D&D 5E Classes that Suck

[CapnZapp]

The Rogue can get TWO sneak attacks every round, but that is difficult.

In a game where feats are used, I think Rogues are underpowered.

 

[Undrave]

They are not as bad as they look on paper though. The principal weirdness with the PDK (and the champion, as a matter of fact) is that they only have 1 feature are 3rd level, while other fighter archetypes gain 2 or 3, even if some of them are as minor as a bonus proficiency or whatever; its still better than nothing. But beyond that, the rallying cry is more or less one casting of Mass Healing Word per short rest, a 3rd level spell. At 7th level, they gain 1 expertise and 1 other skill prof if you planned a little in advance. That's not bad either, there's not a lot of class that offer double prof on a skill. Bulwark makes Indomitable at least passable; you'll fail the saving throw anyway even with the re-roll because you'll likely want to use it on a non-proficient save. Might at least make it worthwhile by allowing a ally with potentially a better save modifier to succeed against an effect. All that put over the main fighter chassis which is highly functional, while a little boring, makes for a nice archetype that brings more than ''moar damagez!'' to the group.

The problem with the PDK is that their new toys use up their basic class features without giving them more use of them so they effectively have less ressources than other archetypes. The Indomitable one is also too situation to be worth a full class feature. The PDK should do more than it does now.

For the AA, I must say that after seeing one in play, the banishing arrow, the grasping one and the semi-blind one are pretty nasty against the boss of an encounter. I'm still butthurt that my girlfriend kinda soloed the second Cryanwrath encounter in HotDQ by banishing him while they cleared the mooks with him, then grasping him while the party plinked him with ranged weapons like a bunch of miserable cowards!

the Arcane Archer's problem is that they run out of cool things to do in a flash and only recharge on long rest. If they were balanced around short rests, say similar to a Warlock, they'd be a lot more interesting. They're effective when they ARE Arcane Archer, but they . They should also be able to make them shots count as magical damage without expending ressources around the time a monk's fist become magical.

It is extremely easy to keep a rogue from sneak attacking if you make a determined effort to. The most basic thing is to just take the dodge action and give him disadvantage. Any creature can do that and unless the Rogue has a way to force advantage to cancel the disadvantage there is no way he can sneak attack regardless of their allies positioning. That is not to say it is not a high cost but it is very easy to do

If you dodge though, you give up your attack so I'm not sure how that doesn't advantage the party then.

Is the Rogue THAT much of a threat that you need to dedicate tons of ressources and attention to disabling their Sneak Attack when a Fighter can just full attack for a similar result and is usually harder to take down?? I feel like your obsessed with denying the Rogue their bonus damage a little too much if they can only get it once every 4 round.

I'm still certain the Rogue's damage is balanced around sneak attacking every turn so a once every two round feels more like a 'Monsters are aware of the Rogue's ability, but they also need to take the rest of the party into account' normal situation.[/quote][/QUOTE]

 

[doctorbadwolf]

The Arcane Archer and Purple Dragon Knight are some of the worse subclasses in the game though, no one wants those guys. And the Samurai is about as exciting as the Champion, but at least is a decent pick I guess. Doesn't excuse the base class not getting anything.

And Rogues CAN gets their sneak attack every turn. The class is basically balanced around that idea. It's not difficult.



Why not? The PHB doesn't have a good 'gish' class (aside from maybe the Paladin's smites), I think it should be possible to pick between the ranged and melee options of the Warlock, but either side shouldn't be taking up ALL your invocations. A EB spammer only take Agonizing Blast to be about as potent as an archer, so I think a melee Warlock should only need 1 Invocation as well (and that they should have SCAG style melee cantrips in the PHB) to be good in melee. You should have room for more utility invocations.

This is why I keep saying that the pact of the blade should have simply let you pick a warlock cantrip, and change it's attacks to melee spell attacks using a weapon that you can manifest as part of making an attack or as a bonus action. Boom. Now it can be Eldritch Strike in all but name, and benefit from all the Eldritch Blast Invocations.

Also, Agonising Blast should be "choose a warlock cantrip that you know." rather than only working on EB.

