D&D 5E The New Class Tiers

Shiroiken said:

Something to take into consideration is how the DM runs the game. A DM that allows the 5MWD (or only 2-3 combats per day) is going to see a lot more full casters. A DM that runs closer to 6-8 combats per day is going to see a lot more Fighters, Rogues, and Warlocks, because they get most of their stuff back on only Short Rests, and can even go a while with only a couple of short rests. If Feats are not allowed, the Fighter gets quite a bit worse, as the ASI will quickly max out Str/Dex then work on Con, rather than getting cool abilities. If multi-classing is not allowed, I think a couple of classes become less exciting, because they work best with combos (I've not played in a game without multi-classing, so I wouldn't know for sure).

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Stalker0 said:

I think bards are pretty top notch. They really do it all in this edition.

Tons of skill, and the ability to blow normal skill limits out of the water. Good combat, great spellcasting, can heal, can steal class abilities with their taking of spells, good buffer...I mean what’s not to like.

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Hussar said:

Yeah, this is a point that I never really buy.

Precision attack isn't going to make that much of a difference. Most attacks are hitting about 66% of the time. That's what the game is set at anyway. Given Archer specialization for either fighter or Ranger, that's actually probably higher. So, if 3/4 of your attacks already hit, then precision attack really only matters for those other 1/4 of attacks. If your adventuring day is 20 rounds of combat long, we're talking 10 attacks, at the absolute most. But, it's never going to turn all 10 into hits since at least some of those will miss be more than the Precision Attack will make up - there will be wasted Precision Attacks and attacks that simply cannot hit, no matter what.

So, essentially, we're talking about maybe 5 hits difference between the ranger and the BM fighter. But, the ranger either gets a +d8 on every round (or close enough) of combat or an extra attack a lot of times depending on the type of ranger.

Since they're both using SharpShooter, that's moot. And the SS+Xbow expert cheese only really applies for a couple of levels - the ranger can have both by 8th, the fighter by 6th. Not enough to make a difference.

Add to that, now, the ranger out and out blows the fighter out of the water out of combat - remember, no "Oh, we'll have out of combat feats" because you've used your feats for combat - and I really can't see how the fighter rates higher than a ranger.

In archery anyway. Sword and board? Ok, that's the paladin taking the cake there.

Fighters, IMO, really are falling a bit behind the other fighter types until at least 11th level.

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FrogReaver said:

You say that everytime, I show you numbers and you still don't believe me.

(Just with a longbow)
If you make 20 attacks then on average you will miss by 1 once. You will miss by 2 on average once etc. You have 12 precision dice a day assuming 2 short rests.

8/8 (chance precision attack changes the roll) + 7/8 + 6/8 + 5/8 + 4/8 + 3/8 = (6 superiority dice used). You will turn on average 4.125 of your misses into hits. Since your average damage is 17.5 that means your 6 superiority dice add 72.1875 average damage to your day. You still have 6 superiority dice left to use regular and they can add 27 damage per day. That's a total of right at +100 damage per day. A single attack from your regular longbow with -5/+10 over 20 rounds does between 87.5 and 245 damage per day (low vs high ac).

By the time you add in hand crossbows and crossbow expertise you stop using non precision superiority dice. You double your number of attacks so you spend twice as many resources on precision attack. It turns twice of 4.125 misses into hits = 8.25. At 16.5 damage per attack that is 136.125 damage per day. Hand crossbows will do between 132 and 429 damage per day.

Do you know how much colossus slayer adds to a similar longbow ranger per day that's trying to use the -5/+10? Between 27 and 63 damage. Hunter's mark adds between 21 and 49 = 48 to 112 damage. Against most AC's the battlemaster fighter is better.

The issue is that CE and SS don't play nice with hunters mark. So now you have competing bonus actions. You gain very little by using hunters mark because of this even against a boss. Now the ranger really struggles to use one of his damage bonuses while the fighter got significantly more effective at using his.

Conclusion: Rangers are good but an optimized battlemaster trumps them in damage and has a much better NOVA capability than they do given he can action surge. Damage now is always better and it's one more reason that the optimized battlemaster is better at combat than the hunter ranger.

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FrogReaver said:

I've never once looked at a bard and thought he's good at combat. He's exceptional out of combat and passable in combat. though.

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Mort said:

but the bard certainly seems to be bringing a lot to the group (and that's in combat, out of combat, the contribution is even higher).

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Ebony Dragon said:

That brings up a good point. Are the tier lists mainly looking at combat effectiveness, or all around utility and ability to shape the story/resolve plots?

If we are just looking at combat the fighter and the barbarian are quite good I think. I've found those pure martial characters exceptional at beating up bad guys in this edition. I mean, they have always been good at beating up bad guys, but during 3.5 clerics and wizards could actually build themselves to be better fighters than the fighter was at higher level. Not so in 5e.

However, if we are looking at who can influence the story most those same classes end up at the bottom of the barrel. About the only thing they can do well is kill stuff.

Playing in a home game that is skewed heavily towards non-combat activities I wonder how I can translate these tier lists to the type of game I typically play. How much weight do people put on combat effectiveness as a basis for the ranking?

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Zardnaar said:

Put it this way, if a class is good at something that matters it will get a good rating.

The points above about Bards is spot on. The Valoe Bard is tier 1 at all 4 level tiers IMHO the points made are preaching to the choir. I wouldn't rate wizards for example at tier 1 level 1 to 5 although the valor bard will get a lower rating than the lore bard.

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