D&D (2024) 2024 Class Rankings (from nat1gaming.com) for ppl who believe that stuff.

[TwoSix]

Not so because the barbarians power isn’t limited to a single damage source per round which the bladesingers power is.

The barbarian is also getting to ignore being dropped to 0 hp and instead gets healed.

Which is why I said 90% of a barbarian.

You can quibble over the exact effectiveness, of course. But the point is the bladesinger is comparable in effectiveness to a class dedicated to that role. It's not apples to oranges, it's apples to slightly smaller but differently shaped apples. A barbarian has no options that can begin to touch the utility and versatility of a caster.

At low levels, the endurance of a martial has its own utility. By the end of Tier 2 into Tier 3, that utility is mostly negated.

 

[TheSword]

T

Which is why I said 90% of a barbarian.

You can quibble over the exact effectiveness, of course. But the point is the bladesinger is comparable in effectiveness to a class dedicated to that role. It's not apples to oranges, it's apples to slightly smaller but differently shaped apples. A barbarian has no options that can begin to touch the utility and versatility of a caster.

At low levels, the endurance of a martial has its own utility. By the end of Tier 2 into Tier 3, that utility is mostly negated.

While the bladesinger is trying to use all its spell slots to absorb damage that the Barbarian can do without spending a resource, the barbarian is hitting things extremely hard which again costs no resources.

 

[TwoSix]

While the bladesinger is trying to use all its spell slots to absorb damage that the Barbarian can do without spending a resource, the barbarian is hitting things extremely hard which again costs no resources.

What's the damage delta between weapon attack patterns of a 10th level wildheart barbarian versus a 10th level bladesinger?

I honestly don't know, I haven't looked at the 2024 rules that hard.

 

[TheSword]

What's the damage delta between weapon attack patterns of a 10th level wildheart barbarian versus a 10th level bladesinger?

I honestly don't know, I haven't looked at the 2024 rules that hard.

I don’t think the bladesinger is even coming close to the damage that a barbarian can do unless it uses its higher level spell slots.

 

[Ashrym]

Soooooo......

A bladesinger isn't in the 2024 rules. That has to be allowed from past splats by the DM. That option isn't indicative of all spellcasters and doesn't have all the abilities of all spellcasters either.

Training in War and Song is not a good ability. The wizard is just trading in the mage armor spell for light armor. Light armor isn't better and anyone can do better armor with a feat because lightly armored includes a shield. Martial classes have better armor than this ability, and the weapon proficiency is minor. Martial classes have better weapon proficiencies.

Bladesong provides an AC bonus (solid benefit), movement (decent enough), advantage on acrobatics (whatever), and a bonus to concentration checks (good). The problem with bladesong is it lasts 1 minute and is limited to 2-6 uses per day based on level. There are 480 minutes in an 8 hour day. The wizard obviously won't need bladesong up every minute of the day but y'all really have to stop assuming bladesong is always available because it's not.

Extra Attack is a good ability. Not because of any good damage from the bladesinger's poor weapon and ability score damage applied, but because of the ability to substitute one of the attacks with the cantrip. A cantrip plus a weapon attack is better than a cantrip attack. The problem here is the bladesinger needs to split DEX for AC and weapon attacks, and INT for bladesinger bonuses and wizard spell benefits. That's not really an issue for fighters, rogues, and barbarians.

Song of Defense isn't bad. But it is burning those finite spell slots, and it's only an option for those few minutes of the day when bladesong is active.

Song of Victory. Oh look.... there's a damage bonus but not an accuracy bonus and it's based on INT so the build either gave up on DEX or other useful feats. It's also only active when bladesong is active.

It's kind of weird that people would compare the bladesinger subclass to barbarians as if bladesong is always active. Pointing out things like wizards swapping a single spell on a short rest but missing barbarians using d12 hit dice to self heal on those same short rests that also benefit from rage damage reduction is missing part of the picture.

Rage isn't always on either, but rage is also done 2-6 times per day AND recovers one per short rest and rage lasts up to 10 minutes instead of 1 minute. Giving the wizard a short rest means giving the barbarian a short rest and therefore the barbarian can rage more often than the bladesinger can use bladesong.

Unlike the bladesinger, all barbarians have weapon mastery. Weapon mastery is used per attack and most of them don't have saving throws. Let's not pretend this isn't a big benefit.

Things like reckless attack and brutal strike and rage damage and better weapon selection and applying STR to accuracy and damage is better than the bladesinger's offensive attacks. The bladesinger argument is only relying on defensive abilities and trying to portray that as most of the barbarian's benefits.

