Class Tier list for D&D 5e Optimization!
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- Опубліковано 14 гру 2023
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I keep getting comments about fighter dips for casters. The thing is, it's not as good as it use to be, it's something you would do back in the Xanathar days. Now we have peace cleric dips, artificer dips and Divine soul dips. These dips are just stronger than having 1 or 2 levels in fighter.
Speaking of, did you consider the Artificer dip for Wizards when ranking Artificer? CON save proficiency, armor and shield proficiency, Cure Wounds, Guidance, etc., without slowing spell slot progression? Always seemed worth it for me.
Your take on Druids baffles me TBH. Their armor restriction alone should hold them to A tier.
@@HANGMANProjectThe armor restriction doesn't have any mechanical restrictions, only roleplay, is a roleplaying game yes, but this is an optimizer tier list
@@morrisontucson1 sorry, but no, we're not talking about something in their description or the lore. "Druids will not wear armor made of metal" is literally listed with the armors in their proficiencies. Not only there but it's even included in the multi-classing rules. You can make a house rule to ignore it but that does not mean it isn't a mechanical restriction.
@@HANGMANProject There is a mechanical punishment for doing it? For example, in 3.5 if you as a druid wear metal armor you lost all your powers, in 5e there is nothing, only that sentence "A druid will not wear" is not the same as "a druid can not".
RAW you can
This tier list is wizard propaganda made by big arcane to sell more tomes.
It is crazy how people thought that Sorcerer was a weak class.Even though it is very limiting in 5e(except when you are playing the new subclasses),it still has the 2nd best spell list in the game CON save prof. and metamagic.With OneDnD it's going to be even better.It's nice to see this class finally respected!
I think it’s more about how after sorcery points, early dnd had Xanther’s which gave us a few options that helped but didn’t do enough like Tasha’s. When you have people that don’t get all the books you miss out on some of the hood gems. Also not all DM’s allow all subclasses and books. Something to consider
I been wanting to play aberrant mind sorcerer and just use silvery barb and other spells like gift of jab to just mess with npcs and provide major amount of support.
I always thought that the limited spells known were completely fine because of metamagic and Con saves 🤷
To each their own.
I don't think it has the 2nd best, like its missing some really massive spells that wizards get like wall of force. As for people ranking Sorc lower, if we didn't get clockwork in Tashas, I would have ranked it lower. Still though, Sorc was kinda hard to rank IMO. That and Paladin.
@@PackTactics I agree with Sorcerer being in A for the new subclasses,with the older ones i think it would rank between High and low B(also because of ita multiclass potential).The sorc spell list imo Is 2nd only to the wizard in terms of selection and how well they sinergize with metamagics,they are missing some important spells(especially summoning spells and some control spells even though they still have the majority of good spells in that niche ),but still I'd Say their list Is above average,surely Better than Cleric that Is good but a bit too narrow in what It can do(and subclasses tend to not fix this issue),same thing goes for druid,which imo still is very close in terms of a good list(still they do have broken conjure spells and very good control/damage spells like Spike growth and other ones you talked about already like Pass without trace).
Maybe in tabletop. But In CRPG's, sorc is one of most overrated class that has ever existed, despite the fact that it suck hard. It sucked in Icewind Dale 1-2, it sucked in NWN1-2, and in Kingmaker with Mythic Feats for wizards, sorc attained suck-ness singularity (because prepared caster gain high level spell slots from merging spell books with mythic path, while spontaneous casters only get the mythic spells), but it still probably the most overrated class despite that. And in BG3, which is made by 5e rules its even worse, because it seem like the only way to make sorc not suck is to steal metamagic feats (which historically has been a wizard's thing with bonus magic feats every 2-3 levels) and give them to sorc. Which made me despise this class even more.
I've said this a few times, the tier list goes Full Caster - Half Caster - Martial. Huge testiment to how powerful spell casting is.
Facts 📠
I was going to post a comment like this saying something very similar so now I don't have to.
Yeah...the transition from 2nd to 5th spell casting is kind of gross. Every weakness spell casters had was eliminated.
Does still depend on situations you encounter, which will depend on the Adventure and/or the DM. And then as many of the great multi classes are Martial and Caster combinations or based off the the martial focused subclasses of normally full caster type classes... Nothing is really that one sided, even if spell casting is very powerful. For instance if your particular dungeon happens to be a zone of silence or otherwise ill advised to make any noise in it virtually kills the spellcasters capabilities, for some casters will render them something close to useless till they change the spells they have prepared. If it happens to be a trap filled nightmare it might well be the time to be a Rouge or Ranger.
In an open field with no challenges beyond a heap of thick hitpoint pools to empty magic users tend to dominate, but as soon as you start having challenging situations and smart NPC that target the generally more glass cannon dangerous spell caster or use mobility to avoid being easy for them to target it becomes way more equal. If everyone plays Wizard the party almost certainly dies young - great as wizards are until you get to rather high levels anyway they really can't meet even simple challenges outside their normal wheelhouse.
As things should be
Time to make a rogue barbarian.
tbf, the rouge barbarian multiclass is super funny, You use daggers as your weapon, rekkless attack, rage, automatic sneak attack, and there are a couple of ways to boost thorwing weapon damage even more. with bonus action dash/disengage your mobility is actually pretty solid, you got consistent damage (as long as your daggers don't run out) and you have better survivability than regular barbarian due to fighting at range. It's very stupid and very funny. You can watch the Darrington Brigade oneshot by Critical Role if you want an example.
@@A.C_B. I have one too. The requirement for sneak attack is ranged or finesse weapon, so you can still use strength and reckless attack. It's especially good if you can get an attack of opportunity, and trigger a second sneak attack. One tactic is to go for Lightfoot Halfling, stealth behind another player as a bonus action, then a whip plus Sentinel. Readying attacks is the other route, but it's harder to set up.
You're also an insane grappler. Expertise + Advantage on Athletics checks! Go with Swashbuckler as your Rouge Subclass and you can land Sneak Attack on enemies you grapple. It's hilarious. It might not be a hard carry mechanically, but extremely fun.
Wierdly enough, that build is legit and is better than pure Rogue AND than pure Barbarian
Barb 6 Rogue 14 is a decent martial build.
@@feelingrizzly1515 I just had a character die and I'm having to step in at level 9 so for one of my maybes I've made a Path of the Giant Barbarian with Soulknife as the Rogue? I don't know if it's any good, but it looks fun.
7:24 yeah paladin is imo the most difficult to rank. Aura of protection is the best ability in the game (unless you count spell casting as a singular ability) and I would argue an optimized party without a paladin is significantly weaker than an optimized party that’s missing any of the other classes. Like if you don’t have a Druid you can potentially make up for that with either a ranger or cleric, and while I’d still rather have a Druid I wouldn’t say there an extreme gap between them. Similarly with wizard if you don’t have a wizard you can potentially make up for that with clockwork sorcerer (or to a lesser extent a lore bard) which while weaker than a wizard can still preform a similar role without an extreme amount lost. But if you don’t have a paladin in tier 2+ giving your key party members +5 to their saves (plus probably concentrating on bless for even better saves) your party can easily go down to an enemy using either a con or wis save (whichever is lower since it’s hard to protect both). But after your party has 1 paladin the benefit of another is significantly decreased, but I’d love to have multiple wizards or druids in a party.
Yes there is significant issue with making a tier list for a cooperative game where party dynamics and synergy play such a significant role. Wizard is easily the strongest class, but a party of 4 wizards definitely wouldn't be the strongest 4 character team, because of redundancy. Power contingent on how your party members work and how the campaign designs encounters can influence this heavily as well. Warlock is a great example of this.
