D&D 5E The New Class Tiers
FrogReaver
As long as i get to be the frog
When looking at damage you should always look at NOVA Damage and Daily Damage.
Out of those 3 Battlemasters with appropriate feats and tactics are flat out damage kings in tier 1.
Gloom stalker is impressive as well but not quite as strong.
Both of these have really strong tier 1 NOVA's as well.
Paladins are down there with monk for tier 1 damage. The great thing paladins get in tier 1 isn't damage but a great control ability in wrathful smite.
FrogReaver
As long as i get to be the frog
I'm confused with what makes you rate the cleric in that tier 1 group?
Zardnaar
Legend
Rangers can take sharpshooter as well, action surge is once/short rest vs rangers colossus slayer+ hunters quarry. Even hordebreaker with a bow fires often enough the ranger is usually getting more attacks via that than the fighter using action surge. You don't get another action surge until well after level 10, even a d6 extra damage on the Paladin (Avenger) via hunters quarry is usually better than action surge.
Precision attack is from what book?
FrogReaver
As long as i get to be the frog
Sit down and do a daily damage comparison for a level 4 hunter ranger vs a level 4 battlemaster fighter both with sharpshooter.
Consider the following battlemaster advantages when you do so
1) Can attack from full long range of longbow with no downsides (as opposed to 60ft for a ranger using hunters mark)
2) Does full damage even on uninjured enemies
3) Doesn't lose damage due to running out of spell slots to cast hunters mark with
4) Can't have damage drop by losing concentration
While the rangers damage sources are fairly reliable they will not be up 100% of the time. After all this is factored in the battlemaster comes out on top. It's even worse if you factor crossbow expertise and hand crossbows into the mix.
Among the spellcasters, the Cleric has the best armor, the best subclass abilities, and the most spells prepared.
The Cleric arguably has the best spell list with Bless, Healing Word, Guiding Bolt, & especially Spiritual Weapon being amazing. Toll the Dead is also a top notch damage cantrip.
A Cleric can cast Bless & Spiritual Weapon and do something else (such as Toll the Dead) for comparable damage to top martial classes, AND they can save someone from death with Healing Word.
The Tempest Cleric is probably the best of them at tier 1, being by far the best blaster at these levels with Maximizing Shatters & Wrath of the Storm.
FrogReaver
As long as i get to be the frog
Tempest cleric sure. Cleric in general? I'm not seeing it. Spiritual weapon + attack or cantrip doesn't keep up with feat using fighters and barbarians. Maximizing shatter damage is pretty boss though.
GlassJaw
Hero
Good post Z. I pretty much agree.
I don't pay much heed to crazy min/max level 20 theorycrafting builds in general, mainly because they just aren't practical in 99% of normal play. Like you said a Paladin/Sorc/Warlock
However, I do a lot of analysis of the classes as a basis for make my own homebrew tweaks and creations (like variant classes, new subclasses, etc.) and I find the inconsistency of the subclasses/paths particularly frustrating. The paths vary greatly in both "power" and when the abilities come online. For example, Rogues get archetype features at levels 3, 9, 13, 17. The jump from level 3 to 9 is big; they go 6 levels in the "sweet spot" of 5E without a new Archetype feature. And the feature at 9 across all the Rogue Archetypes is fairly lackluster.
Compare that to the Barbarian and Fighter (3, 6, 10, 14) or Druid and Wizard (2, 6, 10). The cleric is the clear winner in the Archetype battle, getting its features at levels 1, 2, 6, 8, and 17. Within the sweet spot (levels 1-10), the Rogue has the longest delay between its first and second path abilities and has to wait the longest before getting its second.
Anyway, I'm just using the Rogue as an example of the disparity between the classes and Archetypes.
But since the vast majority of campaigns start at level 1 (or at levels 1-3) and only go up to level 10-12, the features early on have to carry more "weight" just like like you said. So when creating a new class or Archetype, this has to be taken into consideration. That most campaigns don't go all the way to 20 isn't uniquely a fault of 5E; pretty much every edition of D&D has suffered from high-level fatigue (and quite a few non-D&D RPGs do as well). But it does exist.
I don't pay much heed to crazy min/max level 20 theorycrafting builds in general, mainly because they just aren't practical in 99% of normal play. Like you said a Paladin/Sorc/Warlock
However, I do a lot of analysis of the classes as a basis for make my own homebrew tweaks and creations (like variant classes, new subclasses, etc.) and I find the inconsistency of the subclasses/paths particularly frustrating. The paths vary greatly in both "power" and when the abilities come online. For example, Rogues get archetype features at levels 3, 9, 13, 17. The jump from level 3 to 9 is big; they go 6 levels in the "sweet spot" of 5E without a new Archetype feature. And the feature at 9 across all the Rogue Archetypes is fairly lackluster.
Compare that to the Barbarian and Fighter (3, 6, 10, 14) or Druid and Wizard (2, 6, 10). The cleric is the clear winner in the Archetype battle, getting its features at levels 1, 2, 6, 8, and 17. Within the sweet spot (levels 1-10), the Rogue has the longest delay between its first and second path abilities and has to wait the longest before getting its second.
Anyway, I'm just using the Rogue as an example of the disparity between the classes and Archetypes.
But since the vast majority of campaigns start at level 1 (or at levels 1-3) and only go up to level 10-12, the features early on have to carry more "weight" just like like you said. So when creating a new class or Archetype, this has to be taken into consideration. That most campaigns don't go all the way to 20 isn't uniquely a fault of 5E; pretty much every edition of D&D has suffered from high-level fatigue (and quite a few non-D&D RPGs do as well). But it does exist.
Zardnaar
Legend
After level 8 mc out as a fighter or ranger IMHO.
If Toll the Dead + Spiritual Weapon both land, that will be 14 damage on average.
For comparison a single attack from a Maul will typically do 2d6+3+1.32 = 11.32 damage in a round. With Polearm Master it's 1d10+1d4+6+1.3 = 15.3 damage a round. That's roughly as much as the Cleric does with Spiritual Weapon + Cantrip, although that doesn't include Maneuvers.
Also, you are not counting the damage improvement from Bless that I mentioned.
Suppose you bless three fighters who each hit 60% of the time without the spell. You raise their accuracy from 60% to 72.5% each. That's about a 20% increase in expected damage for each Fighter. So right off the bat, even if you don't do anything else, Blessing the party improves the damage by roughly 60% of a Fighter.
This can easily offset the advantage of Maneuvers (or other Fighter archetypes)
And other Cleric have their own bag of trick. The Nature Cleric can Shillelagh, the Arcana Cleric can Green Flame Blade / Booming Blade, Grave Cleric can Path to the Grave, Light can blast, Order gives other Fighters extra attacks. Only Life, Knowledge & Trickery don't add to DPS in some ways.
The Cleric is strong.
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