When the fight starts, barbarians have advantage on initiative with feral instinct. This is a big advantage. When the party is traveling through a tunnel and then they all need to make a DEX save vs a trap the barbarian has advantage on that save from danger sense. This also mitigates damage and was ignored in the analyses above. It's not likely the barbarian or the bladesinger is stanced up for exploration events.

Some of those abilities aren't flashy, but they are good and were being ignored while bladesong was assumed to be constantly active. That's not a good analysis.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

I mean, spellcasting is better. Objectively so. The more spellcasting you have, the better the class is, almost universally. Paladin is probably the one exception; notice how it is the only non-full-caster to be counted among the upper half.

While Paladin is ostensibly a half-caster, if you actually look at Lay on Hands in terms of healing spell equivalencies, they are rather better than half-casters. Somewhat less extreme in 2024 D&D, but still better.

Zealot and Beserker out-damage every other class fairly consistently for single-target damage, which is more of a focus of needed damage for the 2024 MM, but they rank them lowest tier because they're not versatile enough? Meanwhile a class like Rogue (Thief) is about as versatile as they come and it ranks lowest tier too? Meh.

Thieves are very versatile for a martial character, but even thought it is their shtick, the spells an arcane trickster get make them more versatile in many situations.

It's a good that this is a game about collaborative problem-solving and not an MMO/MOBA/Royale/Gacha/etc and therefore these kinds of tiers and rankings are fully meaningless in actual practice.

Particularly in a cooperative and collaborative game, players like feeling that they are contributing significantly to the success of the group.

Caster fanatics will not riot. I’ve had heated debates over whether having super hero-like powers can be ‘non-magical’ (where your skill is so good that it can do nigh impossible feats) and people argued that it NEEDED to be based on magic or supernatural birth or some other “supernatural” explanation.

So while people complain that non-casters should be buffed, those same people complain that it would be “unrealistic”.

I believe that this is false. I believe the group discussing buffs for the non-casters are not the same people that say that anything beyond "guy at gym" performance is unrealistic and must be magical.
I can think of maybe two people who were doing so.

I mean, you can disagree but that’s just not my observation, having been knee deep in some of these debates. Maybe what you notice is different from what I notice. shrug

How long was it after Weapon Mastery was introduced before there were posts on this very forum about how casters should get it as well?

Oh wow. I can see how casters ended up at the top now. The author assigns S tier points when the wizard gains new spell levels, despite the fact that you get diminishing returns. Yeah, that seems like a fundamental flaw in the gradings.

How does accessing new spell levels grant diminishing returns?

 

[TheSword]

While Paladin is ostensibly a half-caster, if you actually look at Lay on Hands in terms of healing spell equivalencies, they are rather better than half-casters. Somewhat less extreme in 2024 D&D, but still better.



Thieves are very versatile for a martial character, but even thought it is their shtick, the spells an arcane trickster get make them more versatile in many situations.


Particularly in a cooperative and collaborative game, players like feeling that they are contributing significantly to the success of the group.


I believe that this is false. I believe the group discussing buffs for the non-casters are not the same people that say that anything beyond "guy at gym" performance is unrealistic and must be magical.
I can think of maybe two people who were doing so.


How long was it after Weapon Mastery was introduced before there were posts on this very forum about how casters should get it as well?


How does accessing new spell levels grant diminishing returns?

Because at casting the higher slot spells takes some resource away from lower level spells. Both in terms of slots and in terms of prepared spells.

 

[TheSword]

Question of efficiency

I think there is another point that is often overlooked when it comes to the martial/caster discussion. That of efficiency.

Casters are versatile but that versatility also comes with a certain amount of waste. A Spellcaster’s powers come from the intersection of prepared spells, spells slots and action economy. All involve a degree of waste. Whereas martial characters are generally tooled to do a few things very reliable and efficiently. Namely kill things and survive. Something that generally comes up a lot in D&D. A martial’s powers are reliable and convey very little waste. They are generally cumulative and make them better at what they do already. They also usually require very little action economy or lead in.

The spellcaster has to guess what spells they might need at the start of a day. Love fireball? Well if your foe happens to have fire resistance you’re a bit stuffed. Love suggestion - let’s hope they don’t have immunity to charm or that they understand your language. Sure you can have redundancy built into your choices with enough spell slots but that very redundancy is not particularly efficient. It means a big chunk of your abilities are not going to be useful in any given circumstance. Being able to change a spell after a short rest helps but only if you have an hour warning of what spell is going to be needed. Most spells act independently of each other. Very few spells make spells more effective. There are a few like mind spike but they require actions of their own and have limited effects.