Warlocks, if they get a couple short rests a day, sling more high level spells, and even more spell-points worth of spells in total (if you used the spell point rules to make a easier comparison, having casts only throw high level spells), at almost all levels of the game. Recognizing how powerful spells are, it's a wonder they're not considered the most powerful class for that reason alone, nevermind Eldritch Blast and the invocations and class abilities. But it's hinged on the fact that its spaced out. A warlock with 2 short rests a day, is at peak power for roughly half of encounters. But the peak amount of spells he can dump per such encounter is much lower than a normal full caster, who could dump 2/3rds or even all of their resources into the one encounter if they so choose, even if their total resource pool over the course of the day is lower than the Warlock. That flexibility is wildly powerful and very visible. If you had a few non-combat encounters which are aided by low level utility spells, a few mid/low combats, and then a BIG boss fight at the end of the day - a reasonable structure - Warlock is at odds. It will dominate the mid/low combats with high level spell dumps, but the Wizard who used low level spells earlier and let the Warlock burn his high level short rest slots comes in on the boss fight and drops more levels of spells than the warlock did in any other combat that day. And that's the important combat for the day because it's the one with the highest risk of TPK.
Similarly, while the visibility of the power of the Paladin is much lower than the Wizard, I think he is an obvious shoe-in to an optimized party. Paladin auras are an absolute power multiplier.
Something like a party of Wizard, Cleric or Druid, Sorc-hex-adin (Oath of Watchers), Gloomstalker/Assassin Rogue/Fighter would be heavily optimized, even though we think of Ranger, Rogue, and Fighter as weak and 'water downed' the sorcerer with lower tier casters. Someone has to output the damage (a martial, typically, whose damage output can be amped by things like Bless). Similarly, someone should be providing comprehensive party buffs (Paladin).
Overall I think this is a very well thought out tier list. The only changes I would make would be defining full vs. half casters more aggressively, similarly to how he segmented off non-casters, by moving Cleric to S and Bard and maybe Warlock to A. Not having Twilight Cleric in S tier seems very wrong to me. Armored casting at level 1, initiative shenanigans, banger spells on each level of cleric list, non-spell flight, and enough defense and anti-control to make the Paladin blush...
I got back into 5e builds just a couple days ago an this video is exactly what I was curious about. Thank you for all the work!
Clockwork Soul Sorcerers can get a hold of Planar binding, glyph of warding, and magic circle. All you need is a scroll of summon greater demon and now you can also bind celestials and fiends.
They can’t make spell glyphs with Glyph of Warding RAW because the spells must be prepared, not known
Strictly worded yes, though as a DM, I would consider a learned spell as always being prepared for the purposes of certain interactions where it makes sense. I prefer to give players agency unless something is truly broken or against the "spirit" of the rules.
@@EnternodeCS it's good they brought that up. I didn't know. Lots of little legalese you have to pay attention to. After researching this, I think this was simple oversight. They gave the Bard the spell so why give a spell to a spontaneous caster like the Bard who can't even utilize it fully? If you know the spell, as a Sorcerer, it is "prepared" if we use commonsense, but there is this very real distinction WOTC makes between prepared and known. It makes sense but they didn't think how that would affect spontaneous casters when you have niche intersecting rules. I can't imagine any DM actually not allowing this unless they wanted to be very strict RAW. I love RAW and will defend it 99% of the time but sometimes it is lacking.
Even if you can't use Glyph of Warding (you can still make explosive runes) to store spells, it's OK. You just upcast magic circle to 4th or so level, use a scroll of Planar Ally, and then trap it.
The glyphs are useful for grabbing teleporting targets of Planar binding because you can set up a Private Sanctum spell to go off around the magic circle right after summoning the target. You just have to waste a round casting Private Sanctum around that Balor you just trapped in your upcasted magic circle. Then you can just go back to binding it with a 7th level slot for 30 days of Balor servitude. And then your DM smacks you and says, "no, you can have this CR at these certain levels. Because don't break my game. Talk to me about Binding a Balor when you're 20th level and I'm throwing Demigods at you."
I'd always talk with the GM about balancing Planar Binding because RAW, you can really break the game.
You need to have the spell on your class' spell list to cast it from a scroll. If you meant that your Warlock or Wizard casts it, you don’t need a scroll.
I've been saying Warlock is a lot better than people realize and people sleep on them. I don't usually optimize. Straight class warlock is my favorite class to play. Undead Warlock starting the day giving everyone death Ward and taking short rests in bags of holding was great! Summoning Phantom Steeds for the party and just having a lot of high level control and potent summons, Warlocks go hard.
Honestly not even surprised that the d-gap separates martial and casters
I've been saying the phrase "D&D loves all their classes equally, they just love some more equally than others" for years.
My group calls the Shepherd Druid the "Disney Princess class".
I recently played a short campaign (about a dozen sessions) with a Moon Druid, Battlemaster Fighter, Shadow Monk/Swashbuckler Rogue (me), Hexblade Warlock, and Fiend Warlock. Between our Wildshapes, Superiority dice, Ki points, and Pact Magic spell slots, I've never seen a party that took so many Short Rests before or since.
Houserule. Homebrew. If the players and the Dm want to change something, they can change it.
Personally, i'm done with using the base classes. I always homebrew and craft changes. Too much paying classe-less RPG like shadowrun.
@@vumerion5481 As one of our house rules in my home games we give the Fighter, Monk, Ranger, and Rogue the Champion, Open Hand, Beastmaster (using 3.5's animal companion rules), and Thief subclasses as part of their base classes. It still doesn't nearly bridge the gap between martials and spellcasters, but it makes those 4 classes feel less empty and like they have abilities that they were supposed to have in the first place.
@@arcticbanana66 In my game i run low fantasy settings, so i nerf mages : spells are still disgustingly overpowered, but requires a lot of time, are hard to launch during combat... (lots of rituals). I also harshly limit the number of spell slots.
Oh yeah, and i suppress cantrips. If magic can be cast at will, it destroy its only weaknesses in previous editions.
I make all cantrips LVL1 spells, that give you during 10 minutes several uses of the original cantrip.
>Then, playing a spellcaster is fun because it's OP, BUT you have enormous weaknesses and need companions.
Wizard has an insane synergy with itself, by being able to scribe spells from one another. DMs really force players to put the pedal to the medal constantly to try and hinder their downtime as you can get a ludicrous amount of intel or resources with just a single day of being able to use your spells freely.
I also have a hot take: A big complaint I hear a lot is how they don't want martials to be basically casters, but... why not? If flavor is free, it is only liberating to have classes based around their function and playstyle and accepting of whatever flavor you like.
I would be really interested in seeing how your tier list changes at different tiers of play. Would it look the same if the classes capped out at level 5, 10 or 15 instead of 20? As I'm sure you know most campaign's and adventures never reach the higher power levels, so I'd really like to know what your thoughts on each class is at lower tiers of play.
I don't think it would change that much as long as you reach about lv11, with emphasis on tier 2. For tier 1 in particular, everything is just kinda unbalanced, maybe clerics and martials are higher and paladins are lower?
@druidofnosleep1513 Paladins might become higher at t1, honestly. While they lose out on some of the auras, you still can get stupid high armor, and enemies hardly target saves at low levels. Melee actually comes semi viable at these levels. The biggest problem with melee at high tier is a) the damage doesn't scale nearly fast enough, and b) armor becomes less important and doesn't scale at all without magic items.
@@darmorel549 Do they? The problem is that paladin kinda has pretty bad damage if you actually have enough encounters that they can't just spam smites.
It would be interesting, especially since ~63% of games are Tier 1. I wonder if you biased toward Tier 1 how this would look, as that is where most of the player base is interacting with the game.
Do you have a statistic or is that just a number you pulled? Also how do you account for people who aren't using modules?@@MrAdjectiveAcademy
I went into this video full-well knowing it was going to be casters towards the top and martials towards the bottom. It's a kobold video, after all. However, I was slightly biting my nails to see where he'd put Paladin, the martial with spells!
Don't get me wrong, I watched the video fully and dropped a like. I think you've got great insight into caster classes in general.
I would love to see a video on homebrew ways to improve all martial classes (even melee fighters and monks) within the confines of D&D 5e. Might I suggest for ranged Fighters including multiple types of arrows that can be purchased? I think BG3 did a great job at showing this with ice arrows, explosion arrows, teleportation arrows, and multi-hit arrows. Another suggestion to consider is giving class-specific magical weapons at an early stage (See: Holy Avenger, but an Uncommon version and for Barbarians).
Tbf Paladin as being considered by this video is probably not played as a martial at all. It likely uses eldritch blast as its main attack and goes into sorcerer at higher levels.
I don't get it. He shoulda put Rogues as the best class in the game. They're clearly superior to everything else in D&D, including the DM.
