They actually tried to fix the Ranger SIX times. - 1 spellless version on their website. - 2 revised Ranger versions in UA. - Recent UA with Class Feature Variant that finally do something good. - Xanathar fixed the Ranger to some degree by giving 3 features instead of 1 to Ranger subclasses at level 3, including more spells known. - The most insulting one. They fixed the Ranger inability to do its out-of-combat job by publishing a ROGUE subclasses that does the Ranger's job but better.
Kensei is worse, imo. It just does away with most of the fun stuff that monks get. In the words of Jocat, "do I want to use big swords or fire hadoukens and kamehameha blasts? Hmm, so diffi- Can't stop, won't stop, we're on top now"
Number 10: trickery domain cleric Me, whose first character ever was a trickery domain cleric: *WHAT?!* Number 9: Assassin Rogue Me, who currently plays an assassin rogue: *WHAT?!*
@@lucasfialho1374 It's good at what it does. If all you do is play Adventure League/ Dungeons and Dragon combat simulator then maybe. But if you have actual stories and scenarios, it's great.
@@arandombard1197 how dare we analyze a game's features based on things the game actually has rules for. Everything can be good for roleplay if you are creative enough and anything with high mental stats will do well in social scenarios. Combat is clearly the area in which there's the most pressure for people to be powerful, thus why people base their assessments on that. Combat is fairly present in the life of adventuring parties and more deadly them talking to people.
@@arandombard1197 and tbh, some of the features mentioned aren't even weak per se, just extremely reliant on dms' interpretation which makes them bad in whatever scenario they are in
I mean, these are the worst subclasses *for combat*. DnD is not necessarily about optimising for combat, so these are viable for roleplay or just because they want to play like that.
5e is balanced nicely enough that even the worst subclasses aren't TOO obviously contributing much less than the other characters. As long as they don't care much about crunch and no one talks about it they will likely never realize they're weaker than the other characters. As long as the other players aren't dicks, then that individual player not feeling underpowered is all you need! Balance around the fact that they're not optimized, but it shouldn't be too different from most unoptimized straight classes so as much as we meme about it I wouldn't worry.
The gimmick is pretty decent based on some of the fiction involving battleragers literally shredding an enemy to pieces in seconds, but the way it's described and the mechanics in 5e just really fail to live up to the fiction.
The main problem of the Battlerager is just how required and shitty their special armor is. If they used spiky half plate, the subclass would instantly become quite a bit better than the Berserker, but as it stands, it just sucks and feels awful. It would be like restricting just one new paladin oath to only using daggers or light hammers . . . like . . . come on, this is a purely martial class, can we just . . . not !?
Anyone that plays a wild sorcerer at my table rolls on the table whenever they use meta magic. It's basically using the very force that makes you magical, so why not?
When I DM, I rule that it is a d/20 roll and the chance is equal to the spell level cast. So a 6th level spell creates a surge on a roll of 6 or lower.
I'd argue that a Paladin OoA is probably /The Best/ class and subclass mix in the whole game. Great spell choice, great class features from the paladin and incredible survivability is added on to the paladin by the Oath of the Ancients.
@@krunchyfrogg The only bad thing about the entire subclass is Nature's Wrath but even then at least you still have the option to turn Fey and Fiends. Best Aura in the game.
@@TuckBolt I very slightly prefer Oath of Vengeance, but Ancients is definitely top tier. OoV doesn't give you that awesome aura, but makes up for it with by far the best Channel and best spell list. Haste alone makes them ridiculous. The are the ultimate boss killers, especially splashed with hexblade.
Trickery Domain gets an INCREDIBLE bonus spell list. The weak subclass features are to compensate for the best spell list of any cleric - the only change I think they NEED is potent cantrip.
Yeah, war domain isn't that bad either. Surge is of course useless on a fireball, but very potent on magic missile (which breaks all the rules per confirmation from Jeremy Crawford). On MM you roll damage only once, and apply that damage to all missiles, so adding half you level to hit can obliterate things. But they have to wait til level 10 for their most important feature. Personally I would've put most of the bard subclasses on here. But really, there are like 20 good subclasses, and the rest you can skip.
Trickery Domain has no need for doing cantrip damage at that level, at least for the most part. Also, the features aren't there to compensate the list, it's just that the designers genuinely thought they'd be more useful than they actually are, from the way they were desgined it's kinda clear that they wanted you to use them quite frequently and sorta do fun stuff with them. It's still definetly amongst the better cleric subclasses though
Yuan-ti are #1. They have effects of 2 Rare magic items as race features, one of those is poison immunity - not only poison is one of the most common damage type, but it's the only race immunity I know of. Hell, even warforged, freaking robots, don't have it.
Obviously the damage parts of war wizard aren’t very good, but the survival parts of it are pretty good in my opinion to put it above some other wizard subclasses
I think War Wizard is good besides two things: AC bonus working on single attack (either make it last to your turn, like Shield, or +4, like Save bonus), and lvl6 feature being too weak. Seriously, half of a level additional damage once per short rest, unless you're fighting against casters? Even his 14 lvl ability deals the same amount of damage, but for free (almost) and to 3 targets.
@@antongrigoryev6381 Power Surge and Deflecting Shroud are both rather weak, but they still provide actual mechanical advantages - and the other 3 features are incredibly strong. This makes the War Mage one of the stronges subclasses, imho, because they have no pure "ribbon abilities" and 3/5 of their abilities are on the strong to very strong side. Transmutation wizards just wept when comparing themselves to that.
Wild Magic is maybe my favorite subclass of all, but I will agree it needs some solid table rules to support it. In my play groups, the entire table makes sure a surge roll is never missed. We love chaos even when it hurts us. Moreover, we tweek the surge rule by having a surge be triggered by three numbers on the d20 instead of just a 20. At character creation, the player must choose three numbers from 1-20 and those are their surge numbers forever with that character. Adds a little more tension to playing. One of my favorite characters I've ever created was a 13 year old wild magic sorcerer whose powers were tied to him going through puberty. My DM would have him me roll for surges any time he got overly scared or - uhmmm - if there was too much skin being shown around him. It was great.
I really like how they homeruled it in the Dimension 20 The Unsleeping City show, where the number that triggers your surge is the number os sorcerer spells you've casted that day, so the chance to get a surge is always increasing.
@@SenorVilla Or perhaps trigger it any time you use sorcery points, if you roll under the number of points spent? Or, conversely, whenever you roll it it triggers when you roll under the number of points you have used since your last rest. I feel like associating it with one of the key sorcery features makes more sense than having it trigger only because you cast a spell.
I love the Wild Magic Sorc myself, but I also kinda hate it... It's the only class I know of who is almost entirely subjected to the GM's control. You want to Tides of Chaos? Okay, you can't do that again until the GM has you WMS. And your GM may NEVER GIVE YOU A WMS. Hell, even your normal spellcasting (aside from cantrips) is hardly subject to the WMS, because it's a 1 in 20 chance. It's entirely possible to go DAYS without a surge, even casting heavily. It's really infuriating. They get REALLY fun when WMS is going off all the time, but if you get a GM who ignores/forgets about it, then it's just a crappy Sorcerer.
And a spellcaster cant with aoe damage spells? Its down to the fact that a player has a lot of control over how they use the features of the class. Of a player is using rage so much the kill themselves from exhaustion then they are the terrible player not the subclass being bad. And no, ive not played the subclass.
@@svartrbrisingr6141 If a spellcaster was REQUIRED to make them 1/6 closer to death each time they casted an AoE, then sure it would be fair. But even then a spellcaster is getting more damage in for the same price a Beserker must accept to make a bonus action attack for the duration of a rage. (Which a war cleric can do for free a number of times equal to their wis mod. And they can do it at an earlier level)
@@svartrbrisingr6141 using their main class ability literally makes them worse. No other subclass has that for good reason. The penalty is far too harsh
Well even Treantmonk basically says that it's only good because of the spells. So in terms of how effective it can be, you can just ignore the class features and just use those good spells. Nerd Immersion seems to be looking at how well the subclass fits together to make a functioning whole. And yeah, the subclass does seem to be a bunch of abilities that don't work well together.
Yea. I agree with Treantmonk that it’s one of the better classes in terms of power due to the spells. Personally, it’s also fun to RP and play. But NerdImmersion is right to call it a bit off in terms of design. It’s hard to make sense of the intention.
ranger died when its core legacy ability, namely Survival, was given away to all classes as a skill slot. Why take this crap class when one can just Barbarian, which gets to choose survival as a class ability :/ Bad spell lists, bad capstone ability, just... BAD.
I saw someone try to tell me the other day that Ranger was the second best martial besides Paladin, and I just couldn’t comprehend how they came to that conclusion
I feel many people bash a bit too much on the Ranger. I won't say they're secretly very strong or anything, but I feel like (with the exception of BM) they're not quite as bad as many people make them out to be. First of all, they really don't have a bad spell list. In fact, their spell list is pretty good with options such as Hunter's Mark, Silence, Pass Without Trace, Healing Spirit, Conjure Animals and Swift Quiver. Of course most of their spells come online somewhat late, like Conjure Animals at lvl 9 instead of 5, but the same is even more applicable to Eldritch Knights, and I don't see people claiming even just the spell casting portion of EK is weak. The main problem Rangers have with spell casting is that, for whatever reason, WOTC decided they should be instinctive casters in 5e instead of prepared casters like the Paladin (and Ranger in earlier editions), and that Hunter's Mark is almost a mandatory tax on a spell known, a spell slot and your concentration in combat. Besides, just having survival proficiency doesn't nearly put you on par with a Ranger in his favored terrain, or one tracking their favored enemy. And even if the Ranger has neither benefit and we don't factor in spells that could help in exploration, he's still likely to have a higher Wisdom than any other survivalist besides the Druid. The main problems Rangers face in 5e are 1: They're focussed on the pillar of exploration, which is the least important pillar on most tables since many DMs basically already have decided for themselves if exploration will succeed or fail in the end, since if the group doesn't even get to the point where the actual events take place, their entire plan might as well be defenestrated. 2: They don't get any bonus to survival outside their favored terrain at all if we don't count their spells and tendency to have the right stats. 3: When they are in their favored terrain, they are actually so good at exploration and survival that you might as well skip over the entire "challenge", since many of their benefits state that they simply succeed at some part of it without any need for rolling ("you can't become lost except by magical means" for example).
Nice video, but you didn't really explain what you disliked about your War Mage. Arcane Deflection and Tactical Wit are both super powerful for 2nd level abilites and Durable Magic comes on online early enough to be (another) really potent life saver. Obviously, going early in combat becomes much more important later on, which is when Tactical Wit provides its biggest bonus anyway. Deflecting Shroud and Power Surge are - sort of - this subclass' "ribbon abilities", but even those provide some actual benefits. Compare and contrast that to the Transmutation wizard who gets . . . an easy way to make a buck on fake coins before the city watch catches him/her ? A weirdly unimpressive philosopher's stone ?
Late reply, but I think I have some insight on why war magic is kinda meh. You’re absolutely right, Arcane Deflection and Tactical Wit are extremely impressive (who doesn’t love a boost to initiative?) However, looming at the later abilities, I see this subclass as an option for multiclassing than I do for just playing it straight. I say that because this subclass compared to others is very front-loaded compared to the value of later abilities, so why bother taking further levels when you’ve already gotten the best that it’s gonna offer? Also, regarding the comparison to the transmutation wizard, it’s gets a nice, but situational ability in Minor Alchemy. However it also gives them a stone that can be remade every day (except when it’s used by the subclass’s capstone ability), given to multiple party members, and has multiple benefits that can be changed with every leveled spell cast. From dark vision (granted most races already have it, but it’s still nice), increased speed, proficiency in con saves, damage resistance, it’s just so flexible to whatever situation you’re in. Plus Polymorph added for free?? And the ability to cast it for free? Not to mention you can destroy your rock to potentially fully heal person/PC everyday? Just my opinion, but I think the Transmutation class is just more flexible and isn’t as situational with its abilities in comparison
For good order; "If you create a new transmuter's stone, the previous one ceases to function." So just one to pass around. And you get polymorph at lvl 10, when everyone's at lvl 5 spells and the giant ape is in the rear view mirror. Not saying it's bad but i'll take that +2ac and saves instead actually.
