D&D 5E Zard's S Tier Archetypes

[Ruin Explorer]

Incidentally I spend far too much time playing computer games and yet I only just learnt what S meant by playing Bloodborne. And only then by looking it up online. That was in relationship to weapon scaling by stats and you had to search for it. 35 years of computer gaming. Never heard of S before.

What the heck games were you playing for 35 years that you never came across this? Like, seriously. I was familiar with it by, what, 1992? 1994? Something like that.

Did you just never play console games or something? Or never play Japanese games?

Basically almost any Japanese console game that gave any kind of letter ranking, from like, the late 1980s onwards (so yeah, about 35 years) has had S as the top ranking. That particularly includes racing games and fighting games, but also includes a ton of other stuff.

And on top of that, for fifteen plus years, gamers have discussed things as being in "tiers", and for most of that time, those tiers have typically been either numerical, or letters, and if letters, with S at the top. This isn't a new thing. If you've played any kind of competitive game with multiple characters to choose from, there will have been discussion of tiers - and very often that discussion involves the term S-tier. Sometimes it's substituted with "God tier".

It's certainly ubiquitous within certain genres of video games, so it is very surprising that you've missed it for so long. Even not playing those genres it would be surprising that you didn't see some attempted list involving it.

For an amusing take on this kind of Tier list, see TierZoo, where the channel rates animals in very much the same manner:

 

[Zardnaar]

There is no particular reason why a Forge Cleric can't Magic Initiate shillelagh and be not-MAD.
But actually, a forge cleric does fine if they put ASIs in STR and leaves wisdom at 16. Post Tasha's your dwarven cleric can start with 17 in both wisdom and strength, and have both maxed by level 12.

True but nature clerics get it for free. Instead if arcane initiate they can take pole arm master or warcaster

Arcane clerics can also do that and potent cantrip is funny with Green Flame Blade.

Light clerics just use cantrips and don't bother with melee attacks. They take warcaster instead and wade into combat keying everything off wisdom.

Light has a better spell list, better class features, better chanel divinity than forge and is better at melee.
.they can cast a bonus action spell and follow it up with radiance of the dawn. Other clerics can only use a cantrip.

Without warcaster shillelagh gets tricky to cast for clerics as well.

Basically you skip using weapons hence why I think heavy armor and weapons asked clerics are a bit of a trap (exception higher ability scores/gauntlets of ogre power).

By level 8 that light cleric has 20 wisdom, warcaster if vuman and yeah.

 

[Bacon Bits]

For those people still interested in the origins of the S tier, I happened across this article earlier today that actually does a decent job of discussing the history of the term.

Note: Keep scrolling. The links in the middle of the article make it look really short, but it's longer than it first appears.

Why Does S Come Before A in Video Game Rankings?

D, C, B, A, S? Tier rankings have achieved mainstream meme status, but when did S come to signify the highest possible rank?

www.fanbyte.com

 

[Blue]

I tend to rate Life quite low. It simply has TOO MUCH healing. Unless things are going really badly and everyone is taking tons of damage is special shtick just isn't needed.

I see it the other way around - you will be throwing out some healing, and the Life cleric ability makes it so that you don't have to burn your big slots of healing. Leaving them for other purposes.

 

[TheSword]

What the heck games were you playing for 35 years that you never came across this? Like, seriously. I was familiar with it by, what, 1992? 1994? Something like that.

Did you just never play console games or something? Or never play Japanese games?

Basically almost any Japanese console game that gave any kind of letter ranking, from like, the late 1980s onwards (so yeah, about 35 years) has had S as the top ranking. That particularly includes racing games and fighting games, but also includes a ton of other stuff.

And on top of that, for fifteen plus years, gamers have discussed things as being in "tiers", and for most of that time, those tiers have typically been either numerical, or letters, and if letters, with S at the top. This isn't a new thing. If you've played any kind of competitive game with multiple characters to choose from, there will have been discussion of tiers - and very often that discussion involves the term S-tier. Sometimes it's substituted with "God tier".

It's certainly ubiquitous within certain genres of video games, so it is very surprising that you've missed it for so long. Even not playing those genres it would be surprising that you didn't see some attempted list involving it.

Well my PS4 currently has Assassins Creed Odyssey, Tomb Raider, Dad of War, FF7 remake, Witcher 3, loaded on it? Oh and Minecraft. My apologies playing these games doesn’t make a gamer enough. Perhaps “Japanese games with letter rankings” is too narrow a subject of expertise.

RPG tiers have always been colour coded as far as I have seen. But hey, by all means come up with your own. It’s a futile endeavor in any case.

 

[Zardnaar]

Well my PS4 currently has Assassins Creed Odyssey, Tomb Raider, Dad of War, FF7 remake, Witcher 3, loaded on it? Oh and Minecraft. My apologies playing these games doesn’t make a gamer enough. Perhaps “Japanese games with letter rankings” is too narrow a subject of expertise.

RPG tiers have always been colour coded as far as I have seen. But hey, by all means come up with your own. It’s a futile endeavor in any case.

Colour code was mostly on the forums and it migrated here from the old WotC forums afaik.

Tier lists is what youtube does now across multiple genres.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

True but nature clerics get it for free.

And if Nature clerics could create also magical weapons and armour for free and had a decent spell list the might not be the worst cleric subclass.

Arcane clerics can also do that and potent cantrip is funny with Green Flame Blade.

Light clerics just use cantrips and don't bother with melee attacks. They take warcaster instead and wade into combat keying everything off wisdom.

Both of those are better avoiding melee all together. Arcana is another candidate for worst cleric, since the easily duplicatable wizard cantrip access is the only thing they have going for them.

Light is great, but it doesn't work if you have an urge to play a retro-cleric.

 

[Aldarc]

Both of those are better avoiding melee all together. Arcana is another candidate for worst cleric, since the easily duplicatable wizard cantrip access is the only thing they have going for them.

Arcana is okay, but it's BEST feature doesn't come into play until 17th level. I would have liked to have seen a redesign of the Arcana Cleric much as the Bladesinger got.

Oh, and I forgot. The Peace Cleric is arguably also S Tier.

 

[Zardnaar]

And if Nature clerics could create also magical weapons and armour for free and had a decent spell list the might not be the worst cleric subclass.

Both of those are better avoiding melee all together. Arcana is another candidate for worst cleric, since the easily duplicatable wizard cantrip access is the only thing they have going for them.

Light is great, but it doesn't work if you have an urge to play a retro-cleric.

Wizard cantrip is funny with potent cantrip. That's not bad at will damage. Aquire shillelagh via feat.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Arcana is okay, but it's BEST feature doesn't come into play until 17th level. I would have liked to have seen a redesign of the Arcana Cleric much as the Bladesinger got.

Oh, and I forgot. The Peace Cleric is arguably also S Tier.

Yeah, I'm inclined to disregard abilities of that level - I've never seen a character over 14th level in 5e. Arcana could definitely do with a revised spell list. Or a "swap this spell for a wizard spell of your choice of the same level" mechanic. Never really looked at Peace - unappealing theme.