D&D 5E What class do you think people argue about the most?

[Willie the Duck]

Fundamentally, what are we asking -- what proportion of total discussion (here, or in general?) is arguments about a class, or what proportion of discussion about a class is arguments? I don't recall the last time rangers, monks, warlords, or psions were brought up where it wasn't a heated discussion* about their implementation** and why it stinks. On the other hand, I think discussions arguments about fighters (in isolation or compared to other classes) dwarf all discussions combined about many of the other classes (I would conjecture that 90% of the time wizards are even mentioned are in threads about 'why you gotta be so better than fighters?', but that's only like ~25% of the fighter discussion).
*Minigiant raises a good point that many of the ranger arguments aren't really arguments in that most everyone agrees on at least a major central premise that they don't like them as-is.
**Or lack thereof.

Still genuinely surprised how low Warlock is.
I've seen numerous people on multiple forums constantly complain about Hexblade and how it "ruins" the game etc. By the way people talk about it, you'd think Hexblade was one of the greatest blights on the game.

Here's another hair to split, I guess. I would categorize most of what I see about this* as a discussion about how a minor dip in hexblade* wrecks havoc with the the balance and implementation of charisma classes in general, and often gets rolled into general discussion about cha-based multiclassing synergy and things like sorlocks and sorcadins and such. Single-class Hexblades, while a standout archetype powerful in the Moon Druid/Twilight Cleric vein, probably (again, IMO) aren't notable enough to fuel as rabid discussion as dropped-ball rangers or fighters who can't have nice things or the like.
*plus 2-level any-warlock dips, if your primary goal is Eldritch&Agonizing Blast

 

[Seramus]

Monk and Ranger for me.

Fighters are the ambassador of Martial Classes and often get used in examples, but those are not always about the fighter in particular. So they get a distant third in my book, a long way beneath Monk and Ranger.

 

[Stoutstien]

Fit- artificer. New guy on the block and takes some work to get to jive in some settings. Cue the battle music

Finish- barbarian. Just seems to split the base on the impact of both the chassis and it's efficiency.

Flavor - ranger. Threads become metaphysical every time they're brought up. What is ranger? What does I mean to range?

Balance - wizard. Are they game breaking or is it schrödinger's wizard?

Need- warlock.

Power- monk.

 

[James Gasik]

I mean, we could categorize why arguments break out about classes, but I don't think that has much bearing on the frequency of arguments, which is what the poll is attempting to collect data on.

And according to those in the know, Warlord trumps all of the official classes when it comes to spirited debate, which is why it has the "#0" slot in the standings.

 

[Oofta]

With people I actually interact with? Actually play games with? None of the above. People play what they like and don't complain about classes that don't suit their needs.

 

[Jer]

With people I actually interact with? Actually play games with? None of the above. People play what they like and don't complain about classes that don't suit their needs.

My player who loved playing a 4e Fighter complained about the 5e Fighter and now plays a Rogue instead. I think that's the closest any of my players get to complaining about classes.

 

[Oofta]

My player who loved playing a 4e Fighter complained about the 5e Fighter and now plays a Rogue instead. I think that's the closest any of my players get to complaining about classes.

I personally don't care for the warlock, so I don't play them. I'm not going to ever argue about it. Every once in a blue moon we get into discussions of specific rules, but that's it.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Fundamentally, what are we asking -- what proportion of total discussion (here, or in general?) is arguments about a class, or what proportion of discussion about a class is arguments? I don't recall the last time rangers, monks, warlords, or psions were brought up where it wasn't a heated discussion* about their implementation** and why it stinks. On the other hand, I think discussions arguments about fighters (in isolation or compared to other classes) dwarf all discussions combined about many of the other classes (I would conjecture that 90% of the time wizards are even mentioned are in threads about 'why you gotta be so better than fighters?', but that's only like ~25% of the fighter discussion).
*Minigiant raises a good point that many of the ranger arguments aren't really arguments in that most everyone agrees on at least a major central premise that they don't like them as-is.
**Or lack thereof.

I'm viewing it from a perspective of both how often the topic is broached, and when it is so, whether it is typically controversial or typically showing some kind of consensus.

Warlords are 100% always contentious when they are brought up. Doesn't matter how the topic is approached. Even if you go out of your way to try to avoid controversy, someone will drag it in, guaranteed. It's sort of a miniature version of Godwin's Law, the probably that someone will crap on the very concept of the Warlord approaches 1 as a thread about them grows in length.