My first ever character in 5e was an Undying Warlock. That lad made it all the way to level 20. Put all 20 levels into warlock. Lad was basically a god by the end of it all. Covo Starbreaker the Gnome has been immortalised in my DM’s hall of fame.
Well the thing is all of these subclasses are usable. They are viable and fun to play. Just because its a top 10 worst doesnt mean they are unusable and will be unable to go into the higher levels of play.
I love what they were trying for with Wild Magic Surges and saying "the DM *can*..." its trying to replicate the wild or random part of wild magic. But yeah its not super well implemented.
for the assasin infiltration expert, what it has over whispers bard is the fact you dont lose it, meaning you can spend town time building an assortment of identities, able to pull any out when necessary, its good for heavy social campaigns, being able to bounce back and forth between 2 factions as different people without much downtime between
I have a war mage character and I have to say, I feel like it was practically MADE for that urge to make a Mountain Dwarf Caster, because that way you can get really high AC and you can use war hammers or battle axes in combination with Green Flame Blade or Booming Blade to be a melee Wizard which makes Arcane Deflection much better as in my opinion, the higher the AC the more another +1 to that AC means, let alone a +2. I do agree it’s a bit weak for a standard Wizard.
I can imagine multi classing a warlock into it for a few more low level spell slots for hex and being limited to a cantrip is not that bad a thing for a lock
True that. I also play a Hill Dwarf War Magic Wizard with 1 lvl multiclass in Forge Domain Cleric. With Plate Armor, a Shield (warcaster necessary), Blessing of the Forge and all the War Magic features your AC can be through the roof. But I also agree that it’s very specific and for a „usual“ wizard it’s not good.
@@lukasceru6647 right. Imange starting out as a warforged fighter, grab defensive style, go six levels into cleric, then whatever level you need for the concentration ac buff for war mage, then cast shield of faith or haste on yourself? If you stand infront of a hexblade paladin oath of ancients, your practically untouchable with like a 30 ac unless the dm pulls dm shenanigans
Just go Bladesinger 18/Fighter 2, take the Mobile feat if you want, and cast Shapechange - you keep your class abilities, including your spells and bladesong, even while shapechanged. You are now a bladesinging Ancient Brass Dragon, or a Planetar who zips around the battlefield at 130ft flying speed or a Marilith who becomes a whirlwind of steel and attacks 7 times per turn. And thanks to bladesong, it becomes almost impossible to break your concentration, and you have 30 AC and potentially legendary resistances. Also, you have Action Surge for some insane nova damage...
@@arthilas_ only issue is blade singer isnt that great of a class and only had a limited number of uses with blade song. Vs being a heavy armor tank. Throw some battle masters parry into it as well Sure your slower but not limited
Purple Dragon Knight might be a bad subclass, but it made for an absolutely great NPC all my players loved. Combine it with inspiring leader and it makes for the perfect template for a ''inspiring leader'' type of character.
I actually really like the war magic - it makes amazing multiclasses and some of the best AC tanks, one of the best AC tanks I've ever seen in my games was a level 1 fighter, after that war magic (with an extra fighter level later for action surge) - the dude was using heavy armor with shield and defensive fighting style for base AC of 21 and after that full war mage, easy 23 AC with reaction or even 26 with shield, it would go to fixed 23 AC after 10 if we had ever reached that far. - IMHO the only weakness of this class is power surge, it's bad, and that it's kinda bad as a single class, gotta multiclass for it. For me, one of the top spots would have been the berserk barbarian, just because of the exhaustion, it's just dumb. Other than that, I agree with the rest - thou wild magic... it's something you talk with your DM and just straight up use it a lot and hope for the best. It's a bad class, but the randomness is fun. Beast master is especially bad.
That's cool for multiclassing. I wouldn't want to be the guy that wrote up a subclass just to have it used solely for empowering another class, though. Still, I know a lot of players who like using underpowered subclasses because they're contrarians. More power to em' I say. I had a player in a campaign use a beast master ranger and insist it was super good, just no one but him seemed to understand how good it was.
@@Supernaught00 except war mage is better then most of the wizard subclasses, like I don't know how you can tell me with a straight face that mechanically transmutation is better, let's compare their level 10 slots, would you rather have a gimped polymorph that you can only cast upon yourself? Or would you like to have a flat plus 2 to ac AND saves for doing something you would already be doing, If i'm making a generalist wizard outside of diviniation why wouldn't you pick war magic?
@@Supernaught00 I mean if you can't come up with an argument I'll stick with my opinion, mechanicly war magic is a flat upgrade for wizards, nothing they have is detrimental to any build, some of it under performs, but its level 2 and 10 abilities are so strong that they allow the wizard to essentially do whatever they want. It's not sexy or flashy but it's mechanically really strong and I feel like this video really wasn't as well thought out compared to what Nerd immersion usually provides
Worst Subclass is the Hexblade. It broke the basic design (first published "Use A instead of B") , gives waaay too much at level one in terms of raw stat power and shoehornes every Blade Pact Warlock into it. And thanks to it existing, we can basically forget any meaningful fixes for non-hexblade bladelocks. Obviously power wise not the weakest, but it's the one I am least happy about that it exists.
I agree with you on those problems, not to mention the lack of lore. Conversely playing a pure hexblade eats through your invocations and feels like it's missing something. Ugh.
I don't understand why Assassin now is so completely nonmagical. Back in 3.5e it was a partial spellcaster, like the Arcane Trickster, with its own spell list. You didn't get an underwhelming ability to spend a week making a mundane disguise because you could just cast Disguise Self.
I feel like the Assassin is the Rogue in its truest form (although one could argue the Thief is). The Assassin only uses cunning in order to get in, kill somebody really good and then get out. No shenanigans, no magic, just a blade and a lot of wit, so i kind of get it.
Arcane Trickster is the magic rogue. I think this version of Assassin makes it even cooler. Doesn't need to use magic as a crutch. And well, you can always multiclass if you so wish. Or just call your A. Trickster an assassin in-game.
Arcane Archer Fighter and Storm Herald Barb would most definitely make my top 10 worst subclasses. I would shuffle the places quite a bit but for those two slots I would drop the War Wizard and Trickery Cleric off the list. I actually think that War Wizard is really good subclass for GISH dippin'. Trickery Cleric offers things that are unaccessable to clerics any other way.
My fix for Arcane Archer is to change 3 things: - They can use all those other ranged weapons - They get an additional use of Arcane Shot at 7th level - The damage scaling on the shot options gives each option an additional 1d6 at 10th level and then a second extra d6 at 18th level (making them on par with current power by level 18 except Piercing and Seeking, but a little stronger in tier 3). This actually makes the expected additional damage scale up remarkably similar to the extra damage of a Battlemaster which I think is a good sign.
Assassin rogue's disguise is real, unlike those of changeling for example. Assassin have all the documents, can pass the background checks and when the price is assigned it's not on the nameless person, but on some merchant from the far away lands (which mislead investigations). So changeling assassin is almost impossible to trace
Wow, the SCAG really dropped the ball on a lot of its Subclasses. I say this as an Arcana Domain Cleric (which I am convinced is one of the best Subclass in the SCAG). I love my spells and the synergy with Wood Elf Magic or Magic Initiate (Druid), but I admit that I have never used Channel Divinity in my life.
Don’t know man, the Undying warlock is my favorite one. Sure, he is not the best feature-wise, but he is flavorful, and serves his role as a warlock pretty well. Maybe it’s just me, but whenever I dip into warlock for those sweet invocations, I usually go with this subclass, don’t really know why though, he seems to be the most appropriate every time. That said, I have to agree with Battlerager (though he is pretty salvageable) and Purple Dragon. Totem Warrior features are also meh. But there’re also some of the best subclasses, like Arcana domain, Oath of the Crown, and Bladesinger (the best wizard out there imao). Storm sorcerer is nice, love to play him (though I use a reprint from Xanathar). Can’t say anything about Long Death monk.
@Lance Clemings I remember playing a paladin with my friend, who had a Bladesinger. On the 1 lvl I had 18 AC and he had 19 (without the Shield spell). My paladin was ahamed...
the fact that Wizard can do infinite errata for like a single word but not to make an entire class (the ranger) at least decent is astonishing to me... Variant class features UA was great and i hope it will be implemented very soon
So you just force your players to only use the base handbook? That sounds very limiting and not very fun at all. Kinda goes against the whole idea of creative expression that D&D is all about.
@@dragonix8527 he encourages people play sub-classes and races that are in official sources. i think that is a valid stance, since quite a bit of UA isn't properly balanced. It is test content after all.
@@piemaniac9410 I dont think he realizes that there is more than one official source. Also for additional information, I actively encourage reflavoring of spells and abilities. As long as it doesnt affect the overall powerlevel.
I mean. Is that an issue? I see people often complain how something is UA or Homebrew and it makes no sense to me. Just send the info to your dm and ask if you can play it. If they say no because its not official then your dm needs to rethink their decisions. But if they say no for lore or power reasons then look for something else.
Personally, I have to disagree with you on the Wild Magic Sorcerer being one of the worst subclasses. As someone who has played one, the worst that's happened at a critical moment was being turned into a sheep for a round. Yes it banks on probability at the D.M.'s digression, but it was so liberating to play as someone who has little to no control over their abilities. If anything, I think the Draconic Bloodline is worse by comparison.
10 - The cleric that only knows what it isn't good at. Poison is bad. 9 - The best rogue dip up to 3rd level if you have a fighting class. That's all. 8 - Ok, power surge is bad. But you don't play this class for power surge. Also, the EK dip in wizard. Heh, you said that too. 7 - Spore druid, you play it staying at distance. No use in wading into melee. Poison is bad. 6 - Battlerager is plain wrong. No plate? You wot m8?? 5 - PDK... Sorry pal. You are bad. It's probably a remnant of 4th edition. 4 - Nope. Bad execution. No way. It sucks badly. I probably would put them on the podium. 3 - You wanna hear a bad joke? Wild magic sorcerer. You are a sorcerer without subclass. 2 - The trash fire. 1 - The total pile of crap. I don't understand how the other 2 semi spell users have good classes and the ranger is, well, shit.
I've seen so many videos like this that don't actually make good points. I was so ready to defend these subclasses. But this was actually really well explained, and I like that you've also shared how they can be better, not just saying "these are bad, don't play them." Thanks for such a well researched video!
Ah a top 10 worst subclasses. With Wild Magic sorcerer. Yah just put sorcerer as a whole there. Just a lack luster and boring full caster. Very limited spells meaning most sorcerers just go down the path of a blaster which Wizard does much better. Want to go control? Well Druid surpasses sorcerer massively there. Support? Cleric. Sorcerer is honestly more disappointing then Ranger. As someone born with magic how the fuck is it so lacking in exactly that. Magic. Ranger at least has its theme still fitting the base class
Trickery Domain should not be on this list. It's mainly the spell list that elevates it, and from that spell list it's mainly Polymorph and Dimension Door, but those are some of the best spells for Clerics in the game. Clerics suck at mobility, most of them never get any at all. Trickery Fixes this. There are worse Cleric Domains than Trickery.
A Wild Magic House rule that I always enjoyed was that you can cast 1st level and higher spells X times without rolling to see if you get a surge, where X is equal to your half your sorcerer level. That or your sorcerer level is the upper limit to how much you can 'control' your spells and each spell you cast drains from that limit equal to the spell's level; so a lvl 8 sorcerer has a limit of 8 so after using 2 level 4 spells, any subsequent spell would have them roll. A bit riskier low level but it allows for more freedom of spell usage as you get higher, and there's an added risk with using high level spells
I know this is a year old, but I feel the need to say...who the heck plays a wild magic sorcerer and wants LESS rolls on the chart LOL. They barely happen, most people homebrew it the other way.