 

[Undrave]

This is why I keep saying that the pact of the blade should have simply let you pick a warlock cantrip, and change it's attacks to melee spell attacks using a weapon that you can manifest as part of making an attack or as a bonus action. Boom. Now it can be Eldritch Strike in all but name, and benefit from all the Eldritch Blast Invocations.

Also, Agonising Blast should be "choose a warlock cantrip that you know." rather than only working on EB.

The thing with Agonizing Blast is that is scales poorly with Cantrips who don't make multiple attacks the say way Eldritch Blast does.

 

[Chaosmancer]

It's pretty good but it relies on an awful lot of assumptions, and by making them AC12, instead of likely 18+ at that level, you're making it so that basically any CC/debilitating effect that is a rider on an attack roll is definitely going to hit them. It is extremely strong at level 7 though, for sure, just because of the huge numbers (which is essentially a level/CR discrepency - a level 7 PC is more like CR4 than CR7, but Polymorph treats them as CR7), assuming you have the willing victims. I just don't buy all this gibberish about how you're going to cast it 3x a day and it's way better than Wizards and so on. It's more like a great trick when you have two damaged frontliners and need them to beat the snot out of people for you, Donkey Kong-style.

I agree that it doesn't make them better than the wizard, in fact, I see it as indicative of a problem that just doing this twice is supposed to show that the class isn't too weak, like a Bard or Wizard doing it once isn't just as effective.

But, I would say there are very few riders on an attack that the Ape cares about. Being Huge, it generally can't be grappled, and the only other rider I tend to see is just more damage from poison, which the Ape has good Con to counter.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

If you want a melee character why did you choose Warlock? They should not be on par with other melee characters.

I want to play a Hexblade Bladelock without sucking, compared to both other Warlocks and other melee/ranged weapon attackers. A hexblade that doesn't multiclass can get at most 3 attacks in a round with a weapon (using feats as well), compared to a EB spammer's 4 attacks. The highest damage dice you can do for this if you just want to make 3 attacks every round, not dependent on killing other creatures, without being mounted is 1d6 (crossbow expert, hand crossbow). While mounted, it's 1d12 (but there are disadvantages to that as well) with a lance and the dual wielder feat.

So, only 3 attacks each round, which takes at least one feat to get and an eldritch invocation (Thirsting Blade), when it takes EB spammers no feats and only one Eldritch Invocation to get Agonizing blast, makes the Hexblade feel sucky.

Then, if the Hexblade wants to actually do more/equal damage to an EB spammer, they need to use a spell slot to Hex, just like the EB spammer. They then need to take Sharpshooter, Life Drinker, and Improved Pact Weapon, while also giving up their bonus action every round to make threee attacks while the EB spammer is making 4 in one action. You'll need Haste cast on you by a buddy to match the amount of attacks in a round. (Also, note that the only way to have a hand crossbow as a pact weapon is to get a magic one, with the help of your DM or an Artificer (let's assume it's +2 at this level).

Hexblades have to give up a lot to be on par with other Warlocks, and other weapon based characters, and need a lot of help from their DM and fellow players just to not feel like they suck.

 

[NotAYakk]

This is why I keep saying that the pact of the blade should have simply let you pick a warlock cantrip, and change it's attacks to melee spell attacks using a weapon that you can manifest as part of making an attack or as a bonus action. Boom. Now it can be Eldritch Strike in all but name, and benefit from all the Eldritch Blast Invocations.

Also, Agonising Blast should be "choose a warlock cantrip that you know." rather than only working on EB.

Adding "you can attack an additional target" clause to AB or another invocation makes other warlock invocations tempting.

It doesn't boost EB nearly as much.

So at level 5, you can 1d10+4 * 2 + 1d10+4 on another target, or you can 2d10+4 on two targets (firebolt).

It is a power upgrade however.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

The thing with Agonizing Blast is that is scales poorly with Cantrips who don't make multiple attacks the say way Eldritch Blast does.

Adding "you can attack an additional target" clause to AB or another invocation makes other warlock invocations tempting.

It doesn't boost EB nearly as much.

So at level 5, you can 1d10+4 * 2 + 1d10+4 on another target, or you can 2d10+4 on two targets (firebolt).

It is a power upgrade however.