Reasons:
1: They're resourceless.
2: Edgy.
3: Ummmm.... they look good in studded leather pants?
[Only typing this, because you just know that _someone_ will. At least in my case, I'm joking. XD]
@Shadescape12 I believe this list is meant to consider the classes without multiclassing. Plus he says paladin has very good melee damage. Which really wouldn't make sense if what you were saying is true.
@@Vance415 ...Pack Tactics himself stated in the video that, since the tier list involves high optimization, it's also including multiclassing potential. As such, Hexadin's fully on the table.
@@Shadescape12 Absolutely, because the powerful feature of Paladins is the Auras (Protection and Watchers) and they are best served on the casters to help maintain Concentration and defend against CC and Dex saves. So, as melee you lose out on capitalising on your best feature.
Paladin damage is not amazing unless looking at a particularly advantageous nova scenario. It is also melee, which is the worse place in any combat to be, by far - Paladins are the class most likely to take damage in the game since the other melee-only class (Barb) at least has Rage. Add on ranged damage to the class, especially which can push back enemies, and you now go from a major weakness to a major strength.
The Spell List is pretty awful too, with the Level 1 Bless spell being in contention for the best spell they have. Add on an actual Spell List to the class and it bumps it up massively.
Rogue rankings vary throughout the community, because Rogue strengths are context dependent.
Of course they are weak at tables where 8 deadly combat encounters per day without any other types is the standard mode of play, but that’s not representative of how most of the DnD community runs their games.
Rogues mechanics shine in games where all 3 pillars of play are impactful, not environments that only meaningfully reward combat solutions to challenges.
The real issue with rogue design is that it is self centered, not that it is weak.
Rogues have one of the higher floors - its very easy to sneak attack each round, and sneak attack is going to be more damage than a sword and board fighter.
They specifically fall down in optimisation, because its very hard to go substantially above that, unlike other classes, which can easily be many times better when fully optimised.
The issue is that its really hard to balance skills in dnd. WotC pretty much made up skills and then gave the most vague explanation of what they should be used for.
Most DMs are smart enough to not let the bad skill design hamper campaigns so rogues are kinda obsolete unless the DM has a really good system that rewards overshooting ability checks.
Even then most "smart" solutions to problems will involve magic because WotC really loves casters and the community is oddly obsessed with realism in regards to everything that isnt exactly a spell.
Rogues are also kinda just bards without spells, or bards are casters that get the rogue class as a freebie.
Overall the class is kinda a problem child due to WotCs mishandling of the game. Rogues gotta fight for their usefulness which can get annoying and into rules lawyering territory simply because skills are vague.
@@druidofnosleep1513 Yeah, I think I've heard the argument that Rogues are simpler than Fighters as a class to introduce newbies, and I kinda agree. They focus a lot on the basic concepts of the game like skill checks and attacking, but usually those basic concepts aren't optimal compared to spells.
@@druidofnosleep1513 mostly true, but Rogues don’t fall behind in optimization broadly. They specifically fall behind in optimization at tables that only meaningfully reward combat encounters which is a niche environment that neglects 2/3 of the pillars of play.
When optimizing for any other type of adventure structure where skill checks have meaningful impact, Rogues perform significantly better than every other class (except glamour bards for social encounters).
@@hodgepodgesyntaxia2112 You're living in a land of pure theory. And you didn't even theorize longer than "rogues have a feature called expertise, so they must be good in social and exploration games". In actuality, a Ranger, Knowledge Cleric, Artificer or Bard is all going to at least contest the Rogue in the areas where the Rogue is supposed to shine, according to you. Bard especially is a better skill monkey than Rogue. Ranger gets one less expertise, but solves exploration far better. Anyone can get proficiency in Thieve's Tools and Guidance is more than enough to ensure success in critical moments. The only Rogue that is not worse than a wizard for scouting is Arcane Trickster, because Arcane Trickster can also get Find Familiar - which is far better than sending the Rogue to scout. And even then, Warlock with Pact of the Chain is much better than the AT/Wizard Owl.
In short, you make some statements about Rogue being good in non-combat scenarios. But you fail to see how actual good characters are both better in combat AND at least as good in these other pillars of play.
Soulknife Rogue is one of the better classes in one single situation - you are in a level 3 one-shot. That's before fighter get their second feat, so you outdamage them quite substantially. Sleep is no longer good, so most casters doesn't have access to a fight winning spell every encounter - most will cast Faerie Fire, which is a huge buff to their Rogue teammate. Barbarians doesn't have enough rages. But I still think Rogue is no better than C-tier at their very best.
I would really like to see multi-class value, multi-base value, and pure-value as separate tiers possibly, it all being shoved together feels… jumbled, or, even better, do each subclass separately from base class
For the most part I cannot argue with this ranking. I'm not quite sure about how the ranking takes multi-classes into consideration ( unless it requires you to mostly be in one class or the other and if it requires a high level campaign ). I'm also just happy that Artificer isn't in D-tier. :D
I think artificer gets a bad rep because it requires ingenuity and foresight. Not everything is just damage but now does artillerist work so well in early levels.
@@peanutbuttern Artillerist only somewhat works because the temp HP makes for decent damage reduction and they don't have as dismal consistent DPR as full casters.
I think that putting artificers high because of the fear flute strat and web is silly; sure, it's "peak" artificer, but in order to get there you need to play all artificers as flute-playing web-slingers. Mentioning SSI is also silly, because it is an insane power-bump, but at 10th level (beyond what many players reach, and even more silly to consider for optimization with multiclassing), and it only reinforces the same weird niche: congrats, you now have 8 or 10 castings of web for free!
It really doesn't require those more than any other caster unless your DM is letting you mad scientist homebrew items, which wouldn't be taken into account here.@@peanutbuttern
This video is about optimization, so yeah, all artificers are considered web slinging flute players. Any class can be weak if not played well, so optimal strategy is assumed in discussions like this. @@godminnette2
@@peanutbutternmy man… thats the point of optimization, dealing a lot of damage, taking a lot of damage or taking care of enemies. Wich artificers cant do at all. I’ve played with multiple artificers in min/max tier 4 tables and theyre ass most of the time compared to the rest of the party. Roleplay wise well thats another story that shouldnt be part of an optimization discussion
They're addressing the barbarian's and monk's survivability, as well as their resource troubles. Plus the recent playtest is just giving both of them more to do in the first place, with monks getting to perform bonus actions without using ki and boosting those actions wjth ki. And Barbs getting some nonsense with the brutal strike feature
kobold can you do deep dive on each class and it’s best subclasses and how to optimise them?
Eventually.
I read this as gator.
You could probably just read the Flagship build series on Tabletop Builds as those are likely the builds that would be covered.
Yeah, I'd have to agree with you. More and more I find Rogue just an unfulfilling class to play - because I can do pretty much anything a Rogue can do as a Bard or Ranger or just take a few feats as a Fighter and bam - better Rogue.
I am surprised to see Monk outrank Fighter but given the Gunk build exists I'd agree. I still think I'd rather play a Battlemaster Fighter but that's not about optimization that's about comfort (I love Monks in general by the way).
I'm surprised to see Artificers just above that D line. I think I have the same problems with them that I do Rogues - sorta - or maybe it's just that if you take a Rogue chassis, make it a half caster, then make the emphasis on tools and magic items instead of skills and sneak attack you still end up better than a Rogue because half-caster.
Artificers are one of the harder classes to build, and a bit like monk, a bad artificer can feel almost useless, but there are a ton of cool tricks you can do with infusions.
Artificers and rogues aren't similar at all except "skills" Every class in the game can do skill checks, like Kobold said, its a meme to be a "skill monkey" where the most powerful thing you do is succeed on skill checks. Artificers are support/damage/control where the rogue is literally just weak dmg.
@@druidofnosleep1513 This. Building an effective Artificer requires very specific subclass, spells and infusions. If the two best Artificer Spells, Infusions, and Subclass options were removed, I wouldn't argue against Artificer falling to D.
Whereas you could remove the two best Wizard Spells for each level, and Wizard will still be the best class option.
