I played fighter in a different D&D edition, and I can't go back to 5e's fighter.

Preface: This REALLY ISN'T me taking shots at 5e, now I've tried a different edition I really do get what 5e does well. There are a bunch of ways in which it's better.

But one of the ways it's straight up worse is fighters. We did a short 4e campaign and I decided to try one, and holy shit it was everything a 5e fighter wants to be when it grows up. Strong, capable (just as powerful as the wizard was even at high levels!), a tactical weapon master who got tons of awesome abilities that let them protect the squishies. Do you know how awesome actually being able to DEFEND everyone feels?

Every fight I was like "YOU'RE LOCKED IN HERE WITH ME!". As a 4e fighter you start the game off with Sentinel and like every ability the cavalier subclass gets, then you start getting cooler and cooler moves instead of just taking the attack action over and over. Like I was an actual fighter, not just a thug with a sword, being able to choose your moves each time makes it feel amazing. One turn I'm stunning someone, the next I'm smashing them so they're taking extra damage any time someone hits them, or maybe there's a bunch of enemies so I'm pulling them towards me and AOEing them all, or picking up a guy and running my speed with him to battering ram him into a group of enemies.

So yeah. This isn't me trying to compare strengths of different editions, it's apples to oranges and there's a bunch of stuff 5e does better, but the actual fighter class I can directly compare... and I can't go back, I'm doing a wizard or something next campaign, I just don't get why it's so much less awesome now. It's like Brooklyn Nine-Nine with "no offense guys, but what happened to you?"

Like how'd we go from Iron Tornado, AOE all nearby enemies for extra weapon damage then pick one up and chuck him 30', to "I take the attack action again"? We've already got a class for mindless thug attacks, it's the barbarian. Again not saying it's perfect, the resource system could for sure be better, but I just... can't go back. Knowing that the 5e fighter isn't a tactical weapon master because now I've actually played one has ruined the class for me.