Random but funny you dislike Circle of Spores, everywhere I've ever seen it's always listed as being the only other one as strong (or nearly as strong) as Moon Druid, especially thanks to its bonus action use (which other Druid subclasses don't really have) Cool hearing your thoughts on it tho
Okay, now that I've finished the video: yeah, agreed on all of those. I'm currently playing a Trickery cleric. Their domain spells are great, but the rest is confusing, yeah. My DM let me suggest some changes, with the understanding that if she try something and she thinks it's OP or we agree the change isn't working then we'll talk it out. I posted my suggested changes in the Cleric forum on dndbeyond back in November. I changed Blessing of the Trickster so it will work on yourself (because that was a weird restriction), some extra skills at level 1, dropping concentration on Invoke Duplicity. Then at level 17 for the capstone, letting you trade places with a duplicate as a reaction, and letting Cloak of Shadows stay up when you cast a spell. And we're using the Blessed Strikes from Unearthed Arcana instead of Divine Strike, which is working out pretty well (when I remember to use it, oops). We're level 8 so I don't know how those level 17 features will work out, but I figure that Far Step is a level 5 Wizard spell and does something similar, so letting the Cleric move as a reaction shouldn't be too powerful.
Glad I'm not the only one. Sounds like you did something similar, but if you haven't seen my Fixing the trickery domain video, I'd check it out. Hopefully your fixes have been making your experience as a Trickery Domain better!
Hi Ted, I really enjoy your content. While I understand that these lists are all subjective, I wanted to point out that your reading of the Tide of Chaos was incorrect. If a player casts a lvl 1 or higher spell after using tides of chaos, they immediately roll on the wild magic surge table. They don’t have to roll a d20 and get a 1, it’s immediate, and it then resets their ability. So this creates an ebb and flow with the PC, gaining advantage to help with the trade off being an imminent surge. That being said, it is all subject to the DM’s whim, so they could choose not to have the surge happen. Taking the agency away from a players main ability might be enough to keep the class at #3 on your list, but the mechanics of the class aren’t as restrictive as you made them out to be in this video. Cheers!
it's super hard to surprise anyone in 5th, my DM gave us some flash bang grenades that gave us surprise to try to help us out but it's still not something that's easy to do.
Well technically you just need to sneak up to someone to surprise them: so every time you know enemies are ahead of you and there is another way to approach them than running straight into them there is a good chance you surprise them. As a DM I personally use the following rule of thumb: if you attach someone who hasn’t even drawn a weapon (or is about to) they are surprised.
@@KilRBass we were running out of the abyss so we were in the underdark and there just isn't always a way to get around people. and always having a side passage that leads to the people we are going to fight doesn't make sense so we went with the flash bangs that let us get the surprise. Also stuff in the underdark is just a lot harder to surprise because they live somewhere where someone is always trying to surprise kill you.
@@FisforFenton Ok it definitly depends on the Campaign you're playing and how your DM designs encounters. I just wanted to say that it is not super hard in general in 5th edition.
No it isn't really. Say you're going to attack a target. If you're hidden, or if the target has no reason to believe youäre hostile to them, you surprise them.
I’ve always been really fond of War Magic Wizard. It’s really good to multiclass into if you’re an Eldritch Knight or Arcane Trickster, but even playing it as a non-multiclassed build, I think it’s actually decently powerful and balanced.
I actually really like the War Magic wizard. I view it as the ultimate controller wizard. Acts earlier in the round to throw up a control spell or nuke some mooks, gains passive boosts to AC and all saves when concentrating on a spell, and can prevent losing concentration with Arcane Deflection. Power Surge is weak, but if you're fighting an enemy wizard and his minions, you can counterspell for surges and then spend those surges to take out the minions who are defending the enemy wizard. I'm a big fan of it.
When was the last time she actually used duplicity or blessing of the trickster? I don't think she's ever made herself invisible either? She's mostly just trickster for her choice of god (she said she was originally going to be an archfey warlock to use for The Traveler but Travis grabbed warlock instead) and the extra spells (MODIFY MEMORY).
Had me looking side eyed at you for awhile. You kept dogging on SCAG so much I thought you were going to include Bladesinger, and I was going to be out. I love that book but yeah it's incredibly unbalanced.
Apply the level 3 abilities of the Revised Ranger and the rest of the features from the PHB version and Beast Master's status as a bad subclass quickly becomes highly overstated. Four Elements Monk is easily the worst subclass in the game and nothing comes close to being as bad.
Yeah, Assassin is kind of underwhelming. It's more like a spy, for one thing, and all of its abilities are way too situational, especially the infiltration ones, which are practically useless in campaigns that are light on intrigue.
Plus, aren't players allowed a bit of talking for free on their turn? Surely in six seconds you can yell 'attack' to your beast and still do whatever it was you were doing that turn. It's not like the thing needs complex instructions and guidance on how to bite something.
@@darkmaterial499 Mearls and company were and still are deathly afraid of "angel summoners" in 5th edition. Which was and still is completely unfounded, and made all of the ranger fans cry into their oatmeal for the life of the edition. The beastmaster's pet would still be made of tissue paper if it had complete autonomy, but at least it would soak some damage and maybe hit something before it gave up the ghost while the master plinked away. Instead they shipped the travesty that left our mouths agape at its shittiness, and then threw up their hands and decided that beastmaster rangers were actually artificers all along.
@@johngleeman8347 Oh, I see. So it was a drastic overcompensation for the fact that summoners used to make martial characters irrelevant. Now I know why all the summoning spells have that defection rule. Thanks for the explanation. And for the funny video!
Wait, you need to roll a 1 on a D20 first before you 'get' to have a Wild Magic surge? Geez, no wonder the Wild Mage in that one party I was briefly a part of was so ridiculous. He was a first-time player, which already made Wild Mage a bit of a precarious choice, and our DM made him roll Percentile Dice for Wild Magic fairy frequently (without making him roll a D20 first). Over the course of three sessions, this Wild Sorcerer: 1. very nearly TPKd our entire low-level party by causing a massive explosion in the middle of a forest, resulting in the whole rest of the party rolling death saving throws and then having to escape a forest fire, all on one point of exhaustion each because our sleep was interrupted. 2: transported himself to the Celestial Plane in the middle of a battle, leaving us to deal with the encounter alone. 3: disintegrated the hostage we were supposed to save when trying and failing to cast a spell on the cultists. And those were only the worst incidents. It was a pretty toxic atmosphere at that table anyway, so I didn't stick around much longer than that. But yeah, this game was a mess. I'm glad to hear that this isn't how the Wild Magic Sorcerer is _supposed_ to work, because that was frankly a catastrophe.
I feel everything you say, or most of it, is from a min/max point of view and not roll play. Part of the fun of d&d is to take a flawed class/race and make it work anyway. I am a huge fan of characters that are unconventional, like my halfling barbarian. I miss when races had minuses to some abilities. Getting rid of those hurt rollplay.
Role Playing*** is completely independent of the actual power/effectiveness of the class, so it's irrelevant to his exposition. You can role play a bad subclass amazingly, or be a shitty player that doesn't role play at all with the same bad subclass. Also, this is kinda subjective and prone to what one consider as role play value regardless. The subclass is just a framework of mechanics, the fluff and flavor of it can be shaped and changed however you wish to suit your subjective tastes, the mechanics as per official rules, can not. So that's what we are talking about here.
Still waiting on that Undying Warlock Fix haha Great video. I really hope these subclasses get buffed, but looking at the way WotC is going, probably wont get updates on these, which is a shame.
Easy fix for the Wild Magic Surge: Always roll all the time. Always refresh Tides of Chaos for every spell attack. The whole point is fun random extra spells and effects. The subclass is only bad and boring if the DM is bad and boring. If you're going to be stingy with letting players using their features, just make them choose a different subclass and save them the pain.
yup, I have a Wild Magic Sorcerer in my game, and I've told him he's rolling every single time he casts a spell. Homebrewing it from "At the DM's discretion" to "every single time" I think is much more to the point of picking the sub-class at all. I've also increased the numbers that would add a Wild Magic Surge, and am planning on homebrewing an item that will somewhat let him control it. Wild Magic Sorcerers are a blast if you let them do their thing, and if done right could very well be the most fun class in the game.
It's really sad that they abandoned the Revised Ranger cause it was actually really good. Your beast scaled with you, and by god they could resurrect their beast. Even to this day whenever I have a player want to go Ranger, I just immediately link them the Revised Ranger.
Oh 100%, same with my GM. It's just frustrating that they're unwilling to print what's a near-universally agreed improvement (universally that I've seen, but people with stranger opinions exist than the revisions not being an improvement).
Thomas Joychild I feel like the Revised Ranger was too front loaded. So many things you get at first level alone. I feel like if you spread out the features, it would be a lot more balanced. And also give Extra Attack to the Beast Master subclass. I gave the one revised ranger that I DMed that about three levels later because they felt they were being left behind. But fix those and I think it’s fine. I feel like the Class Feature Variants implemented fixes well, they could just use a little more flavor and a little more oomph.
@@dominickfinch5693 Oh for sure, it's pretty frontloaded and that stuff could well do with spreading out a bit. I'd be very hesitant about letting someone multiclass revised ranger, definitely.
@@dominickfinch5693 100% The Ranger has just always been a super problematic class. Even with the revised ranger there's a reason it's still known as the lvl 5 dip class.
I have to feel like you've never played a college of swords bard, I like your list, but that subclass is an infuriating mess to play. You get 10ft of extra movement after a flourish... but can't disengage, you also can't use shields, so your AC is low, and you can only raise it a few times every long rest, and most of the spells you want to cast are concentration, which you will drop, because of your low AC. None of the swords bard abilities mesh.
You can raise your AC a number of times equal to your charisma per short rest since it goes off inspiration, I’m sorry you had a bad time playing the subclass as it’s one of my favourites
@@henrytaylor9456 That's the problem though, you can raise your AC a max of 5 times, which will only get you through one or MAYBE two difficult combat encounters, and then you can't use your flourishes for offense, so why did you go into battle?
I really like the swords bard conceptually, but mechanically it isn't good. I'm currently playing one, and I've discovered that you can do some MAD combos (that is including a lot of homebrew by my extremely generous DM). However, only getting 5 flourishes max is... bad, especially since it takes away your inspo die. Maybe they should have a separate resource for their flourishes?
On the other hand, they do have some powerful abilities, in their bonuses to damage and AC. Furthermore, your magical secrets allows you to learn smite spells Also, it's better than college of valour.
One of the best things I ever found was a d10000 (yes, ten thousand) list for wild magic surges. It definitely feels like it was made for a previous edition, or at least made by someone very detail oriented (one roll turns half the caster's body into sodium and the other half into ice) but it still has some hilarious effects. I showed it to a buddy of mine when he was wanting funny and random ideas for an item given to a warlock character by their patron, his fix for the obviously deadly rolls (a body made of sodium and ice would explode) was that they would happen but wouldn't be permanent. For example, the warlock would turn into half sodium and half ice, reacting violently and exploding, and then reappear in his previously occupied space virtually unharmed, if not a little confused.
@@johnreese5739 I agree I Also think expanding on that idea would be good maybe idk a few different versions with different animals based on local fona. So like an aquatic one that has a tanky sea turtle a high damage shark and idk a grappling one based on octopus.
I think that thief rogue is way worse than the assassin. Spore Druid and War Wizards, while not the best of the druids/wizards, are still quite useful and if used correctly can be very powerful. I'd say there are worse subclasses, such as the arcane cleric, the storm barbarian, the arcane archer, the drunken master or any of the PHB rangers. But, since that's subjective, good video ^^
My friend (He's a DM) said that a Beastmaster Ranger is underpowered for a few reasons, but mostly one specific reason. First, from what I have seen the ranger in general isn't a super powerful combat class. It feels like somewhere in the middle between Druid and Rouge, but without the full benefits of either. Add in a strong companion like a bear and you have something that is meant to be a "Jack of all stats, master of none" but fails to excel or even be good at strength, magic or stealth. Also, as my friend the DM says, the companion isn't strong later on and can't get stronger. A party at very low levels (1-3 or so) benefits as, a bear for example, will probably have all around decent stats and may have more HP than everyone. It effectively acts as another, slightly stronger, party member. However once you get past level 3 even a bear starts getting outpaced, and there isn't a way to increase their stats. That's what my friend says, as a DM. I think, and told him, that a one-shot at level 3-6 could benefit from having a companion like that to split the damage across more targets. Also note they increased Trinket's stats in Critical Role to keep him from being a burden... and it really didn't help as much as it could.