You earned my subscription long ago. The video next week sounds like one I’ve been waiting for.
algo boost
hope you get 100k before christmas, youve more than earned it. i love your content, been crawling around in dnd optimization circles for a while, and i really appreciate that you can be clear and concise with your beliefs while not putting anyone down for how they play the game, or implying they play wrong or some such nonsense. you’re a really wholesome presence, but knowledgeable and intelligent, and you make your points quite concisely. your scripting is great. super looking forward to next video, how to dm for optimizers is a subject i think im pretty well-versed in - but you oftentimes challenge my optimization ideas
Thank you very much! I don't really think the DM video will surprise you, not going to lie lol.
Cuck
I love this! You brought up so many perspectives I’ve never really heard before, and I completely agree with what you said about not agreeing about everything. I don’t agree with all the rankings, but that’s the fun of d&d! All of our different experiences of the game lead to vastly different outlooks, and I think that’s neat 😁
I sometimes see ur videos but I never actually subscribed. The Christmas present thing got me. I'm in.
Awesome! Thank you very much! Merry Christmas!
I hope you hit 100k, you absolutly deserve it.
We made a Homebrew setting with our group and we found that what made the spellcasting really powerful is not the spell but caster ability to full regen them after a long rest. That and the lack of crafting system. A full martial with appropriate magic items is fun but DM dependant, 5e only make that matter in tiers 1 play
I'm gonna need kobold master class
I love how you highlighted the gap between casters and noncasters. I played a martial in a game where everyone else was a full caster. Eventually, my character died and I rolled up a wizard because I felt like a boy among gods.
I personally put Rogue above Barbarian, pretty much purely because of its ability to stay out of melee, where you can often be an active hindrance to the party's casters due to needing to worry about friendly fire and the resource drain of taking more damage.
I also personally put Paladin above Ranger, but that's very much open to debate. And I think Cleric can be bumped up a rank or two. Other than that, yeah, this entire video is spitting facts.
I prefer to use a 3.5 style tier list where sublassless Wizard, Druid, and Cleric are Tier 1, Sorcerer, Bard, and Warlock (and Mystic) are Tier 2, Paladin, Ranger, and Artificer are Tier 3, there are no Tier 4s, and the Martials are all Tier 5 or even arguably Tier 6. Most classes have sublasses and 1-2 level dips that can bump them up a tier though, like Chronurgy Wizard and Moon Cleric (and Mystic) having ways to break the concentration mechanic to reach Tier 0, Clockwork Soul and Aberrant Mind Sorcerers, Genie Warlocks, and Eloquence and Valor Bards reaching Tier 1, Flagship Paladins and Rangers reaching Tier 2, and Fighters (Echo, Eldritch, and Rune Knight), Shadow Monks, and arguably Arcane Trickster Rogues being able to reach low Tier 4.
I'm just curious why Fighter got put in E tier. Isn't Action Surge a great component for multiclassing nova builds? Or is the ranking based on builds that are majority fighter levels?
It's a build with mostly Fighters LVL and Action surge is not that well regarded on Casters as you slow your Spell progression. It's a good dip for Ranger but not optimal for all classes above D
It's based on builds and heavy multiclassing. I said that in the video. Like flagship Ranger also has Action surge because it has 3 levels in Fighter.
The class guide focuses on how many levels and the power level you get for those levels. I think warlock has some dead levels and multiclassing after 9th level is something people love because you have 5th level slots and can still get great features from other charisma casters.
@@PackTactics This is why I don't get this tier list. Lots of builds dip fighter for action surge, weapon and armor proficiecies, and Con saving throws for casters. If they are so useful in builds why are they so far down an optimization tier list?
@stickjohnny not lots. I think that of the flagships, Ranger is the only one that dips fighter. Taking 2 levels off of your build with no spell progression just for an ability that works once per short rest isn't very powerful. Over a long and difficult adventuring day it'll likely be very useful but not very often. Ranger only gets it incidentally because it actually wants battlemaster 3. Grabbing it on a caster delays your spell and slot progression so that you can spend a limited resource (action surge) to spend more limited resources (spell slots) of which you have fewer because you delayed your progression by 2 levels, and all for marginal gain because generally concentration spells are the most powerful and you can only have one up at a time.
GL on 100k before the end of the year!
Nice review and very informative! I like how you increased the level of resolution with 7 potential categories, F up through S, including the "power gap" at "D".
Look man no hate or shade we just have VASTLY different opinions about optimization in this game but i absolutely respect your opinion and also merry early Christmas ( just subbed to help you reach 100k)
This video pretty much points ouyt most of the opinions my dnd group has on the classes too. But it's funny, we use a ton of homebrew to fix issues and so on. It honestly gotten to a point, especially with how much easier it seemingly is to make homebrew for martials over casters, that the martials are stronger than casters now.
I supposed I have some questions on criteria here, you mention multiclassing was considered, but how? (dip viability? primarily the class being covered?)
And the big one for me, what tier of play is this based on, Tier 1,2 and Tier 3,4 have radically different tier lists imo, are they being averaged?
Barbarian is a big one for this, at tier 1 play they are absolute monsters, but fall off hard until they really suck at tier 4 play as they don't really have DPR scaling which they desperately need.
Wizards have the reverse, they are kinda rough in T1 play, about average in T2-3, then really strong in T4.
Also... THANK YOU for not putting monk at the bottom I thought I was going crazy being the only one that puts monks and fighters at the same powerlevel if you build them correctly.
Although, I am very confused by the 'Skill monkey is a meme' thing, do we (my group) just use way more checks than other people do? Reliable talent with min 20s is absurdly strong (perception, stealth, knowledge checks for monsters, charisma etc), as is evasion. They also have one of them most abusable subclasses ever made being the psionic rogue.
Again, that might just be a group thing, but skill checks really matter if the DM is including them. Yes spells can accomplish a lot of this, but that's resource burning and you need that spell prepared at the time also a lot of them don't quite work if the DM doesn't just let you charm someone without anyone noticing the obvious spell.
Resourceless is also a table dependant thing, not needing any resting can be very important depending on the book you are playing through or game you are in.
They're build based like Flagship Ranger is a multiclass mess. (Ranger 5/Cleric 1/Fighter 4/Warlock 5/ Rogue 4/Sorcerer 1) Gunk is also a multiclass mess. Same with the other Martials too to some degree. As for tiers, this is based on all tiers. It doesn't dramatically change much on different tiers like a wizard spamming sleep and web is still just better than everyone else. Maybe a Rogue at level 3 pulls slightly ahead for example, same with a shadow monk because of early PWT but that's really about it.
@@PackTactics I would heavily debate the tiers don't matter argument, If we take Curse of Strahd for example, Wizards really struggle with the encounters early on in that book, About half of death house is deadly for a wizard, since they have low HP and AC and can't afford to just spam shield.
Then there's bone grinder where both sleep, web and pretty much all of their damage option are useless, whereas the hags 2-3 shot them.
Barbarians for example have incredibly high DPR and defenses in Tier 1 play, arguably higher than anyone else until 3rd level spells
A cleric or druid for example don't have this problem, since they can have upwards of 18 AC at level 1, and still have access to many similar value boosting options at low levels, without being restricted by needing to spent some of their 2-7 spell slots on defending themselves.
Basically, I don't think lacking armour prof and having lower hp than everyone else can just be disregarded at tier 1 and even 2 play (con saves are also really common in tier 1-2 play and often deal crazy damage, the catoblepass 1 shotting a wizard from full if they get within 30 feat comes to mind)
@@PackTactics wait, wouldn't that make the build count as a Ranger, Fighter, Warlock and Rogue build at bear minimum? So then those Ranger Fighter and Rogue would be at the same tier.
@@JottoHearthStone I didn't say tiers didn't matter anywhere. You didn't read what I said.
@@PackTactics I exaggerated what you said I'll admit, "It doesn't dramatically change much on different tiers"
What about the mystic? Where does it rink?
...Of course Pack Tactics would think the _bagpipes_ are underrated. ;3
I love the simplicity and straightforwardness of this video. Awesome job!
Can you do this for BG3?
That's actually harder because I need to look at every magic item in the game. It is very different like Monk is ranked higher.
