, but can't because they count as fighter. Or wrathful warrior, another fighter multiclass feat which grants temp hp 1/encounter when hit by a melee or close attack. And because the slayer can't take all the power swap feats, they also can't paragon multiclass(not that they'd typically want to, but still).
A slayer could multiclass into any defender, and gain access to marking or defender aura that way. Slayers also have lots of ways of getting THP; one of the slayer-specific utilities does that. They don't have any way to get battlerager THP that I know of, but that's a good thing, since slayers are deadly enough without it.
What it really all comes down to is this: The Slayer is a mostly fine class in-play. It is also the purest example of all the little problems pre-essentials fans had with the changes to essentials(simple fighter but complex spellcasters, changes to AEDU, Subclasses that should be their own classes, little care with how essentials material interacted with pre-essentials material). In short, the Slayer represents a whole new design philosophy, at odds with the game that existed. A philosophy that the designers tried to shove into place even though it didn't really fit, and which some of us who were already fans of the system didn't necessarily like.
All right, this I can see, although I don't think Slayers are the best example of this. Really, all the Essential classes were a change in design philosophy. I understand that a lot of people didn't like the changes-- I don't even like all of them, I refuse to use Warpriests, for example, and we've discussed Binders. I'm just having trouble seeing why Slayers are drawing most of the hate, when there are plenty of worse things that came out of Essentials.
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