Yeah, basically Matt ended up giving them a pokeball to keep Trinket safe and remove the constant logistical problems that bringing him along was causing.
There was a girl in my D&D club in college who played a Beastmaster but refused to ever use the pet because she didn't want it to die. So she was literally just a subclassless ranger with a pet only used as a bodyguard if enemies were in melee range. It always tilted me when I would play with her
With the exception of the Infiltration Expertise, I think the Assassin Rogue definitely is a strong sub-class, it's just that it's made to be played a VERY specific way. It focuses more on stealth and surprise than most of the other sub-classes during combat, and out of combat it wants you to study and prepare for a kill like an expert assassin. The Imposter trait for example, imagine you are trying to assassinate a wealthy scholar. Disguise yourself with Infiltration Expertise and pretend to be an aspiring student that has idolized the scholar. Beg him to allow you to shadow him for a day, seeing his day-to-day life. During this time, you get the 3 hours needed for Imposter, and then you can disguise yourself as him, speak, act and write identically to him, and you can then walk around as him, getting into wherever you need, such as his personal room, or you could then commit a violent crime as him and escape, setting him up, there's limitless possibilities but point is, you really have to think and play like an assassin. I think Infiltration Expertise shouldn't be tied to a solid 7 day time limit, and instead it takes however long the player's make it take for that player to go and buy clothes, false documents, establish a history and come up with affiliations(these 2 can be done in real time, just whenever the player can come up with these, or they can improvise if it comes up).
The issue is the mechanics and how that interacts with most games, narratively it works fine, but in most campaigns you are not going to have the time to use it.
@@killcat1971 Yeah I definitely agree, thats what I'm trying to say, it's strong but only if it can be played that very specific way, which most campaigns don't want to spend several in-game days setting up an assassination plot for one character to execute on.
Loved the video! About the Undying Patron, I think that after Undead Patron appeared, that first subclass was f*cked... But because it's trying to go in two directions. Undead patron warlocks go full on the undead spooky thing, and it's cool, but the Undying ones try to be about living for a long time, longevity and regeneration... But also playing with the undead stuff (and having too many undead examples for patrons). If they were to fix Undying Warlocks, they should, first of all, change its name to something more distinctive, like "Immortal" or "Eternal", and then go full speed with that. Zombie stuff is cool and all, but if Undead covers it, then try doing something about that *undying* concept, and have more abilities related to regeneration, healing and stuff. Not leaning to much in copying the cleric, because then you would be as a Celestial warlock, but I don't know, maybe playing with magical potions, doing rituals, taking an aspect of half-orcs clinge to life when they get 0 hit points... I dunno, something that makes Undying Warlocks feel more unique than a necromancer who likes staying alive more than zombies
For the Wild Magic sorcerer I asked about building a homebrew feat in my campaign using guidelines that appear in other feats of: +1 in a stat 2 lines of text. What I presented was: +1 Charisma When you roll for wild magic surge, you surge from the numbers 1 to 1+ your charisma modifier. You gain additional sorcery points equal to half your charisma modifier rounded up. It made a fun campaign where Wild Magic still had a low chance of going off but it showed the stronger i as a player got the more likely something could go wrong. I enjoyed rolling more than just a crit fail on an extra die for wild magic surge. PS That campaign ended with me using two bags of holding to banish myself and a kraken away from the rest of the party then casting banishment on myself to return myself to my native plane. Really fun.
The other thing that tended to happen more than not was my DM having me roll for Wild Magic when I was twin casting. The idea you’re now using your magic to modify how normal spell casting goes makes it more likely that something goes wrong.
Honestly, I play rogues quite a bit. I do like the Inquisitive one a lot. Currently, I’m actually playing an Assassin Rogue. It’s a lvl 7 wood elf assassin rogue with (so far) 1 lvl in fighter (archery fighting style). He uses a longbow. I do like it a lot. Recently almost oneshotted a Mummylord with him. That was really fun! And if I can (eventually) combine that with a lvl 3 fighter, I could choose champion to get also crits on 19s or go down the Arcane Archer path (which in and of itself isn’t the best subclass on its own if you ask me. But could work fairly well with an assassin rogue). Would I play a straightforward assassin (instead of multiclassing)? Probably not, but what I like about the assassin rogue, it gets a lot of its nice features at lower lvls. Which makes them quite nice to multiclass with.
Hi Ted, Love the video. Just curious would you ever consider doing build videos for new players or inexperienced players, not necessarily pop culture builds but perhaps generalised builds like the dark knight, magic-slinger etc thanks again
@@NerdImmersion Hey Ted. I'd second that a "builds you think would be fun" series could be cool. Another commenter pointed out that you consider classes from more of a designer's perspective, rather than a pure optimizer. I think that inclination to consider how features synergize and how a build "feels" to play, regardless of potency, would make your build videos end up being a little different from others on the interwebs.
Assassin makes the Actor Feat look like a Godsend. What's the point of having several guises if you cant pretend to be someone else!? Why not study 7 days to walk the walk and talk the talk of an established person? that makes more sense than it taking a week to make up a person. and the gold cost is dumb. I mean damn you get advantage on both deception AND performance in the Actor feat. What the hell WotC?
Wild Magic is my favorite subclass by a long shot, i'm a big fun of random stuff admittedly, but i think that once you play lots of characters you start to see the same stuff happen very often, wild magic solves that for you, it's unpredictable. Of course you can't just slap it on every campaign because it's extremely DM dependent and you have to come up with some cool solution to how many times you can actually see a surge happen (for example a % based on the level of the spell used). It's obviously not a competitive sublclass, because it's the only one that can be negative for you, and i think Bend Luck and Spell Bombardment could very well be buffed up a little bit, but the main problem, i think, is that it's confusing for people to actually understand when the surges happen. The roll of 1 on the d20 is not only dumb per se, but in game is actually never occurring, because you will have surges using constantly Tides of chaos, and not waiting for a 5% to happen, and this throws some people off. Anyway, in my games as a DM, i make a surge happen after every spell, if Tides of Chaos is used, and it doesn't slow the game down more than any other class using spells and reading effects or a fighter using action surge and make multiple attacks.
Oh crap, I can't cast spells this turn. Damn, now I can't recast the Wall of Force I would have lost concentration on had I not had +4 on saving throws. Oh darn, I also get a free Scorching Ray with this? Man, this subclass is SHIT!
I played a war wizard for my first time playing a full caster, and I gotta say it was fun af. With bracers of defense and mage armor you can easily get up to 18 AC if you don't mind putting some extra points into dex, 20 if you're concentrating on a spell and 25 with shield. Throw blur on there and you ain't getting hit 😂
@@Fr4nZeR I didn't worry too much about having a melee weapon, but with 25 AC from shield I didn't give two shits about opportunity attacks 😂 just run away if they get too close and cast fireball 😂
Beast Master Ranger has one use: You choose a creature that has a really low CR. Druid Wildshape means you can turn into that thing. Now, at level 20, you can transform yourself into a thing with about 100 hp.
Yeah as much as I like assassin rogue, I dont have any use for the fake identity ability, and rarely my dms ever utilize surprise. A few of these I still like purely for the flavor of them, but I understand why they arent as strong mechanically.
The only people that defend the Trickery Domain are those who either haven't played it, or don't follow the rules as written. It's not a case of it being underpowered, it is a case of it being badly designed. The subclass simply does not fill its designed niche, that is to say, Trickery Clerics aren't tricky.
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They actually tried to fix the Ranger SIX times.
- 1 spellless version on their website.
- 2 revised Ranger versions in UA.
- Recent UA with Class Feature Variant that finally do something good.
- Xanathar fixed the Ranger to some degree by giving 3 features instead of 1 to Ranger subclasses at level 3, including more spells known.
- The most insulting one. They fixed the Ranger inability to do its out-of-combat job by publishing a ROGUE subclasses that does the Ranger's job but better.
Would be intresting to see if you and trentmonk temple talked about the trickery cleric because he thinks it the best vleric subclass
Agreed and raise you a war school wizard for the same reason.
*sees title* "Worst subclasses? Oh boy, I wonder how long Ted is gonna talk about Four Elements!"
Not as long as you'd think!
Beast master anyone?
It's really more the two elements until later then it's just fire...
What's this thing called an "Acrobat"?
Kensei is worse, imo. It just does away with most of the fun stuff that monks get. In the words of Jocat, "do I want to use big swords or fire hadoukens and kamehameha blasts? Hmm, so diffi- Can't stop, won't stop, we're on top now"
Number 10: trickery domain cleric
Me, whose first character ever was a trickery domain cleric: *WHAT?!*
Number 9: Assassin Rogue
Me, who currently plays an assassin rogue: *WHAT?!*
Assassin rogue is so so bad
Trickery cleric has the best spell list imho
@@lucasfialho1374 It's good at what it does. If all you do is play Adventure League/ Dungeons and Dragon combat simulator then maybe. But if you have actual stories and scenarios, it's great.
@@arandombard1197 how dare we analyze a game's features based on things the game actually has rules for.
Everything can be good for roleplay if you are creative enough and anything with high mental stats will do well in social scenarios. Combat is clearly the area in which there's the most pressure for people to be powerful, thus why people base their assessments on that. Combat is fairly present in the life of adventuring parties and more deadly them talking to people.
@@arandombard1197 and tbh, some of the features mentioned aren't even weak per se, just extremely reliant on dms' interpretation which makes them bad in whatever scenario they are in
*sighs as I have a newer player who picked Beast Master Ranger so she could bring her cat into the game*
I mean, these are the worst subclasses *for combat*. DnD is not necessarily about optimising for combat, so these are viable for roleplay or just because they want to play like that.
Drink whenever an animal companion dies
I mean, maann, it's not always about optimizing, it's just about fun
5e is balanced nicely enough that even the worst subclasses aren't TOO obviously contributing much less than the other characters. As long as they don't care much about crunch and no one talks about it they will likely never realize they're weaker than the other characters. As long as the other players aren't dicks, then that individual player not feeling underpowered is all you need! Balance around the fact that they're not optimized, but it shouldn't be too different from most unoptimized straight classes so as much as we meme about it I wouldn't worry.
Take swarm keeper so that you can have dozens of cats
Battlerager. Most of the skills have little to do with the gimmick. The gimmick isn't that great.
The gimmick is pretty decent based on some of the fiction involving battleragers literally shredding an enemy to pieces in seconds, but the way it's described and the mechanics in 5e just really fail to live up to the fiction.
The main problem of the Battlerager is just how required and shitty their special armor is. If they used spiky half plate, the subclass would instantly become quite a bit better than the Berserker, but as it stands, it just sucks and feels awful. It would be like restricting just one new paladin oath to only using daggers or light hammers . . . like . . . come on, this is a purely martial class, can we just . . . not !?
@@Nr4747 yeah it would've been better if it allowed you to add spikes on to any normal armor to make it into spiked armor.
Would still pick over the Berserker. At least the Battlerager's ability is active on every rage and doesn't debuff you.
Anyone that plays a wild sorcerer at my table rolls on the table whenever they use meta magic. It's basically using the very force that makes you magical, so why not?
When I DM, I rule that it is a d/20 roll and the chance is equal to the spell level cast. So a 6th level spell creates a surge on a roll of 6 or lower.
@@Rodshark75 i like your idea better. Lol
@@floopthevolcano2330 or just go RAW and have them wild surge every time they cast a leveled spell after having spent tides of chaos.
When you said Oath of the Ancients my jaw dropped. You got me good
I'd argue that a Paladin OoA is probably /The Best/ class and subclass mix in the whole game. Great spell choice, great class features from the paladin and incredible survivability is added on to the paladin by the Oath of the Ancients.
@@TuckBolt Agreed. It also multiclasses with fey warlock so well, making it even more powerful.
@@krunchyfrogg The only bad thing about the entire subclass is Nature's Wrath but even then at least you still have the option to turn Fey and Fiends. Best Aura in the game.