In general Fighter is a lot higher, and most of the best spells are nerfed or removed (druid doesn't get their signature spell, you can reliably get surprise without PWT, wizard control spells are nerfed a lot, no synaptic static) and you can get your damage output high enough that your martials are better CC than mages due to them inflicting the extremely debilitating "dead" status effect and just blitzing through enemies before they get to take a turn. Fighter is still dramatically better than Barbarian because Fighter is getting 2-3x as many attacks and rogue still sucks. Monk is very strong too. Special arrows (slaying, many targets) are absurdly strong, like "I shot a boss for 200 damage in a single hit" strong. Late game mages can get 100% success rate on their CC spells due to DC stacking but it always felt simpler to me to just do more damage. Even though a mage can throw out 3 chain lightnings in a single turn martials still end up doing more damage.
Id like to see your tierlist on the 5.5e classes, and show the 2 charts side by side so we can see who got the best buffs and changed the order.
I'd love a series detailing how you would charge/improve each class below D tier for optimization
Its just damage boost and more options like an AOE attack.
Yeah I agree with pretty much everything, but I think I’d have bard at the bottom of A. Plenty of strong subclasses, does the skill thing much better than any other class, a good enough spell list that can be supplemented with magical secrets, and some decent multiclass build options. Maybe I just have a slightly higher opinion on their spell list. Either way, I’m just nitpicking at this point.
This is on point. Bard has so much versatility, and Bardic Inspiration is huge for making saves at higher levels.
love the video, hope you earn those last 1000 subs!
Thank you very much!
D tier showing the gap between Martials and those with Spell Slots lol.
Also I was surprised that Druid was above Cleric...until you mentioned the summons and Shepherd subclass that is.
Hearing that monks are the best martial just made my little kobold monk Zorok happy😂 great video though, subbed right after seeing it!
Very very very good video!
Even if I consider Paladin & Bard among the best classes of the game, Monk and Rogue are the worst, and I'm really happy to see some love for my beloved Ranger 🥰
PS: I'm playing a GS 5 right now and I need to choose the class at 6 level. Big indecision between 1 lv of Twilight or 1 lv of War, kinda building something similar to flagship Ranger
Ranger is like half of a druid + 85% of a fighter. Getting the concentration heavy druid list on a character that can go brrr with a handcrossbow is great.
Xbe Ss and conjure animals when your not doing pwt surprise is really strong
Bro, talk about Glamour Bard. Command as a bonus action is cool
Glamour Bard is pretty good! I love it, I feel like it's a little underrated. But Lore and Eloquence is so good that you forget Glamour exists.
@@PackTactics true
The real strong point of glamour bard is mantle of inspiration. Giving large amount of temp hp and free movement as a bonus action is an insanely powerful ability.
@@PackTactics The bard that is actually underrated is the Valor Bard. Getting medium armor+shield for free is huge. Makes you generally one level ahead in gaining spell levels than other casters. It falls off since it doesnt' have any features after level 3, but seeing that most campaigns doesn't last much longer than ~10, I think it is still very good. In high level play, it is obviously much worse than just grabbing moderately armored on a Lore/Eloquence.
But man, being at level 4 with Res(con), 18 cha (fey touched), and half-plate+shield as a full caster is honestly sick. Or you can do funky stuff, like getting Shield from Githzerai. Solving all of the fullcaster problems as a single class - so no loss in progression at all.
Congrats on 100,000 subscriptions earned!
The idea of the normal encounter day is pretty alien to me. I don’t know if we’re playing it wrong at my table, but usually we have either 1 or 2 large encounter/s in a day that manages to always at least get someone close to rolling death saving throws, or actually downing someone. We’ve had SEVERAL deaths.
Almost never do we get to short rest in a dungeon. Actually, both my different DM:s for my games hate short rests, and often do everything in their power to stop them from happening, at least when actually inside a dungeon.
I can see where they are coming from. If you go into the goblin hideout and fight half of the goblins, it would be pretty ludicrous to say that they would then wait for you to recover your strength, and for the rest of them to just NOT go and attack you for 30 minutes.
It does fuck with the intended recourse economy, but we’ve NEVER had 3 separate short rests in one day. It just never happens, cause by the time we would do that we’ve either cleared the dungeon, fled, or died.
This is impacted by the fact that the average encounter at our table takes about 1,5 hours, and we only have 5 hours to play, with some of that time being devoted to fiddling around, going to buy snacks, splitting up the party, etc..
Nah your playing a pretty normal DnD campaign that literally most tables run. Pack seems to only look for tables that want to min/max things I've played at a few of those tables and to be they are incredibly boring; as there is little to no actual story behind those games and actual characterization of the PC's mean almost squat.
Congrats on 100k!
Soon 100,000 subs 🎉
Where would you guys place an optimized Sorlock?
That's roughly where the sorcerer is, as they are ranked on optimized version. Flagship sorcerer is 2 levels of hexblade (for medium armor + shield proficiency, 2 short rest slots, hexblades curse is decent at lower levels where you don't have a BA to use, and obviously agonizing + repelling blast) and 18 levels clockwork soul (for the expanded spell list mostly).
Curious how the vanilla of the classes compare
I'm particularly fond of playing a Rogue with Booming Blade. No idea how it does in terms of optimization, but it is extremely fun. One of the few classes that doesn't really sacrifice anything to use Booming Blade effectively. Eldritch Knights are better off just attacking, spellcasters are better off spellcasting, but rogues are built for one big hit, and Booming Blade juices that attack up quite a bit past tier 1. With Bonus Action Disengage (or Mobile, if you can afford to take it), you become a really solid front line skirmisher who punishes enemies for advancing. It's very satisfying.
It’s literally free damage for them, which they need badly.
Makes sense for rogue. Could also use cunning action to disengage and move away, forcing them to stand there, use a ranged attack, or take the damage to get to you. Fits a melee rogue's kit quite well.
I did notice a bit of a pattern with your ranking. Every class in the top half of the list is a caster, while every class at the bottom are non-casters. Additionally, the lowest ranked classes in the top half are all the half-casters, and your highest ranked non-caster has a subclass that lets them cast a few good spells.
Does this mean anything? Like, maybe spells add so much power, scaling and customization that it easily outpaces every other aspect of the game, at least from an optimization standpoint? We may never know...
Yep, this is basically how Pack Tactics ranked the classes, with maybe a few exceptions.
Do the spells cast for free through warlock invocations cast at the current warlock slot level? RAW I don't know that that's in the text
Hey man loved the video, but I have two doubts 1 What build you were thinking of when you ranked rogue? I assume is the strongest one possible but I never saw an optimized build for rogue like I saw for other classes and 2 You say monks and fighters were evenly matched I assumed you were considering the gunk build for Monk but What build did you consider for fighter? Was It Ghostlancer? I would like to know.
Quite interesting list with a lot room for discussion for sure :)
First of all: thanks for the hard work and explanation for all the Rankings. I have a little question though: did you consider how hard it is to take a class out or remove it from combat? I ask because rogues for instance are incredibly hard to shut down: disengage and dash as Bonus Action, Evasion and Uncanny Dodge are extremely strong Features in this regard
This is definitely not a factor relative to full casters. Optimized casters don't need Uncanny Dodge in the first place, since they'll have a better AC than Rogues; battlefield control abilities to prevent opponents from reaching them; and even if reached, they'll have ways to get out like teleportation or invisibility (... or simply running away and trusting that their 24 AC from half-plate + shield + _shield_ spell will be fine.) Evasion is great in the relatively rare situations it applies, but _absorb elements_ will usually halve that damage, so casters at least have a thing for that, although it isn't as good.
Relative to non-full casters, we're at least in the same ballpark. But Paladins will also have a lot better AC than a Rogue; Barbarians of course halve most damage; and Gloom Stalker Rangers (which pretty much equals "Ranger" for this video's purposes) will often be invisible, which not only protects them from attacks but from most spells. Admittedly, you're not always in darkness, but the Gloom Stalker's ridiculous first-round nova ability still probably ultimately means you take less damage, because the most potent opponent is dead or heavily wounded before it even gets a turn.
I think even granted the abilities you're discussing, only Monks have as little ability to avoid damage as Rogues do.