Fighters, similarly, usually only get much discussion in the context of caster/martial balance, which is a major controversy with entrenched partisans on both sides (including yours truly.) Part of this is that there's not a whole lot to the class mechanically nor thematically so there's not a lot to discuss about it otherwise, but part of it is that people put a lot of value on the Fighter class (IMO, more than they should!) and as a result it gets hyperfocused by people pushing various agendas.

Monks, rangers, etc. don't tend to get much pushback. People either don't engage, or agree that there are issues. Sorcerer is a little bit more controversial (remember when people crowed with glee because Spell Versatility was removed? That sure was a fun time and not at all tedious and insulting!) but not much. Wizard? People only really talk about Wizard as the poster child of caster classes. Honestly I wish it was MORE controversial, because I see major flaws in the 5e implementation (specifically, it does literally nothing to support the "I am an academic researcher" theme), but that's a separate story.

Here's another hair to split, I guess. I would categorize most of what I see about this* as a discussion about how a minor dip in hexblade* wrecks havoc with the the balance and implementation of charisma classes in general, and often gets rolled into general discussion about cha-based multiclassing synergy and things like sorlocks and sorcadins and such. Single-class Hexblades, while a standout archetype powerful in the Moon Druid/Twilight Cleric vein, probably (again, IMO) aren't notable enough to fuel as rabid discussion as dropped-ball rangers or fighters who can't have nice things or the like.
*plus 2-level any-warlock dips, if your primary goal is Eldritch&Agonizing Blast

First, I just want to say, I continue to loathe how "have one's cake and eat it too" 5e is about balance. Spellcasters in general are horrendously powerful but that's fiiiine. Paladins are straight-up superior to Fighters but that's fiiiine. But good God man, if you let someone spend 2 class levels to have medium armor, attack in melee q with Charisma, and get a decent cantrip attack, YOU'LL DESTROY THE GAME! It's just very tedious dealing with the double standards in play here.

As for the rest: yeah, that's definitely splitting hairs in my opinion. Though to be honest Hexblade does get very specific hate over and above warlock dips in general. I almost never hear people complain about someone going (say) Tomelock with Book of Ancient Secrets, since that lets you learn ritual spells from ANY class, not just your own (but you can only cast them as rituals unless you learn them from some other source.) So yeah, I do think Hexblade gets very specific vitriol, and the fact that it's focused on multiclassing doesn't really change my mind that it is a reason people find the Warlock class controversial.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I don't know, the reason I even felt the need to make this poll is because Monk defenders are just as stalwart as Fighter defenders, and maybe more so.

Interesting. That hasn't been my experience at all. Much the opposite. I have seen very few people claim that Monk (especially Four Elements) is fine; almost everyone grants that it could be improved. The only controversy I've seen is whether that improvement needs to be "minor tweaks to fix a couple major but solvable issues" or "total overhaul."

 

[Benjamin Olson]

I voted for Monk, Ranger, and Sorcerer as the three that, to my mind, have serious 5e design issues, thus being the ones I'm most likely to get sucked into an argument with the advocates of. In the case of Ranger and Sorcerer they've gotten soft but fairly substantial redesigns from Tasha's, both demonstrating their original insufficiency and giving everyone a whole new round of stuff to argue over. The form of this redesign for the Sorcerer was making new subclasses that were much better than the old ones, so now it is a class with wildly unbalanced subclasses.

The Ranger also, of course, has a fundamental debate over what it's even supposed to be with many people having very strong feelings about whether it should be magical, whether it should be more Aragorn-centric, etc.

The Monk has a boneheaded 1 resource point per level design and their strongest ability, Stunning Strike, manages to be both overpowered in a way that trivializes some fights not planned around it, while at the same time being not very fun or satisfying to many Monk players. It is also is one of the classes, if not the class, with the most people thematically opposed to its whole inclusion in the game.

Sorcerers share the 1 point per level resource point scheme with Monks, and it sucks again. WotC gives them nothing for level 2 but an ability they can't use yet. They directly mirror Wizards in a way no two other classes really mirror each other, and Sorcerers mostly get the worse end of that comparison, but can be much more effective at a few things, particularly with careful optimization. Thanks to the dumb points per level their progression is even more quadratic than the Wizard's. All great fodder for lots of "Sorcerers suck" vs. "but Sorcerers can do this cool thing nobody else can" arguments. Anyone who thinks Sorcerers aren't a leading font of argument should look up any thread started here by Hohige.