Sir Stanley the Stumbler I love the class both mechanically and flavor. It’s just awesome.
@@TuckBolt I very slightly prefer Oath of Vengeance, but Ancients is definitely top tier. OoV doesn't give you that awesome aura, but makes up for it with by far the best Channel and best spell list. Haste alone makes them ridiculous. The are the ultimate boss killers, especially splashed with hexblade.
Trickery Domain gets an INCREDIBLE bonus spell list. The weak subclass features are to compensate for the best spell list of any cleric - the only change I think they NEED is potent cantrip.
Yeah, war domain isn't that bad either. Surge is of course useless on a fireball, but very potent on magic missile (which breaks all the rules per confirmation from Jeremy Crawford). On MM you roll damage only once, and apply that damage to all missiles, so adding half you level to hit can obliterate things. But they have to wait til level 10 for their most important feature. Personally I would've put most of the bard subclasses on here. But really, there are like 20 good subclasses, and the rest you can skip.
Trickery Domain has no need for doing cantrip damage at that level, at least for the most part. Also, the features aren't there to compensate the list, it's just that the designers genuinely thought they'd be more useful than they actually are, from the way they were desgined it's kinda clear that they wanted you to use them quite frequently and sorta do fun stuff with them.
It's still definetly amongst the better cleric subclasses though
@@psimoes2000 Also they can beat Incredible powerfull enemies with Muffins.
The invisibility is fine too, because you can cast spells FROM your duplicate
I was going to say this. Trickery is not that bad. The bonus spells are excellent. The class features are not. It balances out being pretty decent.
Can you do a top 10 races? I think that would be really cool
In the works as a sponsored video, finalizing that deal then it'll be out!
Also a top 10 worst races
But Bronson, wouldn't a video like that be...
Racist? 😎
Yuan-ti are #1. They have effects of 2 Rare magic items as race features, one of those is poison immunity - not only poison is one of the most common damage type, but it's the only race immunity I know of. Hell, even warforged, freaking robots, don't have it.
@@antongrigoryev6381 Vuman can be better in some situations, but that's in more low-magic campaigns
Obviously the damage parts of war wizard aren’t very good, but the survival parts of it are pretty good in my opinion to put it above some other wizard subclasses
I agree, Necromancy Wizard comes to mind as one of the bad ones
War wizard is one of best MC wizards. Good passive buffs and reactions. MC war wizard/arcane archer was lots of fun.
I think War Wizard is good besides two things: AC bonus working on single attack (either make it last to your turn, like Shield, or +4, like Save bonus), and lvl6 feature being too weak. Seriously, half of a level additional damage once per short rest, unless you're fighting against casters? Even his 14 lvl ability deals the same amount of damage, but for free (almost) and to 3 targets.
War Wizard is cool for just being a generalist wizard. It can fit whatever theme you really want
@@antongrigoryev6381 Power Surge and Deflecting Shroud are both rather weak, but they still provide actual mechanical advantages - and the other 3 features are incredibly strong. This makes the War Mage one of the stronges subclasses, imho, because they have no pure "ribbon abilities" and 3/5 of their abilities are on the strong to very strong side. Transmutation wizards just wept when comparing themselves to that.
Wild Magic is maybe my favorite subclass of all, but I will agree it needs some solid table rules to support it. In my play groups, the entire table makes sure a surge roll is never missed. We love chaos even when it hurts us. Moreover, we tweek the surge rule by having a surge be triggered by three numbers on the d20 instead of just a 20. At character creation, the player must choose three numbers from 1-20 and those are their surge numbers forever with that character. Adds a little more tension to playing. One of my favorite characters I've ever created was a 13 year old wild magic sorcerer whose powers were tied to him going through puberty. My DM would have him me roll for surges any time he got overly scared or - uhmmm - if there was too much skin being shown around him. It was great.
I really like how they homeruled it in the Dimension 20 The Unsleeping City show, where the number that triggers your surge is the number os sorcerer spells you've casted that day, so the chance to get a surge is always increasing.
@@SenorVilla Or perhaps trigger it any time you use sorcery points, if you roll under the number of points spent? Or, conversely, whenever you roll it it triggers when you roll under the number of points you have used since your last rest. I feel like associating it with one of the key sorcery features makes more sense than having it trigger only because you cast a spell.
I love the Wild Magic Sorc myself, but I also kinda hate it... It's the only class I know of who is almost entirely subjected to the GM's control. You want to Tides of Chaos? Okay, you can't do that again until the GM has you WMS. And your GM may NEVER GIVE YOU A WMS. Hell, even your normal spellcasting (aside from cantrips) is hardly subject to the WMS, because it's a 1 in 20 chance. It's entirely possible to go DAYS without a surge, even casting heavily. It's really infuriating. They get REALLY fun when WMS is going off all the time, but if you get a GM who ignores/forgets about it, then it's just a crappy Sorcerer.
Snake eyes, lucky number seven, and boxcars. :3
I just roll porcentaje every time I cast, we agreed that 20% is a good number
I'm amazed that Berserker Barbarian didn't make the list ... they can literally kill themselves overusing their class power.
Yeah, it is pretty lame. And if you are fighting something that can inflict exhaustion, you are pretty much dead.
And a spellcaster cant with aoe damage spells?
Its down to the fact that a player has a lot of control over how they use the features of the class. Of a player is using rage so much the kill themselves from exhaustion then they are the terrible player not the subclass being bad. And no, ive not played the subclass.
@@svartrbrisingr6141 If a spellcaster was REQUIRED to make them 1/6 closer to death each time they casted an AoE, then sure it would be fair.
But even then a spellcaster is getting more damage in for the same price a Beserker must accept to make a bonus action attack for the duration of a rage. (Which a war cleric can do for free a number of times equal to their wis mod. And they can do it at an earlier level)
@@svartrbrisingr6141 spellcasters don't also get a nerf on their character each time they use a spell-
@@svartrbrisingr6141 using their main class ability literally makes them worse. No other subclass has that for good reason. The penalty is far too harsh
It would seem you and treantmonk don’t see eye to eye on the trickery domain.
I guess so? If you haven't watched my Trickery domain video I'd recommend it
Nerd Immersion i’ll be sure to do that, thank you.
Well even Treantmonk basically says that it's only good because of the spells. So in terms of how effective it can be, you can just ignore the class features and just use those good spells. Nerd Immersion seems to be looking at how well the subclass fits together to make a functioning whole. And yeah, the subclass does seem to be a bunch of abilities that don't work well together.
Yea. I agree with Treantmonk that it’s one of the better classes in terms of power due to the spells. Personally, it’s also fun to RP and play. But NerdImmersion is right to call it a bit off in terms of design. It’s hard to make sense of the intention.
@@89Dienekes I agree. The 2 have very different approaches to subclass critique. TM is an optimizer while NI views subclasses more as a DM/designer.
I am surprised you put War Magic Wizard on there. It is among the strongest Wizard subclasses, even if limited to cantrips for one turn.
You can make an extremely effective melee wizard this way.. You WANT to cast BB or GFB in your turn, so cantrip limitation isn't huge.
@@Fr4nZeR You dont even need to be in melee. It just makes you a crazy durable wizard.
I thought he would talk about transmutation wizard
IKR? Ted should be ashamed of himself.
It tries to be an abjuration, evocation wizard and is worse than both in what it tries to do
ranger died when its core legacy ability, namely Survival, was given away to all classes as a skill slot.
Why take this crap class when one can just Barbarian, which gets to choose survival as a class ability :/
Bad spell lists, bad capstone ability, just...
BAD.
I saw someone try to tell me the other day that Ranger was the second best martial besides Paladin, and I just couldn’t comprehend how they came to that conclusion
I feel many people bash a bit too much on the Ranger. I won't say they're secretly very strong or anything, but I feel like (with the exception of BM) they're not quite as bad as many people make them out to be.
First of all, they really don't have a bad spell list. In fact, their spell list is pretty good with options such as Hunter's Mark, Silence, Pass Without Trace, Healing Spirit, Conjure Animals and Swift Quiver. Of course most of their spells come online somewhat late, like Conjure Animals at lvl 9 instead of 5, but the same is even more applicable to Eldritch Knights, and I don't see people claiming even just the spell casting portion of EK is weak. The main problem Rangers have with spell casting is that, for whatever reason, WOTC decided they should be instinctive casters in 5e instead of prepared casters like the Paladin (and Ranger in earlier editions), and that Hunter's Mark is almost a mandatory tax on a spell known, a spell slot and your concentration in combat.
Besides, just having survival proficiency doesn't nearly put you on par with a Ranger in his favored terrain, or one tracking their favored enemy. And even if the Ranger has neither benefit and we don't factor in spells that could help in exploration, he's still likely to have a higher Wisdom than any other survivalist besides the Druid. The main problems Rangers face in 5e are
1: They're focussed on the pillar of exploration, which is the least important pillar on most tables since many DMs basically already have decided for themselves if exploration will succeed or fail in the end, since if the group doesn't even get to the point where the actual events take place, their entire plan might as well be defenestrated.
2: They don't get any bonus to survival outside their favored terrain at all if we don't count their spells and tendency to have the right stats.
3: When they are in their favored terrain, they are actually so good at exploration and survival that you might as well skip over the entire "challenge", since many of their benefits state that they simply succeed at some part of it without any need for rolling ("you can't become lost except by magical means" for example).
Nice video, but you didn't really explain what you disliked about your War Mage. Arcane Deflection and Tactical Wit are both super powerful for 2nd level abilites and Durable Magic comes on online early enough to be (another) really potent life saver. Obviously, going early in combat becomes much more important later on, which is when Tactical Wit provides its biggest bonus anyway. Deflecting Shroud and Power Surge are - sort of - this subclass' "ribbon abilities", but even those provide some actual benefits.
Compare and contrast that to the Transmutation wizard who gets . . . an easy way to make a buck on fake coins before the city watch catches him/her ? A weirdly unimpressive philosopher's stone ?
Late reply, but I think I have some insight on why war magic is kinda meh.
You’re absolutely right, Arcane Deflection and Tactical Wit are extremely impressive (who doesn’t love a boost to initiative?) However, looming at the later abilities, I see this subclass as an option for multiclassing than I do for just playing it straight. I say that because this subclass compared to others is very front-loaded compared to the value of later abilities, so why bother taking further levels when you’ve already gotten the best that it’s gonna offer?
Also, regarding the comparison to the transmutation wizard, it’s gets a nice, but situational ability in Minor Alchemy. However it also gives them a stone that can be remade every day (except when it’s used by the subclass’s capstone ability), given to multiple party members, and has multiple benefits that can be changed with every leveled spell cast. From dark vision (granted most races already have it, but it’s still nice), increased speed, proficiency in con saves, damage resistance, it’s just so flexible to whatever situation you’re in.
Plus Polymorph added for free?? And the ability to cast it for free? Not to mention you can destroy your rock to potentially fully heal person/PC everyday?
Just my opinion, but I think the Transmutation class is just more flexible and isn’t as situational with its abilities in comparison
For good order; "If you create a new transmuter's stone, the previous one ceases to function." So just one to pass around.
And you get polymorph at lvl 10, when everyone's at lvl 5 spells and the giant ape is in the rear view mirror. Not saying it's bad but i'll take that +2ac and saves instead actually.
My first ever character in 5e was an Undying Warlock. That lad made it all the way to level 20. Put all 20 levels into warlock. Lad was basically a god by the end of it all. Covo Starbreaker the Gnome has been immortalised in my DM’s hall of fame.
Well the thing is all of these subclasses are usable. They are viable and fun to play. Just because its a top 10 worst doesnt mean they are unusable and will be unable to go into the higher levels of play.
Any lvl 20 pc is basically a god.
"assassin could have been executed better" LOL, great choice of words
I love what they were trying for with Wild Magic Surges and saying "the DM *can*..." its trying to replicate the wild or random part of wild magic. But yeah its not super well implemented.
