Zardnaar
Legend
Its why I put it ahead of the other fighters. Tier 1 for example (lvl 1-5) I would put it tier 1 or 2.
Tiers - The Other Kind of Tiers
Its why I put it ahead of the other fighters. Tier 1 for example (lvl 1-5) I would put it tier 1 or 2.
FrogReaver
As long as i get to be the frog
Then you should have just said I’m tiering classes by power and not by versatility.
I think tiering by power is a lot more subjective and campaign dependent than tiering by versatility. Does you see why I was trying to avoid tiers by power and instead want to focus on tiers by versatility. Also there is the historical approach that 3.5e also tiered by versatility and not power.
Zardnaar
Legend
THe old tiers were really about power IMHO, back then you could use wands etc for versatility.
Its why spellcasters in 5E are a lot less powr. Weaker spells, less of them less wands/staves/potions/scrolls etc.
Versatility is a thing but I rate stuff overall its why I put a Rgue up at say tier 3 even if they might be tier 4 for damage as I don''t just focus on nuking. I consider defensive, utility/versatility etc as well.
That is why I put Paladins so high. At higher levels DCs are quite high and can mess up PCs badly. Have a Paladin around and its very powerful especially the Oath of the Ancients ones. That aura is fairly unique/powerful/useful and spellcasters can't duplicate it.
5E also rewards teamwork, a party of primary caster might struggle at higher levels without a beatstick around although you could have beatstick focused builds but you need to know what you're doing there.
I rate overall, versatile can be useful but it can vary by DM. Some adventures are very combat centric and versatility falls behind killing stuff faster. Charisma classes are a lot better at social stuff, sorcerers are very good at buffing (better than wizard).
Versatility is over rated in 5E IMHO. A lot of classes are reasonable at it- Rogues, bards, wizards with the right spells etc. Wizards are also a bit dependent on the DM, you might not be able to buy scrolls/spells for example.
FrogReaver
As long as i get to be the frog
Well, I think versatility translated directly into more power back in 3.5e. So you are right that the 3.5e tier chart also represented power. In 5e versatility and power aren't quite as correlated. I still think power is too subjective to rate in 5e. I mean how do you compare a stunning strike monk to a CE SS Battlemaster Fighter in terms of power?
Zardnaar
Legend
Stunning strike has a save. CE+ sharpshooter is more reliable vs most things. Vs a high AC stunning strike is potentially better.
Way of the fist monk is very good. Tiers change if feats are used as well.
FrogReaver
As long as i get to be the frog
Tiers changing depending on feats and particular build is another reason to avoid trying to tier classes in 5e.
Versatility is much easier to base tiers on, and with the exception of legendary resistance, casters still tend to be able to dominate any given encounter when desired.
ccs
41st lv DM
This is true regardless of the edition.
Tony Vargas
Legend
5e did a fair job balancing the most readily quantifiable power stat: DPR.
Aside from that, though, I don't see how versatility rules any less.
Especially as neo-Vancian is a more versatile mechanism than 3.5 Tier-1 prep casting.
They both tick the combat bad-ass box.
FrogReaver
As long as i get to be the frog
I seem to recall that even in 3.5e the path of DPR power single target or multi target was being a full caster. In 5e non-full casters tend to dominate the single target DPR domain. A large portion of this is due to feats, but not only by feats. Full Casters tend to dominate the multi target domain. I think this is a very important distinction when talking about 5e balance. They have given non-full casters a DPR role that full casters struggle to fulfill as well as other party members and that directly correlates to them feeling more balanced.
That said, when you look at a rough expectation of the amount of daily damage the non-full caster can put out at various levels without feats or multiclassing, (following the 2 short rests per day whiteroom) there's a remarkable thing that happens. Nearly every class is much more closely distributed in daily damage output than you would have ever excepted to happen. It's almost like this was planned. Full casters are a little more "all over the place" when it comes to daily damage output and are also highly dependent on the number of enemies per encounter remaining higher to match the martial damage output.
Of course all their carefully preplanned balance falls apart when you play in a 0-1 short rest 2-3 encounter per day game (which in my experience is more common). That's also going to impact the power level of certain classes, but it really doesn't change the versatility rankings any.
Versatility no longer allows full casters to simply exchange spells for equal or better single target damage than the non-casters can put out.
Kind of, but the total number of spell slots have decreased drastically. So while each slot is more versatile you have a lot less slots compared to earlier editions. 5e gave full casters a few goodies like neo-Vancian casting but they removed/modified a lot of the more powerful spells. They added in concentration on most every non-damage spell and limited you to a single concentration spell. A lot of spells require ongoing saves to continue the effect as opposed to the single fail and forget method 3.5e typically used. All in all I view this as a net-decrease in versatility of full casters when compared with 3.5e. However, full casters are still by far the most versatile of 5e.
That's my point. But if you are putting them into tiers based on power, quantifying the impact the monks stun has on encounters so that you can compare it to the CE SS BattleMaster is nearly impossible to objectively do.
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Tony Vargas
Legend
You could get insane single-target DPR from a non- or half-casting charge build, too. DPR wasn't exactly an optimal path to power in 3.5, though, so it was kinda moot.
A SorLock is a non-full caster?
I haven't done a full theorycrafting Deep Dive, myself, but from what I've seen, 5e seems to balance single-target DPR among the classes to a modest degree. Feats or clever builds can outshine, sure, but everyone tends to hit hard, and hit harder as you level up, just like everyone gets more hps as you level up, and doesn't improve much at d20 rolls due to BA.
Or martial characters are more dependent on a small number of very tough enemies over many rounds - 6 of 1, half-dozen of the other.
But, yes, DPR is easy to measure, and it's relatively easy to design into the numbers. It's the primary measure of being good at combat in D&D, really.
And, yes, 5e classes all turn in pretty solid performances, you could almost claim balance, if that were all there were to it...
But, with raw combat power nominally balanced, versatility to bring something else when it matters is just that much more significant. Even within the realm of raw DPR, versatility can enhance combat power - being able to engage equally well at range or melee, for instance, vs being worse at one or the other, readily varying damage types, etc.
So the 3.x-style Tier ranking, primarily by versatility, is still very relevant - and arguably hasn't changed all that much.
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