@@dcarrano The thing with your spell caster evasions and crowd controls is they cost resources that are for the most part long rest recovery only, while also often consuming their turn/action. Rouges and really all the martial classes are much more reliable at the end of a long day with so few of their capabilities being tied to long rest resources. Where the Wizard might well have burnt out all or nearly all of their spells in the first fight and therefore have no AC boosts or evasion skills left... Which is where stuff like Rouges bonus action dash/disengage or the Shadow Monk with that rather long range teleport between shadows can be really really obnoxious for the NPC's as every single turn they can slap you around and just walk off - perhaps hide behind the all mighty wizard...
@@foldionepapyrus3441 It ends up being synergistic: you don't blow through all of your resources, because it's difficult for your opponents to even invoke your defenses. For instance, you're concentrating on your battlefield control spell, and now you're Dodging. Obviously, the ideal here is that the targeted opponents simply can't threaten you at all, and if your spell is something like _wall of force_ , that will almost always be the case. But even if the enemies do get to you or target you with ranged attacks, you still don't have to constantly cast _shield_ , because it's hard to hit your 19 AC with disadvantage. Or you have a phantom steed (a ritual spell) that just Disengages and runs farther away from melee attackers than they can reach. It's the opposite of Rogues, who are granted damage-mitigation abilities because it's tough for them to avoid being hit in the first place.
I grant you that the entire party can't be dodging battlefield controllers. Someone will have to be a Gloom Stalker or Evoker or someone else who can put large damage numbers on the things you're kiting and controlling. (Either that, or your fights will all take nine hours, even though you'll still probably win eventually.) But you don't necessarily need a "resourceless" party member.
@@dcarrano If you are never ever threatened that speaks to poor play by the DM, as the players will never ever launch perfect ambushes incapacitating the whole squad with no way for the NPC to call for or no reinformcments left to call every time.
And if you were seen putting the spell on their buddies that takes them out the fight you just painted a target on your back - and shield does you no good against the dex save breath weapon (etc), and only helps doesn't prevent them from hitting you. So that very first round when you can't dodge yet as you spent your action casting you probably should be smashed hard enough to drop concentration even with a shield spell up. Or at the very least hit till you do burn up that spell slot - one less shield later if you had to use it round 1 of the first fight.
And by the time you are talking wall of force you are a pretty high level, or can only do it once maybe twice in the whole day... Which very much plays in the you burned out much of your resources in the first fight of the day (or needed carrying a bit more through that fight because you desperately wanted to save the big spell slots for the final confrontation). But this is right around the level the challenge of 5E combat falls apart without a really good DM (or better high level 3rd party source) anyway even if you have no spellcasters at all..
And the same is true of the lower level options like Hyponitic pattern - by the time you get the spell slot for that Sleep has probably been next to useless in combat for ages but you only have a few goes at the hypnosis in the day - and its far from as effective, the smart NPC will slap their buddies out of it and quite possibly still have an extra attack for you. You buy your team a reduced damage output from the opponents for a round (and that is assuming you catch enough of them and they fail their saves that the reduction in damage is noticeable at all) - meaningful but not that 'I win button' good. Which for the cost of your handful per day highest level spell slot...
Without the more Martial focused and damage dealing friends you would run out of spell slots and die - crowd control and survivability while your batteries last is good, but you need lots of help to actually make use of it for anything but running away.
@@foldionepapyrus3441 Optimizers make concentration protection their first priority, and so your concentration is very hard to break even when you get hit. You'll have at least one of Resilient (CON) and War Caster, often both, and _absorb elements_ to halve the damage of big AOEs, which are usually not normal weapon attacks. It honestly takes something like a meteor swarm to make it likely that you'll drop concentration. As for the other important saves, most full casters start with WIS save proficiency, or otherwise you pick it up in Tier 3 when it becomes more of a concern. Your DEX saves won't be great, but pretty much no one is good at all three of the Big Three saves, and that's the logical one to let pass. (It's not like you dumped it altogether... you'll have +2.)
But yes, of course you normally won't skate through encounters without being touched... you'll take damage and use resources. Guess what, though? If your "resourceless" martial gets into melee and trades blows back and forth, they're taking up those same resources, because a spellcaster will then need to use spell slots to heal/resurrect them (or potions will have to be used). Martials -- and I hate that the game works like this, but it does! -- are overwhelmingly limited to single-target damage, and they lack ways to avoid being hit once they enter the fray*. So when the resources are being spent anyway, it makes sense to funnel them towards the characters who can use them more efficiently, with better defenses and better ways to address multiple threats simultaneously.
*Fighters at least won't get hit by every attack coming at them, since they can easily attain 20 AC. Other martials really, really struggle with this.
Barbarian is my favourite class with paladin coming second and now i think i fully understand why i love them so much. I played with many DMs and almost all of they run some variation of 1 very deadly encounter per long rest. That means that basically everyone has unlimited resources thus my barbarians feel unkillable because they kinda are, it's very hard to beat a barbarian in a single fight and if that happens its either a Tpk or fight is almost over and i did my job as a tank
I fully agree that barbarian is really good if you are only having one or two combats per day, which is how a lot of people play. My group does not, and all of us are of the opinion that it is either the weakest or second weakest class (depending on which one of us you ask). Because a barbarian who is out of rages basically doesn't have a class, and if you are reckless attacking all the time you will be getting hit a lot. This doesn't mean they aren't fun, and it certainly doesn't mean you shouldn't play them.
How strong is rogue if the cleric that allows mates to attack when he buffs them? With 2 sneak attack a round?
That's not a good investment. At the strategy level, Order is one of the weakest Cleric subclasses, so you're starting off behind... it's still "good", because the base Cleric class is strong, but you've already made a non-optimal choice in terms of strategy. Then at the tactics level, ok, you can cast _bless_ on the Rogue on the first turn. That may not feel nearly as good once you also have the option of _spirit guardians_ , but it's never a bad play. So that's fine, but... then what? How many buff spells is it worthwhile to cast on the same player? Once you get to the point where the _only_ reason you're casting a spell is to prompt a Rogue attack, then you essentially don't have a Cleric anymore, you just have a Rogue with an extra attack. In 5E action economy, you'd rather have a larger party than a smaller party where one person is more effective. (More effective offensively, that is. Note that if the Rogue uses their reaction to attack, they then can't Uncanny Dodge -- that's often a bad trade). This is especially true when the character you "drop" from the larger party is a full caster.
@@dcarrano good Point, thanks!
Off-topic but are your clothes the roman toge or the scottish outfit like what Liam Neeson wore in "Rob Roy"?
We need a Video wholy spoken in the Bybye-Voice. Please!
Uh oh reddits not gonna be happy about this
Good. 🐊
I wonder if it'll be possible to make an optimizer tier list for dnd races? (likely V-Human, Custom Lineage and either Satyr/Yuan Ti be at the top but still wanna see how everyone fares.)
I've subscribed with my personal account a long time ago, but I'll subscribe here too. Good luck with the 100k, you deserve it and I always enjoy watching your content.
I feel like you've misunderstood some of my content, but I'm happy you've stopped by anyway. Merry Christmas!
I think rogue is held back by its lack of extra attacks. It still seems strong on paper: built in expertise, built in resourceless mobility, built in nutty singletarget damage (albeit frontloaded into a single attack), decent ranged options, and more survivability tools than barbarian (uncanny dodge, evasion). I personally find that a 2-level dip into rogue on any class for bonus action economy and mobility is really strong on a plethora of builds (although 2-level dip into fighter for action surge tends to be stronger for nova builds), I think rogue is solid personally. Recently I have a multiclass going where I’m x scout rogue/3 lore bard/1 divine soul sorcerer. This gives me access to bless (law bloodline divine soul) + shield + absorb elements + guidance for one level dip, proficiency in every skill once you get skilled and skill expert (i am a changeling but you could go half-elf, any race with 2 skill proficiencies really), evasion, uncanny dodge, and cutting words. My character can buff the party, nerf enemy attack and damage, roll high on any skill check, outright avoid most attacks, and as a changeling infiltrate anywhere as anyone since my gm was kind enough to give me glamoured studded leather armor. Am I more op than a wizard? Nah, not really. But do I have a tool for almost any situation and still deal decent single target damage by doing a hand crossbow build with the mobility of scout rogue? Ye, I can’t be caught by melee creatures, so that’s been fun
This list seems really inconsistent in using its stated criteria. Sometimes you seem to be including the class's viability of the dip (artificer), or only looking at the strongest subclass for particular builds (shadow monk). Othertimes, you seem to ignore strong dip potential (fighter) or subclass potential (like half the list). Hells, you put Rogue at the bottom of the game when builds like Ramen Goblin's Double Phantom exist. No monk build is nearly so impressive, Pass Without Trace or no.
