D&D 5E Zard's S Tier Archetypes

[Mistwell]

Everyone knows what S tier means.

Yeah, I've been on these boards since they began, I was on the WOTC boards since they began, I've been on several other RPG boards since they began, and S-Tier is not standard for any of those RPG boards. Just about no known optimizers I know of use that language for D&D rankings. It's apparently from anime and video games, which...this isn't. The most standard for D&D is color coding. Most D&D optimizers know the color coding, and all the guides use color coding, including here. We have an optimization forum here, and none of those guides use S-Tier.

 

[J-H]

Yeah, "S" as top doesn't make sense. Numerical ranking is a lot easier to understand, which is how you ended up with a couple of arguable "Tier 0" in the 3.5 rankings.

Anyway, 5e's power band is narrower and my experience is that no one class really dominates over another to the point suggested by optimizers, especially when you bring in 3D movement, terrain challenges, and a variety of non-arena opponents.

Subclass choice, similarly, varies by campaign:
Beast barbarian is best for Dark Sun, where weapons are unreliable; Zealot is great for fighting vampires and undead; Totem is good against humanoid enemies (advantage-granting, flight, and/or tanking everything).
Arcane Trickster is good for sneaky campaigns, but Swashbuckler is better in a stand-up fight, while Thief is pretty good in a low-level or gritty campaign, thanks to its mobility and the synergy with the Healer feat. Assassin is situational and works best in a social campaign or one where the party gets to take the initiative.
There are some subclasses that are never going to rise to the top... but I would just call those tier 3 vs. the tier 1-2 subclasses.

 

[dave2008]

I stand corrected.

If you don't read manga or watch anime, you probably have no idea what S tier is. Of the 12 people I D&D with, I am one of two that would know what S tier is.

 

[TwoSix]

If you don't read manga or watch anime, you probably have no idea what S tier is. Of the 12 people I D&D with, I am one of two that would know what S tier is.

Or if you play a video game that has a "shifting meta" (MOBAs, fighting games, some MMOs, etc.), then you've probably seen it.

I fall into @Charlaquin's camp of "How have you missed that?", but it's interesting to see the diversity of interests that people here have (or don't have) outside of RPGs.

 

[dave2008]

Or if you play a video game that has a "shifting meta" (MOBAs, fighting games, some MMOs, etc.), then you've probably seen it.

I fall into @Charlaquin's camp of "How have you missed that?", but it's interesting to see the diversity of interests that people here have (or don't have) outside of RPGs.

I don't play video games (well not since about the 80s are least), so I didn't realize they had migrated to that platform.

 

[Mannahnin]

I only know about it from watching Magic: The Gathering streamers on Twitch. S tier as a concept has migrated to card ranking/evaluation in that game within the last few years.

 

[Dausuul]

Ok? It’s still the same concept, 3e just had a much greater power delta. You could easily just change the tier names to S and A-E instead of 1-6.

You can break anything up into tiers, 5e would just have a very narrow delta, with the difference between tiers being very small.

No. It's not the same concept. 3E's tiers laid out a set of criteria for which class belonged where. If you apply those criteria to 5E, a few subclasses end up in tier 4 and everyone else is tier 3.

If you change the criteria, you change the concept.

 

[Charlaquin]

Just about no known optimizers I know of use that language for D&D rankings. It's apparently from anime and video games, which...this isn't.

If you don't read manga or watch anime, you probably have no idea what S tier is. Of the 12 people I D&D with, I am one of two that would know what S tier is.

Or if you play a video game that has a "shifting meta" (MOBAs, fighting games, some MMOs, etc.), then you've probably seen it.

I don't play video games (well not since about the 80s are least), so I didn't realize they had migrated to that platform.

I only know about it from watching Magic: The Gathering streamers on Twitch. S tier as a concept has migrated to card ranking/evaluation in that game within the last few years.

