D&D 5E The New Class Tiers

[FrogReaver]

Wizards not gonna know that many rituals at low levels.

I regard bard dice roughly on par with 1st level spells. As in a single bard dice. For example using bard dice to buff AC or impose a penalty its similar to shield but you can do other stuff with them.

You're also assuming a wizard has 10 minutes to cast a ritual. The low level rituals while useful are that great in the grand scheme of things.

1. If you regard the bard inspiration dice as equal to a spell then what do you regard the divination dice as equal to? a higher level spell?
2. Bard dice to buff ac is much worse than shield. There's still a huge chance you are going to be hit whereas shield virtually guarantess you won't be.
3. A third level wizard can only prepare 6 spells. He can take 4 rituals with limited downside.
4. Rituals take a bit to cast. They clearly aren't useful in time important situations but many exploration based challenges aren't necessarily time sensitive. Detect magic is great to cast periodically. comprehend languages is always good. Of course find familiar is a great scout. Then you can take alarm to help with rests or unseen servant to help with traps.

The bard is the caster that struggles to find known spells to take rituals.

 

[Zardnaar]

1. If you regard the bard inspiration dice as equal to a spell then what do you regard the divination dice as equal to? a higher level spell?
2. Bard dice to buff ac is much worse than shield. There's still a huge chance you are going to be hit whereas shield virtually guarantess you won't be.
3. A third level wizard can only prepare 6 spells. He can take 4 rituals with limited downside.
4. Rituals take a bit to cast. They clearly aren't useful in time important situations but many exploration based challenges aren't necessarily time sensitive. Detect magic is great to cast periodically. comprehend languages is always good. Of course find familiar is a great scout. Then you can take alarm to help with rests or unseen servant to help with traps.

The bard is the caster that struggles to find known spells to take rituals.

Divination dice can whiff (you want to roll high or low) and you get very few of them. Once bard dive refresh on short rests and scale up to d8s they are almost as good as shield but you can do other stuff.

Also the diviner is only a single wizard subclass and it's probably the most powerful one. The most powerful wizard vs any old bard.
The Divineer is tier 1 IMHO starting at the next tier up.

 

[Autumn Bask]

Then that's crazy talk. A bard can't do half the things the wizard can do. Even in tier 1.

Really?

They have the same early-level heavy-hitting CCs: Tasha's and Sleep.
Wizards have a strong Exploration pillar: Ritual Caster
Bards have a strong Social pillar: Charisma + Expertise
They both have strong Support abilities: Bardic Inspiration vs. Divination Dice

And it's not like the Bard Spell List is just a neutered version of the Wizard Spell List.
They have access to Faerie Fire, Bane, Heat Metal, and Zone of Truth.

That's not to say the Wizard exclusives aren't good, too, but they don't have a monopoly on all the best spells.
Just Magic Missile, Shield, Find Familiar, Misty Step, and Mirror Image (and Rope Trick, but though I've been tempted, I've never personally taken that spell).

The Wizards massive Spell List is both a blessing and a curse. You have so many options to choose from, but you can only choose to learn so many of them, and you can prepare even less. In the end, whenever I'm playing a Wizard, I still end up picking the spells with the widest possible general applications. Except the best "general" spells are on everyone else's Spell List (for 1st and 2nd level Spells, I mean).

 

[Hussar]

Even with that mindset.

1. It's only efficient to heal a party member when they drop to 0. Once that happens you don't need to be great at healing, you just need to have enough healing to match how many times your allies drop. As long as you do that then the role is filled.
2. So many classes offer in-combat healing and a feat is available in the worse case scenario that the party needs more in combat healing.

So in my mind due to in-combat healing not being a role worth excelling at (it's an enough is all we need role) and because there's so many options that can give you that "enough in combat healing" ability then I would draft roles where excelling really mattered and roles that weren't easily covered by so many different options.

It might be more useful for us to determine a list of roles and rate them as we probably rate different roles completely differently.

You must not play with a lot of PC's that have ongoing effects on them then. Barbarians, paladins, whatever has some sort of ongoing effect like a spell or rage. Because you lose all that when you drop below 0. Drop a Barbarian below 0, he loses his rage, you stand him up on your turn, and he sits right back down because he hasn't had a chance to rage again. Never minding at this low of a level, he's only raging a couple of times per day.