I agree, feels really inconsistent.
I'm not exclusively looking at multiclass potential. That's not the tier list. Flagship Ranger for example has 3 levels in Fighter and Rogue. That doesn't mean fighter and rogue now gets put in C tier. Also Double Phantom is meh but not terrible.
Disagree, Shadow Gunk is far better than Double Phantom if you were forced to pick one for an optimized party.
Double Phanton just... isn't actually that impressive. Gunk has similar damage, but also gives surprise, making it much more impactful.
@@druidofnosleep1513 I have never seen a gunk that in-practice can consistently deal the damage claimed, because they have to keep re-casting PWT which eats up their ki, which means they can do focused aim only a couple of times. I have seen double phantom work in-practice to consistently deal the damage claimed.
Perhaps that's just my experience though; usually we don't have the luxury of spending an hour after every combat encounter, and encounters can happen at any time, or break out in situations where PWT just couldn't have been cast, but having your horse with you is fine. Having to constantly short rest to regain ki from keeping PWT up is just way too high of a detriment, and the longer you go after a rest without combat, the less ki you will have to make the strategy work.
Seems very much so like a specifically High-Op tier list, but makes sense.
Excellent, this should be great fun in the comments!
The only class I think you have majorly misplaced is barbarian. It seems your primary reason for the low score was survivability because rage has limited uses (4 at levels 6-11). I've been playing D&D for over 10 years at this point, and I don't think I've ever had a day with 8 encounters.
In a dungeon crawl like DotMM you might be able to do it if the party just pushes really hard, but in a normal campaign 2-4 encounters per day is standard from my experience. For example if your party is traveling from one town to another, are they supposed to get attacked by bandits or animals 8 times a day? That seems absurd, too much even for a dangerous place like the underdark.
5-8 encounters is official and what the game is balanced on.
@@GrimHeaperThe nobody ever does that though. In every game ive played in or DMed myself it always boils down to 3-5 a day sometimes even less.
@@GrimHeaperThe Not only nobody does that, but the recommendation is 5-8 encounters.
Not combat encounters. There are other types of encounters.
@@draghettis6524 Yeah, but nobody considers those encounters either though. Not in 5e 😂
The key is that in games where the barbarian can rage every fight - everyone else is even more overpowered. Other characters scale far better with less encounters.
Dropped a like, but entirely disagree that the Rogue is the weakest class. I think it stands on the same level as monk, specially in OneDND. Their damage is more than enough, the main issue is how Rogue's vary in how they're played in each table. Some make it so that "oh, you come out of cover to do a surprise attack? well, you just came out of cover, so you're no longer hidden so you don't have advantage". I run it as "If you're covered and hidden, as long as you remain unseen until the start of your turn, you have advantage on whatever attack you make", giving an easy sneak attack proc. We're talking about 6 seconds per round, if someone stands up with a knife and closes a 30ft gap with a knife on you within 6 seconds, the vast majority of people wouldn't be expecting it. And just because a round is 6 seconds, doesn't mean an action is necessarily 6 seconds, so keep that in mind.
The key for monk is gunner monk. A classical monk is definitely below rogue, but especially with the shadow subclass, gunner monk is incredibly strong, easily out damaging rogue.
I think the issue is much more in how skills get ruled differently on tables than how rogues perform in combat.
Most of the time you are either attacking from range or double teaming an enemy that is already engaged in combat with someone else which both let you trigger sneak attack with no issue.
The issue in combat is that even if rogue get sneak attack every turn they do miserable rng dependent damage compared to classes who get multi attacks.
@@luminous3558 It's also that the idea that Rogue is so much better at skills, just isn't true. They might have a small edge. But in most cases, the problems they solve can just as easily, or often better, be solved by other classes. These classes also outshine rogues in other ways.
@@Taeerom Yeah. Rogue needs to actively be rewarded by the DM for rolling way above the required check or else its not doing anything.
The baseline challenges of a campaign are not build around requiring someone with expertise in the skill but around someone with average stats that maybe gets a guidance buff or help action and even then if they fail its totally fine.
Rogue needs a DM that has a good grasp on the skill system and maybe is even homebrewing uses for skills in combat situations. Also needs a player that constantly thinks outside the box which can be kinda annoying as well if they constantly ask about if they can do X when they probably cant.
Most other classes function within the rules, rogue is basically required to try and escape the rules by convincing the DM of stuff.
Would you consider the same classification on BG3? Rules are the “same”, but quite different to optimize
Don't apply this to BG3. If we use BG3 then we have to consider magic items even more so than normal and Martials actually get really good items. Monk would be ranked higher for example.
@@PackTactics A lot of gamebreaking spells are also not in that game
The fact that DnD class tier lists are so WILDLY different from person to person proves they really are reasonably balanced
L1 Hexblade + L10 Swords Bard is absolutely incredible if you get Find Greater Steed through Magical Secrets, and ride a Pegasus with the Mounted Combatant feat and a Lance + Shield (Dueling fighting style applies while the lance is 1-handed). Spells you cast on yourself like Freedom of Movement, Dimension Door or Enlarge also apply to your mount, you can even boosts your Pegasus' saving throws with Bardic Inspiration when you're not using it to boost your AC or push enemies off of cliffs with Flourishes, and they recharge on Short Rests with your Pact Slot. Splint Armor barding for your mount is rather cheap to buy. And you get amazing spells like Hypnotic Pattern and Polymorph. I've never had this much fun in a campaign before.
Even though the barbarian, fighter, rogue,warlock and sorcerer not super high they are still my favorite classes happy ranger is really up there
Gratz on 100k Kobold!!
Very nice video! A lot of spicy takes here but I agree with most of them.
The only one I'd say I really disagree with is monk being the best martial, and that mostly comes down to me coming at this tier list from a different angle. Since optimized martials tend to take 5 or fewer levels of each individual class and often have 3 or more classes by the end of their progression, I think it makes more sense to rate martials by how valuable they are to take levels of on any given build.
Sure, Gunk is better than a straight Battlemaster or Rune Knight, but almost every optimized martial is picking up 2-3 Fighter levels whereas only very specific builds are taking any levels of Monk at all. I can understand your perspective on it however.
I could also see the argument for placing Rogue above Barbarian because Rogue isn't melee locked.
So at optimized tables everyone plays wizards together?
I know its homebrew but where would blood hunter be at the list?
glad someone is putting respect on the shepherd druid's name honestly. my favorite class and subclass hands down
I have never had an adventuring day with more than 3 fights. What does that look like? What does the DM do if the players want to rest?
The only tierlist I trust lmao, all the other ones put Barbarian in A tier. Thanks for your work Kobold and congrats on reaching 100k subs!
Thank you very much! Optimized games don't have 1 or 2 encounter days usually so that's why this tier list is like this.
For my personal take, the way I've played all editions I've played (4e, 5e, PF1e, PF2e), I always put the most stock into 'what gets me expertise / more skill points / more updates to my skills.'
Don't get me wrong. I know that's not what's usually looked for in optimization. People will tell you spellcasting is the most broken thing ever and outside of 4e and PF2e that is absolutely correct - and even in PF2e, it's still a major advantage.
But when I think of my D&D experiences, I always flash back to my first 5e game with friends. I was the Paladin. There was a Bard.
And every time we weren't in a fight and were exploring or talking to people, I just felt utterly useless. It didn't matter how good our diplomatic overtures were - because the Bard had expertise, everyone looked to her to lead negotiations or intimidate people. It didn't matter that she was a twiggy, skinny elf and I was a Stone Genasi with a six pac and a massive honking axe - somehow she was more intimidating than me.
I hated it so much.
I would never let it happen again. When I build a character, my first concern is concept. Just below that by mere inches is 'skill master.' I build around getting Rogue, Knowledge Cleric, or Bard levels in 5e exclusively. The only exception is Artificer because they get expertise in tools and are unkillable.