Yeah, so ranking by lettered tiers is a pretty common thing in many competitive spheres, be it video games, card games, or tabletop games. Calling the highest tier S instead of A comes from Japan, specifically from concert tickets - seats are organized into lettered categories based on price point, with S being the best and most expensive seats. From there, it migrated to fighting games like Street Fighter, and continued to spread throughout competitive gaming, including card games and tabletop games. It hasn’t yet made its way to physical sports yet as far as I know, but if you’re familiar with just about any competitive gaming, you’ve probably been exposed to tier lists at some point, and there’s a high chance you’ve seen one where S is the highest tier. As I mentioned in another post, it’s also a whole genre of YouTube video, which started with videos analyzing competitive games, especially Super Smash Bros, but at this point is applied to any and every form of media. You can find tier list videos for characters from just about any intellectual property, entries in just about any series, films in just about an genre; I’ve even seen a tier list of political ideologies, thought that was satyrical.

Like, I get that everyone has different experiences and of course there are people who won’t have been exposed to any given concept. But this is not just an anime thing, or even an anime and video games thing (and given the prevalence of video games in pop culture and the crossover between video game players and D&D players, I’d still be surprised to meet many D&D players who hadn’t been exposed to the concept). It has pretty thoroughly saturated pop culture media.

 

[Mistwell]

Yeah, so ranking by lettered tiers is a pretty common thing in many competitive spheres, be it video games, card games, or tabletop games. Calling the highest tier S instead of A comes from Japan, specifically from concert tickets - seats are organized into lettered categories based on price point, with S being the best and most expensive seats. From there, it migrated to fighting games like Street Fighter, and continued to spread throughout competitive gaming, including card games and tabletop games. It hasn’t yet made its way to physical sports yet as far as I know, but if you’re familiar with just about any competitive gaming, you’ve probably been exposed to tier lists at some point, and there’s a high chance you’ve seen one where S is the highest tier. As I mentioned in another post, it’s also a whole genre of YouTube video, which started with videos analyzing competitive games, especially Super Smash Bros, but at this point is applied to any and every form of media. You can find tier list videos for characters from just about any intellectual property, entries in just about any series, films in just about an genre; I’ve even seen a tier list of political ideologies, thought that was satyrical.

Like, I get that everyone has different experiences and of course there are people who won’t have been exposed to any given concept. But this is not just an anime thing, or even an anime and video games thing (and given the prevalence of video games in pop culture and the crossover between video game players and D&D players, I’d still be surprised to meet many D&D players who hadn’t been exposed to the concept). It has pretty thoroughly saturated pop culture media.

I've seen this view from you on other topics here, where you assume the culture you've been exposed to is more common in this culture than it tends to be. So...I think maybe this is another instance where your assumptions about other people's experiences might be flawed.

I also am heavily in the comic book culture, and the board game culture, and the genre television and film culture, and American sports culture. This tier system is not in any of those. If that much of pop culture is lacking this tier system, then it really isn't "saturated pop culture media." I think it just overlaps with some of your subcultures and you just assumed it was all of pop culture when it was not.

It's not that I have an issue with it, and I find this tier system interesting and want to learn more about it. But, it's your "But everyone knows about this and if you don't then you're out of touch" attitude which looks pretty snobby and itself out of touch. This thing is not as pervasive as you thought. That should be OK with you, rather than an invitation to behave like an elitist.

 

[Charlaquin]

I've seen this view from you on other topics here, where you assume the culture you've been exposed to is more common in this culture than it tends to be. So...I think maybe this is another instance where your assumptions about other people's experiences might be flawed.

I also am heavily in the comic book culture, and the board game culture, and the genre television and film culture, and American sports culture. This tier system is not in any of those. If that much of pop culture is lacking this tier system, then it really isn't "saturated pop culture media." I think it just overlaps with some of your subcultures and you just assumed it was all of pop culture when it was not.

It's not that I have an issue with it, and I find this tier system interesting and want to learn more about it. But, it's your "But everyone knows about this and if you don't then you're out of touch" attitude which looks pretty snobby and itself out of touch. This thing is not as pervasive as you thought. That should be OK with you, rather than an invitation to behave like an elitist.

Woah, dude. I never called anyone out of touch. It’s 100% ok with me that some people here haven’t heard of letter-ranked tiers. I’m surprised, but I’m not judging anyone. Chill.