Look at a fighters powers: weapon masteries, extra attacks, fighting styles, action surge, studied miss, manouvers, improved crit etc etc all making the fighter better at doing what they already do working cumulatively with each other. I also think there is a strong argument that 2024 feats boost physical attacks much more than they boost spells. No guesswork, no soul searching. In some ways 5e martial’s are far more quadratic than 5e casters.

Secondly the consumable resource of spell slots means you always have to be keeping an eye on the tank. Your most effective abilities use your higher slots which you get precious few of in a day. Arcane recovery helps somewhat but only to return the equivalent of one of your highest slots. The truth is unless your DM is formulaic/predictable: your party is happy to rest as soon as you find it convenient; and you can rest safely without interruption you can’t use your entire complement of spells without considerable risk. More inefficiency.

Martial abilities are usually unlimited by charges or if limited are rechargeable through a short rest. There are exceptions, but they are exceptions. Round after round, a martial delivers and can work at an almost peak efficiency every round.

Action economy is huge in the game. The most effective characters are able to meaningfully use an action, a bonus action and a reaction every round to maximise their utility. What reaction does a caster use every round? Shield? It takes up a prepared spell, uses a spell slot and only comes in handy if the caster happens to get hit. If your caster isn’t tooled for frontline combat then they likely aren’t going to be hit. If they’re struck by a save based effect or a high attack roll, shield doesn’t do anything for them. Similarly bonus actions spells and abilities are thin on the ground for a wizard. They are spells that grant bonus action effects but they almost all use higher level slots (3+) and need concentration, not to mention a whole action to cast in the first place. As I mentioned in my earlier post that mirror image is also going to take an action… another round gone without contributing to the fight.

When it comes to action economy a martial’s abilities generally use bonus actions or reactions (if any action at all). Off hand attack, second wind, tactical shift, action surge, weapon mastery, tactical mind, sneak attack, cunning action, rage, tactical action, manouvers, defensive duelist, improved crit, heroic warrior, savage attacker, charger, dual wielder, great weapon mastery, mage slayer, polearm mastery, Sentinel. Some of those don’t even use any action type or grant actions! The plethora of useful bonus actions and reactions makes for very efficient turns.

Lastly many spells are unreliable. Some need enemies to group together, some need friends not to be in the way. Some can be hard to cast in melee. Some can be saved against. Some come with penalties (haste). The variable length of duration for otherwise good spells makes them unreliable. Many can also be overcome simply (sleep/hypnotic pattern) and magic resistance/immunities/resistances can make them less effective. Most of all, only the ones with attack rolls get any benefit for advantage/Inspiration. All this builds more inefficiency into the system.

Whereas, hitting things with a weapon is one of the most reliable things in the game. There is an AC - which is easily outpaced by bonuses as levels scale. Advantage and inspiration both benefit this and are very easy to obtain. Very few things have resistance beyond the basic magic of weapon which is pretty much a given. No saving throws needed. No legendary resistance applicable.

As a result of these substantial changes that came about through 5e, casters benefits are overestimated and a martial’s benefits are undervalued. Skewing the martial/caster debate. 2024 seems only to have made these points more pronounced.

 

[Mort]

Question of efficiency

I think there is another point that is often overlooked when it comes to the martial/caster discussion. That of efficiency.

Casters are versatile but that versatility also comes with a certain amount of waste. A Spellcaster’s powers come from the intersection of prepared spells, spells slots and action economy. All involve a degree of waste. Whereas martial characters are generally tooled to do a few things very reliable and efficiently. Namely kill things and survive. Something that generally comes up a lot in D&D. A martial’s powers are reliable and convey very little waste. They are generally cumulative and make them better at what they do already. They also usually require very little action economy or lead in.

The spellcaster has to guess what spells they might need at the start of a day. Love fireball? Well if your foe happens to have fire resistance you’re a bit stuffed. Love suggestion - let’s hope they don’t have immunity to charm or that they understand your language. Sure you can have redundancy built into your choices with enough spell slots but that very redundancy is not particularly efficient. It means a big chunk of your abilities are not going to be useful in any given circumstance. Being able to change a spell after a short rest helps but only if you have an hour warning of what spell is going to be needed. Most spells act independently of each other. Very few spells make spells more effective. There are a few like mind spike but they require actions of their own and have limited effects.

Look at a fighters powers: weapon masteries, extra attacks, fighting styles, action surge, studied miss, manouvers, improved crit etc etc all making the fighter better at doing what they already do working cumulatively with each other. I also think there is a strong argument that 2024 feats boost physical attacks much more than they boost spells. No guesswork, no soul searching. In some ways 5e martial’s are far more quadratic than 5e casters.