Depends on the player and DM. Tides of Chaos being used frequently makes it more enjoyable as it's garaunteed table rolls.
for the assasin infiltration expert, what it has over whispers bard is the fact you dont lose it, meaning you can spend town time building an assortment of identities, able to pull any out when necessary, its good for heavy social campaigns, being able to bounce back and forth between 2 factions as different people without much downtime between
I have a war mage character and I have to say, I feel like it was practically MADE for that urge to make a Mountain Dwarf Caster, because that way you can get really high AC and you can use war hammers or battle axes in combination with Green Flame Blade or Booming Blade to be a melee Wizard which makes Arcane Deflection much better as in my opinion, the higher the AC the more another +1 to that AC means, let alone a +2. I do agree it’s a bit weak for a standard Wizard.
I can imagine multi classing a warlock into it for a few more low level spell slots for hex and being limited to a cantrip is not that bad a thing for a lock
True that. I also play a Hill Dwarf War Magic Wizard with 1 lvl multiclass in Forge Domain Cleric. With Plate Armor, a Shield (warcaster necessary), Blessing of the Forge and all the War Magic features your AC can be through the roof. But I also agree that it’s very specific and for a „usual“ wizard it’s not good.
@@lukasceru6647 right. Imange starting out as a warforged fighter, grab defensive style, go six levels into cleric, then whatever level you need for the concentration ac buff for war mage, then cast shield of faith or haste on yourself? If you stand infront of a hexblade paladin oath of ancients, your practically untouchable with like a 30 ac unless the dm pulls dm shenanigans
Just go Bladesinger 18/Fighter 2, take the Mobile feat if you want, and cast Shapechange - you keep your class abilities, including your spells and bladesong, even while shapechanged. You are now a bladesinging Ancient Brass Dragon, or a Planetar who zips around the battlefield at 130ft flying speed or a Marilith who becomes a whirlwind of steel and attacks 7 times per turn. And thanks to bladesong, it becomes almost impossible to break your concentration, and you have 30 AC and potentially legendary resistances.
Also, you have Action Surge for some insane nova damage...
@@arthilas_ only issue is blade singer isnt that great of a class and only had a limited number of uses with blade song. Vs being a heavy armor tank. Throw some battle masters parry into it as well
Sure your slower but not limited
Purple Dragon Knight might be a bad subclass, but it made for an absolutely great NPC all my players loved. Combine it with inspiring leader and it makes for the perfect template for a ''inspiring leader'' type of character.
I did such a hard double take when you said Oath of the Ancients, I'm glad you were just joking
I actually really like the war magic - it makes amazing multiclasses and some of the best AC tanks, one of the best AC tanks I've ever seen in my games was a level 1 fighter, after that war magic (with an extra fighter level later for action surge) - the dude was using heavy armor with shield and defensive fighting style for base AC of 21 and after that full war mage, easy 23 AC with reaction or even 26 with shield, it would go to fixed 23 AC after 10 if we had ever reached that far. - IMHO the only weakness of this class is power surge, it's bad, and that it's kinda bad as a single class, gotta multiclass for it.
For me, one of the top spots would have been the berserk barbarian, just because of the exhaustion, it's just dumb.
Other than that, I agree with the rest - thou wild magic... it's something you talk with your DM and just straight up use it a lot and hope for the best. It's a bad class, but the randomness is fun.
Beast master is especially bad.
That's cool for multiclassing. I wouldn't want to be the guy that wrote up a subclass just to have it used solely for empowering another class, though. Still, I know a lot of players who like using underpowered subclasses because they're contrarians. More power to em' I say. I had a player in a campaign use a beast master ranger and insist it was super good, just no one but him seemed to understand how good it was.
@@Supernaught00 except war mage is better then most of the wizard subclasses, like I don't know how you can tell me with a straight face that mechanically transmutation is better, let's compare their level 10 slots, would you rather have a gimped polymorph that you can only cast upon yourself? Or would you like to have a flat plus 2 to ac AND saves for doing something you would already be doing, If i'm making a generalist wizard outside of diviniation why wouldn't you pick war magic?
@@dah0heavy if you say so.
@@Supernaught00 I mean if you can't come up with an argument I'll stick with my opinion, mechanicly war magic is a flat upgrade for wizards, nothing they have is detrimental to any build, some of it under performs, but its level 2 and 10 abilities are so strong that they allow the wizard to essentially do whatever they want. It's not sexy or flashy but it's mechanically really strong and I feel like this video really wasn't as well thought out compared to what Nerd immersion usually provides
@@dah0heavy lol k
Worst Subclass is the Hexblade.
It broke the basic design (first published "Use A instead of B") , gives waaay too much at level one in terms of raw stat power and shoehornes every Blade Pact Warlock into it. And thanks to it existing, we can basically forget any meaningful fixes for non-hexblade bladelocks.
Obviously power wise not the weakest, but it's the one I am least happy about that it exists.
I agree with you on those problems, not to mention the lack of lore. Conversely playing a pure hexblade eats through your invocations and feels like it's missing something. Ugh.
I don't understand why Assassin now is so completely nonmagical. Back in 3.5e it was a partial spellcaster, like the Arcane Trickster, with its own spell list. You didn't get an underwhelming ability to spend a week making a mundane disguise because you could just cast Disguise Self.
I feel like the Assassin is the Rogue in its truest form (although one could argue the Thief is). The Assassin only uses cunning in order to get in, kill somebody really good and then get out. No shenanigans, no magic, just a blade and a lot of wit, so i kind of get it.
Arcane Trickster is the magic rogue. I think this version of Assassin makes it even cooler. Doesn't need to use magic as a crutch.
And well, you can always multiclass if you so wish. Or just call your A. Trickster an assassin in-game.
War magic is such a good subclass, what are you talking about
Well said. I almost got triggered when you were joking about oath of the ancients. XD
Arcane Archer Fighter and Storm Herald Barb would most definitely make my top 10 worst subclasses. I would shuffle the places quite a bit but for those two slots I would drop the War Wizard and Trickery Cleric off the list. I actually think that War Wizard is really good subclass for GISH dippin'. Trickery Cleric offers things that are unaccessable to clerics any other way.
I agree Arcane Archer should be any ranged Weapons not just bows and Storm Herald got a huge nerf from it's UA.
I totally agree, arcane archer should be able to use any ranged weapon and they should get an amount of arcane shots equal to their intelligence
My fix for Arcane Archer is to change 3 things:
- They can use all those other ranged weapons
- They get an additional use of Arcane Shot at 7th level
- The damage scaling on the shot options gives each option an additional 1d6 at 10th level and then a second extra d6 at 18th level (making them on par with current power by level 18 except Piercing and Seeking, but a little stronger in tier 3). This actually makes the expected additional damage scale up remarkably similar to the extra damage of a Battlemaster which I think is a good sign.
I hate that archer. There are so few situations where Battlemaster isn't better.
I hate to say it, but I agree with you concerning the assassin class. I loved it in the early days but a lot has changed since it came out.
Its a great 3 level subclass...thats about it
@@WhimsicalINTP or give it a version of the ranger's favored enemy, since the new class feature ua ranger doesn't have it
I love wild magic, I can’t imagine the sorcerer without it.
Assassin rogue's disguise is real, unlike those of changeling for example. Assassin have all the documents, can pass the background checks and when the price is assigned it's not on the nameless person, but on some merchant from the far away lands (which mislead investigations). So changeling assassin is almost impossible to trace
Wow, the SCAG really dropped the ball on a lot of its Subclasses.
I say this as an Arcana Domain Cleric (which I am convinced is one of the best Subclass in the SCAG). I love my spells and the synergy with Wood Elf Magic or Magic Initiate (Druid), but I admit that I have never used Channel Divinity in my life.
Yeah Arcana Domain is one of the best from that book, but thats not saying much
Don’t know man, the Undying warlock is my favorite one. Sure, he is not the best feature-wise, but he is flavorful, and serves his role as a warlock pretty well. Maybe it’s just me, but whenever I dip into warlock for those sweet invocations, I usually go with this subclass, don’t really know why though, he seems to be the most appropriate every time.
That said, I have to agree with Battlerager (though he is pretty salvageable) and Purple Dragon. Totem Warrior features are also meh. But there’re also some of the best subclasses, like Arcana domain, Oath of the Crown, and Bladesinger (the best wizard out there imao). Storm sorcerer is nice, love to play him (though I use a reprint from Xanathar). Can’t say anything about Long Death monk.
@@NerdImmersion Swashbuckler! Don't forget swashbuckler!
@Lance Clemings Never heard anyone laugh at Bladesingers. As you said, it is the best wizard.
@Lance Clemings I remember playing a paladin with my friend, who had a Bladesinger. On the 1 lvl I had 18 AC and he had 19 (without the Shield spell). My paladin was ahamed...
the fact that Wizard can do infinite errata for like a single word but not to make an entire class (the ranger) at least decent is astonishing to me... Variant class features UA was great and i hope it will be implemented very soon
What’s your opinion on the name Greg
Needs more letters
@@johnreese5739 How about Gregory then?
Craig is a far superior version of the same name.
My names Ol Greg! I got a mangina!!
Bottom tier tbh
As a DM I rarely allow my players to use UA. As a DM I always insist my players Ranger players use UA Revised Ranger.
So you just force your players to only use the base handbook? That sounds very limiting and not very fun at all. Kinda goes against the whole idea of creative expression that D&D is all about.
@@dragonix8527 You are misinterpreting what I said. You should read what I posted again.
@@dragonix8527 he encourages people play sub-classes and races that are in official sources. i think that is a valid stance, since quite a bit of UA isn't properly balanced. It is test content after all.
@@piemaniac9410 I dont think he realizes that there is more than one official source. Also for additional information, I actively encourage reflavoring of spells and abilities. As long as it doesnt affect the overall powerlevel.
My biggest problem with 5e as a whole is that I loved playing rangers in previous editions, but if I want to play one in 5e, it has to be UA version.
My whole argument
I mean. Is that an issue? I see people often complain how something is UA or Homebrew and it makes no sense to me. Just send the info to your dm and ask if you can play it. If they say no because its not official then your dm needs to rethink their decisions. But if they say no for lore or power reasons then look for something else.
Wasn't Circle of the spores like... immortal?
I'm not complaining I just know Poison Ivy os untoutchable.
It is like a worse version of moon druid, also fungi are not plants.
@@phelps6205 It was a reference to Tulok the Barbrarian.
Personally, I have to disagree with you on the Wild Magic Sorcerer being one of the worst subclasses. As someone who has played one, the worst that's happened at a critical moment was being turned into a sheep for a round.
Yes it banks on probability at the D.M.'s digression, but it was so liberating to play as someone who has little to no control over their abilities.
If anything, I think the Draconic Bloodline is worse by comparison.
10 - The cleric that only knows what it isn't good at. Poison is bad.
9 - The best rogue dip up to 3rd level if you have a fighting class. That's all.
8 - Ok, power surge is bad. But you don't play this class for power surge. Also, the EK dip in wizard. Heh, you said that too.
7 - Spore druid, you play it staying at distance. No use in wading into melee. Poison is bad.
6 - Battlerager is plain wrong. No plate? You wot m8??
5 - PDK... Sorry pal. You are bad. It's probably a remnant of 4th edition.
4 - Nope. Bad execution. No way. It sucks badly. I probably would put them on the podium.
3 - You wanna hear a bad joke? Wild magic sorcerer. You are a sorcerer without subclass.
2 - The trash fire.
1 - The total pile of crap. I don't understand how the other 2 semi spell users have good classes and the ranger is, well, shit.
I've seen so many videos like this that don't actually make good points. I was so ready to defend these subclasses. But this was actually really well explained, and I like that you've also shared how they can be better, not just saying "these are bad, don't play them." Thanks for such a well researched video!
Ah a top 10 worst subclasses. With Wild Magic sorcerer. Yah just put sorcerer as a whole there. Just a lack luster and boring full caster. Very limited spells meaning most sorcerers just go down the path of a blaster which Wizard does much better. Want to go control? Well Druid surpasses sorcerer massively there. Support? Cleric.
Sorcerer is honestly more disappointing then Ranger. As someone born with magic how the fuck is it so lacking in exactly that. Magic. Ranger at least has its theme still fitting the base class
39:48 Got 'em
Trickery Domain should not be on this list. It's mainly the spell list that elevates it, and from that spell list it's mainly Polymorph and Dimension Door, but those are some of the best spells for Clerics in the game. Clerics suck at mobility, most of them never get any at all. Trickery Fixes this. There are worse Cleric Domains than Trickery.