If I am not the best at something, if I don't ever contribute the most in one area that makes me feel like I'm contributing, then I haven't done enough. PF2e makes this so easy because everyone gets 'expertise,' making it the most fun game for me to play personally. The only difference is that Thaumaturges, Rogues, and Investigators get more skill boosts. My Champion will still be the best diplomancer in the group.
I get 'skill monkey is a meme' but for every table I've been at the skill monkeys have literally made the difference between all-out war and peace treaties.
I think you're mostly right, except if you're really considering multiclass builds Fighters, monks and rogues go up in value substantially, the same for rangers, paladins and artificers (rangers and artificers especially imho, I just don't like Paladins at all for some reason). You can make some amazing builds that incorporate 5 lvls of fighter/monk/ranger/artificer and only 3 or 4 of rogue, that I would usually prefer to play over single class builds. Of course, you can multiclass the pure casters and barbarian, and I'm sure there are some well thought out and powerful builds, but I feel there's a lot of gimp ones too.
This is what I've been WAITING FOR BABYYY
Question. Would you consider covering blood hunter and other third party subclasses?
Blood hunter would go in go in F probably. Like it has features that harm the party or yourself for not great benefits.
@@PackTactics At best it's a subclassless Fighter without Action Surge. If you're actually using your Bloodhunter features you'll gain barely any benefit and mostly just die faster than any other class
Finally someone that rates Druid as high as they deserve and can see that there's subclasses other than Moon. Honestly no class other Paladin warps the party power as much as Druids (wizards can do it too but take till about level 7 to start doing so).
Edit: Another personpraises sorcerer, that class is so strong with new subs and gets so much shit despite that.
I'm curious how you rank the wizard spell list over the druid's ability to summon so many stats on the field. I think the argument is fair I just want some of your thoughts, I assume that wizard goes in front because the higher level spells at Tier 4 outpace the summoning stats?
When I put things together in a tier like S tier, I imagine they can surpass each other in different ways depending on the circumstances like for example what the party is like. So there are cases where I see an optimized Druid can Surpass an optimized Wizard build. But in majority of cases, wizards are stronger especially considering tier 3 play.
As a massive druid fan, action economy is the name of the game, and the wizard spell list is the king of action economy. Control spells like hypnotic pattern and wall of force don't have an equal. Tier 3&4 wizard is mostly about how much you want to nerf yourself so that you are still playing dnd.
ive been watching for years and had no idea i wasnt subbed 😭😭
Oh boy, this one is gonna make people MAD
Please explain how Swashbuckler and Inquisitive Rogue don't move them up the tier list at all? Before fight begins you can guarantee sneak attacks on a target until they die or you switch targets, massive RP bonuses for the campaign, their damage, AC, and skill checks all increase with the same stat (DEX) and there's nothing to stop them multiclassing into cleric and paladin to boost the damage fast. Just thinking over and mathing out the damage numbers in my games battle master fighter loses out on all but the first fight where they have action surge in terms of damage numbers and that's because of a very powerful magic item i gave the player while the rogue has a +1 Handcrossbow.
Because they're bad subclasses. Anyways, I show off some sneak attack damage in this video. Obviously optimized with multiattack, sneak attack becomes better but not by much. ua-cam.com/video/dPQSU_jiJm0/v-deo.htmlsi=oSULE3jjiSMxrjnp
@@PackTactics Thank you for the link it clearly explains your thought process on low damage output for them as well as the argument for extra attacks and 3rd level spells being far and above the average sneak attack. Maybe my rogue rolls super hot on their d6 but I definitely thought rogue would have higher averages with a rapier or heavy crossbow. Does this math account for sharpshooter feat/ability score increases or the dm guides recommended level for magic weapons to your party?
Inquisitive Rogue was basically rendered out of date by the Steady Aim feature introduced in Tasha's.
Even if your game didn't allow that feature (or even in the situations where standing still isn't realistic), Insightful Fighting would still be a trap, because a) you shouldn't find yourself too often in situations where there's no one to Sneak Attack naturally; b) the bonus action requirement means you're cutting yourself off from the superior Cunning Action feature (Hide will usually be a better way than Insightful Fighting to get advantage since it's DEX-based instead of WIS-based, and the occasional value of Dash/Disengage is obvious); and c) you're similarly cutting yourself off from the powerful Crossbow Expert + Sharpshooter bonus action attack that an optimized ranged weapon user will have.
@@CalebGrizmode The math in the video does account for ASI increases at lvl 4 and 8 assuming point buy but not Sharpshooter. But if you apply sharpshooter to the math than the sneak attack damage itself lowers due to lower accuracy but the good news is you obviously do more damage because sharpshooter does it's work together with sneak attack.
Still, your improvements aren't big improvements like extra attack but hey, at least your getting improvements.
@@dcarrano insightful fighting and the swashbuckler equivalent cost one bonus action for sneak attack damage for 10 rounds of combat though. I thought that would have balanced out with flanking being an optional rule and using the hide action every turn in combat gets kinda basic for me. I'd much rather dash or disengage to mobilize the rogue. Kobold did explain quite well how where and why sneak attack falls off in terms of avg dpr
We all saw what the straight classed monk did in the Gauntlet (ok like 5 people saw it). That's a fair ranking - although I feel fighter is the stronger class.
The thing is when they're on the same tier like E, they can be better than the class in that's in front of them depending on the party. Like if the party doesn't care about stealth then ofc Fighter is stronger.
I think fighter is a lot underrated on this teir list. For optimization purposes, it ends up as part of so many builds simply for the two level dip of fighting style, armor proficiencies, if you start with it you get CON saves, and action surge. The investment you put in for the output is simply phenomenal, and should be enough to put it in C Tier at least since you almost always want a couple levels. Plus echoknight makes you slippery, let’s you deal damage from range, and can default kill enemies.
Fighter is left in the dust when it comes to multiclassing because Divine soul sorc dip, Artificer dip and Peace Cleric dip exist now. Fighter dips for casters is something we did in the Xanathar days.
You've earned even the notification bell 😉😉😉
Soon 100k subs 🐊
Me, playing a Leonin Feywanderer with Pipes of Haunting:
Oh yeah, those pipes are GREAT! 😍
also the bladesinger feature of beng able to do cantrip and attack as 1 action.
compare that to blood hunter that has to choose: 2 attacks or green flame blade, and bladesinger wizard can just do both
This tiers list is wild to me, because i feel like in an unoptimized table, rogue is one of the strongest classes out there, being able to deal that high damage without having to jump through to many hoops (hit someone next to the fighter, or just use you bonus action to hide).
Rogue damage is very low compared to other classes. It's only at level 3 it pulls ahead but it's not by much. Then there's the fact that if the Rogue is playing with an optimized party that doesn't go into melee and uses control often, their dpr is even lower because its harder for them to get sneak attack. They suck.
I once tried to do a bard with a bagpipe. My table laughed at me. This is criminal and all of their shinies need to be stolen. I doubled-down by switching it to a hurdy-gurdy, which is like the string version of a bagpipe.
I have a lot of problems with artificer existing, thats mostly because I love he idea of artificer, but in my opinion it has a lot of problems, I think a good example is the steel defender:
On base, its medium, a fine defensive pet that deals meh damage, however when you start asking questions like:
- can it be a mount if it is medium and I am small (controlled or uncontrolled mount)
- can it attune to magic items
- can it take the form of an armored knight (player can choose the form, as long as it has 2 or four legs and is medium or small), if so, Can I make it look exactly like me in armor?
- can I make it look exactly like an npc?
Etc, etc,
In addition, the spell list is medium, however it has some of the most variable spells in the game like rope trick to cause even more confusion, and the create magic item feature is kinda oke, however it is quite easy to also search the edges with that one.
So overall, Artificer is as strong as you can convince your dm it is, and that bothers me
about rogue: I think many people think rogue is great, as dependent on how you play the game, a bonus action hide can basically be like a better blink for free, a 70-90% chance to not get targeted with most passive perceptions. Then again, thats in normal unoptimized play.
I once had very good rolls for a character and made rogue Arcane Trickster Wizard Bladesinger. It was very fun to play with shadowblade and other stuff.