Secondly the consumable resource of spell slots means you always have to be keeping an eye on the tank. Your most effective abilities use your higher slots which you get precious few of in a day. Arcane recovery helps somewhat but only to return the equivalent of one of your highest slots. The truth is unless your DM is formulaic/predictable: your party is happy to rest as soon as you find it convenient; and you can rest safely without interruption you can’t use your entire complement of spells without considerable risk. More inefficiency.

Martial abilities are usually unlimited by charges or if limited are rechargeable through a short rest. There are exceptions, but they are exceptions. Round after round, a martial delivers and can work at an almost peak efficiency every round.

Action economy is huge in the game. The most effective characters are able to meaningfully use an action, a bonus action and a reaction every round to maximise their utility. What reaction does a caster use every round? Shield? It takes up a prepared spell, uses a spell slot and only comes in handy if the caster happens to get hit. If your caster isn’t tooled for frontline combat then they likely aren’t going to be hit. If they’re struck by a save based effect or a high attack roll, shield doesn’t do anything for them. Similarly bonus actions spells and abilities are thin on the ground for a wizard. They are spells that grant bonus action effects but they almost all use higher level slots (3+) and need concentration, not to mention a whole action to cast in the first place. As I mentioned in my earlier post that mirror image is also going to take an action… another round gone without contributing to the fight.

When it comes to action economy a martial’s abilities generally use bonus actions or reactions (if any action at all). Off hand attack, second wind, tactical shift, action surge, weapon mastery, tactical mind, sneak attack, cunning action, rage, tactical action, manouvers, defensive duelist, improved crit, heroic warrior, savage attacker, charger, dual wielder, great weapon mastery, mage slayer, polearm mastery, Sentinel. Some of those don’t even use any action type or grant actions! The plethora of useful bonus actions and reactions makes for very efficient turns.

Lastly many spells are unreliable. Some need enemies to group together, some need friends not to be in the way. Some can be hard to cast in melee. Some can be saved against. Some come with penalties (haste). The variable length of duration for otherwise good spells makes them unreliable. Many can also be overcome simply (sleep/hypnotic pattern) and magic resistance/immunities/resistances can make them less effective. Most of all, only the ones with attack rolls get any benefit for advantage/Inspiration. All this builds more inefficiency into the system.

Whereas, hitting things with a weapon is one of the most reliable things in the game. There is an AC - which is easily outpaced by bonuses as levels scale. Advantage and inspiration both benefit this and are very easy to obtain. Very few things have resistance beyond the basic magic of weapon which is pretty much a given. No saving throws needed. No legendary resistance applicable.

As a result of these substantial changes that came about through 5e, casters benefits are overestimated and a martial’s benefits are undervalued. Skewing the martial/caster debate. 2024 seems only to have made these points more pronounced.

Let's add to this that in 5.24 resistance/immunity to weapon damage is all but gone - even lycanthropes and golems don't have it. So fighters will be able to reliably hit stuff regardless of magic weapons, etc.

Magic resistance, legendary resistance, and resistance/immunity to various elements and conditions common to spells are not only still there but have been (from what I've seen so far) expanded.

That said, IME, the whole casters need to pick their spells carefully, is also not that big an issue. Wizards can prepare A LOT of spells, certainly enough to cover the bases. And bards/sorcerers etc. have more spells known then they used to, their spells lists have to be A LOT less tight than the early days of 5e.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

I don’t think the bladesinger is even coming close to the damage that a barbarian can do unless it uses its higher level spell slots.

Assuming barbarian is raging and attacking recklessly and the bladesinger isn't actually using any of their spells to deal damage, base barbarian is better.
Of course, since we are looking at a bladesinger wizard, it is only fair to compare with a barbarian with a subclass as well. Berserker and zealot barbs do even better.
Things get fuzzier if the bladesinger actually starts using spells, such as a summons, to improve damage and resiliency.

Soooooo......

A bladesinger isn't in the 2024 rules. That has to be allowed from past splats by the DM. That option isn't indicative of all spellcasters and doesn't have all the abilities of all spellcasters either.

It is a playable option now, and will likely be updated. Generally the bladesinger is used as the comparison caster to martials because it is more directly comparable. It literally does the same thing (melee or range attack roll damage), as the martials but also has spells.
Trying to calculate what impact a diviner wizard's portent ability has is hard, but a bladesinger making one Booming Blade and one standard attack plus their summon's attacks can be directly compared to what the fighter or barbarian is doing.

Its for the same reason that we compare damage in threads like these. We know that its only a tertiary focus of the caster, but martials generally have so rudimentary capabilities in other aspects that they cannot be compared at all. A world tree barbarian might be able to be compared with a wizard in terms of control capability, but its hard to quantify. Single target damage gives actual numbers that can be calculated and compared between characters.