Never minding any other caster losing their concentration spells as soon as they drop to 0.

I play a very, very different way to be honest. My cleric is healing as fast and as often as possible to keep character's topped up so they aren't losing all their spells/effects. The whole "whack a mole" approach to healing just never occured to me. Never minding that that's a really good way to outright kill PC's at lower levels. A good crit against that character that's down to 1 HP and he's dead dead.

You play a very different game that I do.

 

[Merudo]

Tier 1 is level 1 to 5. Heroic tier.

That's certainly the official tier break.

Page 37 of the DMG states that Tier 1 is level 1-4.

 

[Mort]

Page 37 of the DMG states that Tier 1 is level 1-4.

That'll teach me to post without looking at the book first!

In that case, I fully agree with the official line

 

[Merudo]

And it's not like the Bard Spell List is just a neutered version of the Wizard Spell List.
They have access to Faerie Fire, Bane, Heat Metal, and Zone of Truth.

Don't forget Dissonant Whispers (by far the best single-target damage spell at tier 1).

That's not to say the Wizard exclusives aren't good, too, but they don't have a monopoly on all the best spells.
Just Magic Missile, Shield, Find Familiar, Misty Step, and Mirror Image (and Rope Trick, but though I've been tempted, I've never personally taken that spell).

At level 1-4, Find Familiar is probably the only Wizard exclusive spell that's actually powerful.

The rest are mostly defensive spells. They work great for higher level Wizards, but they are a prohibitive expenditure of resources at low levels.

The Valor Bard is a much better choice than the Wizard at Tier 1 - it provides a massive boost to AC that doesn't require any spell.

A third level wizard can only prepare 6 spells. He can take 4 rituals with limited downside.

Find Familiar is the only consistently helpful ritual at these levels. Even Detect Magic is meh - Magical effects are quite rare at low levels, plus just about every caster has access to it. The other rituals are extremely niche.

 

[Merudo]

As to the rest of your comment, I agree, while some classes are consistent (such as cleric) some shoot way up (Paladin comes to mind, a bit lackluster early but at tier 2+ moves solidly to near the top). Off the cuff, can't think of any that go down but might be different with some analysis.

Cleric goes down by a lot at tier 3 (level 11-16).

Clerics do not get a single class or subclass feature at these levels, except for a slight CR increase to "Destroy Undead".

Clerics also have by far the worst spell list at these levels.

Every other class gets cool stuff - even Ranger gets two Archetype abilities, Vanish, and some top spells (Conjure Woodland Beings & Guardian of Nature)

 

[Mort]

Cleric goes down by a lot at tier 3 (level 11-16).

Clerics do not get a single class or subclass feature at these levels, except for a slight CR increase to "Destroy Undead".

Clerics also have by far the worst spell list at these levels.

Every other class gets cool stuff - even Ranger gets two Archetype abilities, Vanish, and some top spells (Conjure Woodland Beings & Guardian of Nature)

True, kind of unfair that wizards get a class feature at 14th (some, like overchannel, quite good) while clerics have to wait.

Still, I think getting access to 6th and 7th level Spells is enough to keep them from dropping down.

As for lackluster spells: Heroes feast, word of recall, plane shift and resurrection are anything but.

 

[Merudo]

As for lackluster spells: Heroes feast, word of recall, plane shift and resurrection are anything but.

Heroes Feast is pretty good, I admit. But the rest is niche.

I mean, how often are you going to cast Word of Recall, Plane Shift & Ressurection, realistically?

Word of Recall & Plane Shift do roughly the same thing, teleport you away from trouble. And Revivify & Raise Dead are typically all the resurrection you need.

Compare that to the other spell lists:

• Bard: Resurrection, Mass Suggestion, Eyebite, Otto's Irresistible Dance, Forcecage, Teleport, +2 magical secrets
• Druid: Heroes' Feast, Plane Shift, Conjure Fey, Transport via Plants, Reverse Gravity, Antipathy/Sympathy, Animal Shapes, Feeblemind
• Sorcerer: Plane Shift, Scatter, Chain Lightning, Mass Suggestion, Eyebite, Mental Prison, Teleport, Reverse Gravity
• Wizard: Too many to count