A Wild Magic House rule that I always enjoyed was that you can cast 1st level and higher spells X times without rolling to see if you get a surge, where X is equal to your half your sorcerer level. That or your sorcerer level is the upper limit to how much you can 'control' your spells and each spell you cast drains from that limit equal to the spell's level; so a lvl 8 sorcerer has a limit of 8 so after using 2 level 4 spells, any subsequent spell would have them roll. A bit riskier low level but it allows for more freedom of spell usage as you get higher, and there's an added risk with using high level spells
I know this is a year old, but I feel the need to say...who the heck plays a wild magic sorcerer and wants LESS rolls on the chart LOL.
They barely happen, most people homebrew it the other way.
Random but funny you dislike Circle of Spores, everywhere I've ever seen it's always listed as being the only other one as strong (or nearly as strong) as Moon Druid, especially thanks to its bonus action use (which other Druid subclasses don't really have)
Cool hearing your thoughts on it tho
Okay, now that I've finished the video: yeah, agreed on all of those. I'm currently playing a Trickery cleric. Their domain spells are great, but the rest is confusing, yeah. My DM let me suggest some changes, with the understanding that if she try something and she thinks it's OP or we agree the change isn't working then we'll talk it out. I posted my suggested changes in the Cleric forum on dndbeyond back in November. I changed Blessing of the Trickster so it will work on yourself (because that was a weird restriction), some extra skills at level 1, dropping concentration on Invoke Duplicity.
Then at level 17 for the capstone, letting you trade places with a duplicate as a reaction, and letting Cloak of Shadows stay up when you cast a spell. And we're using the Blessed Strikes from Unearthed Arcana instead of Divine Strike, which is working out pretty well (when I remember to use it, oops). We're level 8 so I don't know how those level 17 features will work out, but I figure that Far Step is a level 5 Wizard spell and does something similar, so letting the Cleric move as a reaction shouldn't be too powerful.
Glad I'm not the only one. Sounds like you did something similar, but if you haven't seen my Fixing the trickery domain video, I'd check it out. Hopefully your fixes have been making your experience as a Trickery Domain better!
@@NerdImmersion I've seen it!
Beautiful video, hard agree on most of these
Hi Ted, I really enjoy your content. While I understand that these lists are all subjective, I wanted to point out that your reading of the Tide of Chaos was incorrect. If a player casts a lvl 1 or higher spell after using tides of chaos, they immediately roll on the wild magic surge table. They don’t have to roll a d20 and get a 1, it’s immediate, and it then resets their ability. So this creates an ebb and flow with the PC, gaining advantage to help with the trade off being an imminent surge.
That being said, it is all subject to the DM’s whim, so they could choose not to have the surge happen. Taking the agency away from a players main ability might be enough to keep the class at #3 on your list, but the mechanics of the class aren’t as restrictive as you made them out to be in this video. Cheers!
I love your stuff, but I just gotta say I completely disagree with you on war wizard
it's super hard to surprise anyone in 5th, my DM gave us some flash bang grenades that gave us surprise to try to help us out but it's still not something that's easy to do.
Well technically you just need to sneak up to someone to surprise them: so every time you know enemies are ahead of you and there is another way to approach them than running straight into them there is a good chance you surprise them. As a DM I personally use the following rule of thumb: if you attach someone who hasn’t even drawn a weapon (or is about to) they are surprised.
@@KilRBass we were running out of the abyss so we were in the underdark and there just isn't always a way to get around people. and always having a side passage that leads to the people we are going to fight doesn't make sense so we went with the flash bangs that let us get the surprise. Also stuff in the underdark is just a lot harder to surprise because they live somewhere where someone is always trying to surprise kill you.
@@FisforFenton Ok it definitly depends on the Campaign you're playing and how your DM designs encounters. I just wanted to say that it is not super hard in general in 5th edition.
No it isn't really.
Say you're going to attack a target. If you're hidden, or if the target has no reason to believe youäre hostile to them, you surprise them.
Honestly, I don't see anything wrong with war wizard. Bladesinger is WAY worse.
I’ve always been really fond of War Magic Wizard. It’s really good to multiclass into if you’re an Eldritch Knight or Arcane Trickster, but even playing it as a non-multiclassed build, I think it’s actually decently powerful and balanced.
I actually really like the War Magic wizard. I view it as the ultimate controller wizard. Acts earlier in the round to throw up a control spell or nuke some mooks, gains passive boosts to AC and all saves when concentrating on a spell, and can prevent losing concentration with Arcane Deflection. Power Surge is weak, but if you're fighting an enemy wizard and his minions, you can counterspell for surges and then spend those surges to take out the minions who are defending the enemy wizard. I'm a big fan of it.
Top 10? More like Bottom 10
Amirite fellas?
If top 10 worst doesn't feel right, maybe "Bottom 10 Best?"
Jester would like to know your location.
Lol, even a trickery domain cleric can kick but with stats like hers lol.
@@joshholmes1372 Her stats don't really have that much impact. She rarely uses her strength in battle. It's more the creativity she brings to it.
Also, she rarely uses the trickery stuff anymore.
When was the last time she actually used duplicity or blessing of the trickster? I don't think she's ever made herself invisible either? She's mostly just trickster for her choice of god (she said she was originally going to be an archfey warlock to use for The Traveler but Travis grabbed warlock instead) and the extra spells (MODIFY MEMORY).
@@toshomni9478 stats matter for skill checks and saving throws. Plus she's getting alot of of just being a cleric. Which she could do as any domain
Phoenix sorcerer is also p bad but cool idea. Not even resistant or immune to fire
Had me looking side eyed at you for awhile. You kept dogging on SCAG so much I thought you were going to include Bladesinger, and I was going to be out. I love that book but yeah it's incredibly unbalanced.
Apply the level 3 abilities of the Revised Ranger and the rest of the features from the PHB version and Beast Master's status as a bad subclass quickly becomes highly overstated. Four Elements Monk is easily the worst subclass in the game and nothing comes close to being as bad.
I think it is funny that both Lauras characters from Critical Role is on this.
Yeah, Assassin is kind of underwhelming. It's more like a spy, for one thing, and all of its abilities are way too situational, especially the infiltration ones, which are practically useless in campaigns that are light on intrigue.
@Lance Clemings Yeah, been trying to think of how to play the Spy...
Why even have the command be an action? You aren't mind melding with the thing.
Plus, aren't players allowed a bit of talking for free on their turn? Surely in six seconds you can yell 'attack' to your beast and still do whatever it was you were doing that turn. It's not like the thing needs complex instructions and guidance on how to bite something.
@@darkmaterial499 Mearls and company were and still are deathly afraid of "angel summoners" in 5th edition. Which was and still is completely unfounded, and made all of the ranger fans cry into their oatmeal for the life of the edition. The beastmaster's pet would still be made of tissue paper if it had complete autonomy, but at least it would soak some damage and maybe hit something before it gave up the ghost while the master plinked away. Instead they shipped the travesty that left our mouths agape at its shittiness, and then threw up their hands and decided that beastmaster rangers were actually artificers all along.
@@johngleeman8347 Angel summoners? I'm not familiar with what that means.
@@darkmaterial499 ua-cam.com/video/taCa8qBgIFY/v-deo.html
In 3rd edition, this was the relationship between spellcasters and martial characters.
@@johngleeman8347 Oh, I see. So it was a drastic overcompensation for the fact that summoners used to make martial characters irrelevant. Now I know why all the summoning spells have that defection rule. Thanks for the explanation. And for the funny video!
Wait, you need to roll a 1 on a D20 first before you 'get' to have a Wild Magic surge?
Geez, no wonder the Wild Mage in that one party I was briefly a part of was so ridiculous.
He was a first-time player, which already made Wild Mage a bit of a precarious choice, and our DM made him roll Percentile Dice for Wild Magic fairy frequently (without making him roll a D20 first).
Over the course of three sessions, this Wild Sorcerer:
1. very nearly TPKd our entire low-level party by causing a massive explosion in the middle of a forest, resulting in the whole rest of the party rolling death saving throws and then having to escape a forest fire, all on one point of exhaustion each because our sleep was interrupted.
2: transported himself to the Celestial Plane in the middle of a battle, leaving us to deal with the encounter alone.
3: disintegrated the hostage we were supposed to save when trying and failing to cast a spell on the cultists.
And those were only the worst incidents.
It was a pretty toxic atmosphere at that table anyway, so I didn't stick around much longer than that.
But yeah, this game was a mess.
I'm glad to hear that this isn't how the Wild Magic Sorcerer is _supposed_ to work, because that was frankly a catastrophe.
Your DM might have been part of that problem.
Spore Druids can do 8d6 in a turn for a minute , have 260 free (no spell slots needed) undead, and your spells can be used in the spores wild shape
And if you're an Archdruid you can get 80 temp whenever you want
@@randomim42 spore druid op
Berserker Barb needs to be here. I don't care about Grog. It's bad.
I feel everything you say, or most of it, is from a min/max point of view and not roll play. Part of the fun of d&d is to take a flawed class/race and make it work anyway. I am a huge fan of characters that are unconventional, like my halfling barbarian. I miss when races had minuses to some abilities. Getting rid of those hurt rollplay.
Role Playing*** is completely independent of the actual power/effectiveness of the class, so it's irrelevant to his exposition.
You can role play a bad subclass amazingly, or be a shitty player that doesn't role play at all with the same bad subclass. Also, this is kinda subjective and prone to what one consider as role play value regardless.
The subclass is just a framework of mechanics, the fluff and flavor of it can be shaped and changed however you wish to suit your subjective tastes, the mechanics as per official rules, can not. So that's what we are talking about here.
Still waiting on that Undying Warlock Fix haha
Great video. I really hope these subclasses get buffed, but looking at the way WotC is going, probably wont get updates on these, which is a shame.
The Undead Warlock is official, which I think is basically what the Undying Warlock should have been.
Easy fix for the Wild Magic Surge: Always roll all the time. Always refresh Tides of Chaos for every spell attack.
The whole point is fun random extra spells and effects. The subclass is only bad and boring if the DM is bad and boring. If you're going to be stingy with letting players using their features, just make them choose a different subclass and save them the pain.
yup, I have a Wild Magic Sorcerer in my game, and I've told him he's rolling every single time he casts a spell. Homebrewing it from "At the DM's discretion" to "every single time" I think is much more to the point of picking the sub-class at all. I've also increased the numbers that would add a Wild Magic Surge, and am planning on homebrewing an item that will somewhat let him control it.
Wild Magic Sorcerers are a blast if you let them do their thing, and if done right could very well be the most fun class in the game.
It's really sad that they abandoned the Revised Ranger cause it was actually really good. Your beast scaled with you, and by god they could resurrect their beast. Even to this day whenever I have a player want to go Ranger, I just immediately link them the Revised Ranger.
Oh 100%, same with my GM. It's just frustrating that they're unwilling to print what's a near-universally agreed improvement (universally that I've seen, but people with stranger opinions exist than the revisions not being an improvement).
Thomas Joychild I feel like the Revised Ranger was too front loaded. So many things you get at first level alone. I feel like if you spread out the features, it would be a lot more balanced. And also give Extra Attack to the Beast Master subclass. I gave the one revised ranger that I DMed that about three levels later because they felt they were being left behind. But fix those and I think it’s fine. I feel like the Class Feature Variants implemented fixes well, they could just use a little more flavor and a little more oomph.
@@dominickfinch5693 Oh for sure, it's pretty frontloaded and that stuff could well do with spreading out a bit. I'd be very hesitant about letting someone multiclass revised ranger, definitely.
@@dominickfinch5693 100% The Ranger has just always been a super problematic class. Even with the revised ranger there's a reason it's still known as the lvl 5 dip class.
I have to feel like you've never played a college of swords bard, I like your list, but that subclass is an infuriating mess to play. You get 10ft of extra movement after a flourish... but can't disengage, you also can't use shields, so your AC is low, and you can only raise it a few times every long rest, and most of the spells you want to cast are concentration, which you will drop, because of your low AC. None of the swords bard abilities mesh.
You can raise your AC a number of times equal to your charisma per short rest since it goes off inspiration, I’m sorry you had a bad time playing the subclass as it’s one of my favourites
@@henrytaylor9456 That's the problem though, you can raise your AC a max of 5 times, which will only get you through one or MAYBE two difficult combat encounters, and then you can't use your flourishes for offense, so why did you go into battle?
I really like the swords bard conceptually, but mechanically it isn't good. I'm currently playing one, and I've discovered that you can do some MAD combos (that is including a lot of homebrew by my extremely generous DM). However, only getting 5 flourishes max is... bad, especially since it takes away your inspo die. Maybe they should have a separate resource for their flourishes?
Multiclass into warlock or sorc. for the shield spell. Problem solved.
On the other hand, they do have some powerful abilities, in their bonuses to damage and AC.
Furthermore, your magical secrets allows you to learn smite spells
Also, it's better than college of valour.
Circle of spores is godly if you build it as a melee druid. Sentinel and Polearm Mastery feats and anything in your range is in for a world of pain.
How did war wizard get on here but not Necromancer? And Cleric shouldn't be on here at all IMO.
One of the best things I ever found was a d10000 (yes, ten thousand) list for wild magic surges. It definitely feels like it was made for a previous edition, or at least made by someone very detail oriented (one roll turns half the caster's body into sodium and the other half into ice) but it still has some hilarious effects.
I showed it to a buddy of mine when he was wanting funny and random ideas for an item given to a warlock character by their patron, his fix for the obviously deadly rolls (a body made of sodium and ice would explode) was that they would happen but wouldn't be permanent. For example, the warlock would turn into half sodium and half ice, reacting violently and exploding, and then reappear in his previously occupied space virtually unharmed, if not a little confused.
so it seems like all of the sword coast options need to be tweaked.
Pretty much
Totem Warrior barbarian is probably the best of the bunch.
@@johnreese5739 I agree I Also think expanding on that idea would be good maybe idk a few different versions with different animals based on local fona. So like an aquatic one that has a tanky sea turtle a high damage shark and idk a grappling one based on octopus.
I think that thief rogue is way worse than the assassin. Spore Druid and War Wizards, while not the best of the druids/wizards, are still quite useful and if used correctly can be very powerful. I'd say there are worse subclasses, such as the arcane cleric, the storm barbarian, the arcane archer, the drunken master or any of the PHB rangers. But, since that's subjective, good video ^^
we desperatly need a player's handbook 2.0
Well my friend, it’s coming soon
My friend (He's a DM) said that a Beastmaster Ranger is underpowered for a few reasons, but mostly one specific reason.
First, from what I have seen the ranger in general isn't a super powerful combat class. It feels like somewhere in the middle between Druid and Rouge, but without the full benefits of either. Add in a strong companion like a bear and you have something that is meant to be a "Jack of all stats, master of none" but fails to excel or even be good at strength, magic or stealth.
Also, as my friend the DM says, the companion isn't strong later on and can't get stronger. A party at very low levels (1-3 or so) benefits as, a bear for example, will probably have all around decent stats and may have more HP than everyone. It effectively acts as another, slightly stronger, party member. However once you get past level 3 even a bear starts getting outpaced, and there isn't a way to increase their stats. That's what my friend says, as a DM.
I think, and told him, that a one-shot at level 3-6 could benefit from having a companion like that to split the damage across more targets. Also note they increased Trinket's stats in Critical Role to keep him from being a burden... and it really didn't help as much as it could.
Yeah, basically Matt ended up giving them a pokeball to keep Trinket safe and remove the constant logistical problems that bringing him along was causing.
I was expecting #1 to be "Any druid circle other than Moon"
Circle of the sheperd isn't that bad though
Someone hasn't read the other circles properly.
There was a girl in my D&D club in college who played a Beastmaster but refused to ever use the pet because she didn't want it to die. So she was literally just a subclassless ranger with a pet only used as a bodyguard if enemies were in melee range. It always tilted me when I would play with her
With the exception of the Infiltration Expertise, I think the Assassin Rogue definitely is a strong sub-class, it's just that it's made to be played a VERY specific way. It focuses more on stealth and surprise than most of the other sub-classes during combat, and out of combat it wants you to study and prepare for a kill like an expert assassin. The Imposter trait for example, imagine you are trying to assassinate a wealthy scholar. Disguise yourself with Infiltration Expertise and pretend to be an aspiring student that has idolized the scholar. Beg him to allow you to shadow him for a day, seeing his day-to-day life. During this time, you get the 3 hours needed for Imposter, and then you can disguise yourself as him, speak, act and write identically to him, and you can then walk around as him, getting into wherever you need, such as his personal room, or you could then commit a violent crime as him and escape, setting him up, there's limitless possibilities but point is, you really have to think and play like an assassin.
I think Infiltration Expertise shouldn't be tied to a solid 7 day time limit, and instead it takes however long the player's make it take for that player to go and buy clothes, false documents, establish a history and come up with affiliations(these 2 can be done in real time, just whenever the player can come up with these, or they can improvise if it comes up).
The issue is the mechanics and how that interacts with most games, narratively it works fine, but in most campaigns you are not going to have the time to use it.
@@killcat1971 Yeah I definitely agree, thats what I'm trying to say, it's strong but only if it can be played that very specific way, which most campaigns don't want to spend several in-game days setting up an assassination plot for one character to execute on.
Loved the video!
About the Undying Patron, I think that after Undead Patron appeared, that first subclass was f*cked... But because it's trying to go in two directions. Undead patron warlocks go full on the undead spooky thing, and it's cool, but the Undying ones try to be about living for a long time, longevity and regeneration... But also playing with the undead stuff (and having too many undead examples for patrons). If they were to fix Undying Warlocks, they should, first of all, change its name to something more distinctive, like "Immortal" or "Eternal", and then go full speed with that. Zombie stuff is cool and all, but if Undead covers it, then try doing something about that *undying* concept, and have more abilities related to regeneration, healing and stuff. Not leaning to much in copying the cleric, because then you would be as a Celestial warlock, but I don't know, maybe playing with magical potions, doing rituals, taking an aspect of half-orcs clinge to life when they get 0 hit points... I dunno, something that makes Undying Warlocks feel more unique than a necromancer who likes staying alive more than zombies
For the Wild Magic sorcerer I asked about building a homebrew feat in my campaign using guidelines that appear in other feats of:
+1 in a stat
2 lines of text.
What I presented was:
+1 Charisma
When you roll for wild magic surge, you surge from the numbers 1 to 1+ your charisma modifier.
You gain additional sorcery points equal to half your charisma modifier rounded up.
It made a fun campaign where Wild Magic still had a low chance of going off but it showed the stronger i as a player got the more likely something could go wrong.
I enjoyed rolling more than just a crit fail on an extra die for wild magic surge.
PS
That campaign ended with me using two bags of holding to banish myself and a kraken away from the rest of the party then casting banishment on myself to return myself to my native plane. Really fun.
The other thing that tended to happen more than not was my DM having me roll for Wild Magic when I was twin casting. The idea you’re now using your magic to modify how normal spell casting goes makes it more likely that something goes wrong.
Honestly, I play rogues quite a bit. I do like the Inquisitive one a lot. Currently, I’m actually playing an Assassin Rogue. It’s a lvl 7 wood elf assassin rogue with (so far) 1 lvl in fighter (archery fighting style). He uses a longbow. I do like it a lot. Recently almost oneshotted a Mummylord with him. That was really fun!
And if I can (eventually) combine that with a lvl 3 fighter, I could choose champion to get also crits on 19s or go down the Arcane Archer path (which in and of itself isn’t the best subclass on its own if you ask me. But could work fairly well with an assassin rogue).
Would I play a straightforward assassin (instead of multiclassing)? Probably not, but what I like about the assassin rogue, it gets a lot of its nice features at lower lvls. Which makes them quite nice to multiclass with.
What is your favorite character in dnd that you have played?
Take 7 in-game days, or my changeling charlatan mastermind with actor and linguist can take 5 minutes
Why build character solely for infiltration when any mage can just cast dominate person to guard and ask the guard to deliver mcguffin to the party
Hi Ted, Love the video. Just curious would you ever consider doing build videos for new players or inexperienced players, not necessarily pop culture builds but perhaps generalised builds like the dark knight, magic-slinger etc
thanks again
Not specific characters but just general concepts?
@@NerdImmersion Hey Ted. I'd second that a "builds you think would be fun" series could be cool. Another commenter pointed out that you consider classes from more of a designer's perspective, rather than a pure optimizer. I think that inclination to consider how features synergize and how a build "feels" to play, regardless of potency, would make your build videos end up being a little different from others on the interwebs.
@@NerdImmersion yeah exactly, even though pop culture builds are mostly role play, looking at mechanics and builds synergies must be useful
Assassin makes the Actor Feat look like a Godsend. What's the point of having several guises if you cant pretend to be someone else!? Why not study 7 days to walk the walk and talk the talk of an established person? that makes more sense than it taking a week to make up a person. and the gold cost is dumb. I mean damn you get advantage on both deception AND performance in the Actor feat. What the hell WotC?
Wild Magic is my favorite subclass by a long shot, i'm a big fun of random stuff admittedly, but i think that once you play lots of characters you start to see the same stuff happen very often, wild magic solves that for you, it's unpredictable. Of course you can't just slap it on every campaign because it's extremely DM dependent and you have to come up with some cool solution to how many times you can actually see a surge happen (for example a % based on the level of the spell used).
It's obviously not a competitive sublclass, because it's the only one that can be negative for you, and i think Bend Luck and Spell Bombardment could very well be buffed up a little bit, but the main problem, i think, is that it's confusing for people to actually understand when the surges happen. The roll of 1 on the d20 is not only dumb per se, but in game is actually never occurring, because you will have surges using constantly Tides of chaos, and not waiting for a 5% to happen, and this throws some people off.
Anyway, in my games as a DM, i make a surge happen after every spell, if Tides of Chaos is used, and it doesn't slow the game down more than any other class using spells and reading effects or a fighter using action surge and make multiple attacks.
Oh crap, I can't cast spells this turn. Damn, now I can't recast the Wall of Force I would have lost concentration on had I not had +4 on saving throws. Oh darn, I also get a free Scorching Ray with this? Man, this subclass is SHIT!
Circle of Spores Druid is actually really good. It’s a highly survivable Druid, especially at higher levels.
Plus it opens you up to non concentration spells.
I played a war wizard for my first time playing a full caster, and I gotta say it was fun af. With bracers of defense and mage armor you can easily get up to 18 AC if you don't mind putting some extra points into dex, 20 if you're concentrating on a spell and 25 with shield. Throw blur on there and you ain't getting hit 😂
Get 20 dex, take a rapier.. you're concentrating in blur.. so.. oh.. and BB or GFB if you used your arcane deflection.
@@Fr4nZeR I didn't worry too much about having a melee weapon, but with 25 AC from shield I didn't give two shits about opportunity attacks 😂 just run away if they get too close and cast fireball 😂
Beast Master Ranger has one use: You choose a creature that has a really low CR. Druid Wildshape means you can turn into that thing. Now, at level 20, you can transform yourself into a thing with about 100 hp.
That... Is not how any of this works.
Yeah as much as I like assassin rogue, I dont have any use for the fake identity ability, and rarely my dms ever utilize surprise. A few of these I still like purely for the flavor of them, but I understand why they arent as strong mechanically.
The only people that defend the Trickery Domain are those who either haven't played it, or don't follow the rules as written. It's not a case of it being underpowered, it is a case of it being badly designed. The subclass simply does not fill its designed niche, that is to say, Trickery Clerics aren't tricky.
No Barbarian Berserker? Lol
I've always run Wild Magic Surges to trigger whenever the sorcerer uses their last spell slot of any level
No bards or paladins on the list.... interesting...
This seems less "top 10 worse" and more "top 10 least DPS"
Very untrue or the Bard would be in majority of these.
I’ve had both an Assassin and a Spores Druid in my games (separate games). Both of them were unkillable.