I’m fine with it just being better for EB than for Firebolt. It’s still worthwhile for Firebolt.

The point is that EB shouldnot have a bunch of exclusive buffs, and instead those buffs should be available regardless of cantrip choice.

 

[Ashrym]

Level 3,4 and 5 spells are all similar in power level and most scale pretty poorly. Wizards essentially get the ability to cast one of their best spells every encounter starting at 7th level and surpass it by 9th. All the while having subclass features, ritual casting, 7 level 1-2 slots for additional utility, a better spell list and more spells known.

Warlocks start casting their best spells once per encounter starting at 2nd level if short rests are regular.

All the while having subclass features and invocations.

It's the inability to spend more slots on a single encounter until high levels (more slots plus arcanum) that holds them back.

I just want to step-in with something I see often about "scaling" with damage with spell.

Alot of spells are AoE and it's expected that they do damage across multiple creatures at once. The DMG gives a guideline of how many targets to expect an AoE to hit.

If we use that, the expected damage a 3rd-level fireball is expected to deal is 112, split over 4 targets. When a spellcaster upcasts to 4th-level, it's expected to do an extra 4d6 damage, boosting it to an expected 126 damage.

Now, a warlock has limited damage spells known anyways. The only 4th-level damage spell they know is blight, which does 8 more single target damage than fireball, but is only single-target. Plus, a warlock only gets fireball via the fiend patron.

Unless you go fiend, it's hard to use a warlock's spell slots in a purely offensive way.


While that would be theoretically true, it's actually impossible.

If a wizard had 1 spell slot of 4th level and expended that one, then took a short rest, they would only get back the 1, since only 1 4th-level spell slot was expended. Meanwhile, if they had expended 2 5th-level spell slots, they would only get back 2 more. Meaning in order for a wizard to cast their strongest spell once an encounter, there'd need to be less than 3 encounters at level 7 and 9 and less than 5 encounters at level 8 and 10.

And remember, arcane recovery is not a pool that you pull from like sorcery points. Once you do it, that's it. Any half-levels you don't convert to spell slots are completely wasted for that day and another short rest will not allow you to get those spell slots back, which is why it's incorrect when someone says a sorcerer's font of magic is equal to a wizard's arcane recovery.

The ability to swap sorc points for slots is better than arcane recovery. It's not usually better than spending sorc points on metamagic though, and ends up a minor consideration because if it.

One subclass cannot prove that the class doesn't suck. If the base class doesn't have that, it shouldn't really be in consideration for if the class sucks or not.

But it's only one questionable subclass that looks weak. Divine soul and shadow are good. Draconic is good with a decent color. Storm is decent with some system mastery.

Wild is fun and gas some decent abilities. It's just how surges are handled that make it questionable.

The Arcane Archer and Purple Dragon Knight are some of the worse subclasses in the game though, no one wants those guys. And the Samurai is about as exciting as the Champion, but at least is a decent pick I guess. Doesn't excuse the base class not getting anything.

Arcane archer and PDK are okay. Fighters have a strong enough chassis that a subclass giving up some combat ability for non-combat works.

In the games I DM a Rogue can almost always get SA it in round 1 but only in about 4 rounds out of every 10 after the first time he does it in a battle against intelligent monsters.

Disagree. A good party generally gets sneak attack for the rogue.

The Rogue can get TWO sneak attacks every round, but that is difficult.

In a game where feats are used, I think Rogues are underpowered.

I've gotten 4/rnd without cheese at high level on a thief. 2 isn't that hard but it gives up uncanny dodge in the process.

The problem with the PDK is that their new toys use up their basic class features without giving them more use of them so they effectively have less ressources than other archetypes. The Indomitable one is also too situation to be worth a full class feature. The PDK should do more than it does now.

Player: fighters suck because they lack out of combat benefits.
Response: PDK
Player: PDK sucks because because it has weaker combat options

??? ;-)

It's the same conundrum. Players say they want non-combat on a fighter but when given a choice they go for combat abilities. This happens with subclasses and feats.

the Arcane Archer's problem is that they run out of cool things to do in a flash and only recharge on long rest.

Arcane shot recovers on a short rest, and later has the "recover on initiative if empty" ability.

Were you thinking EK?

 

[Asisreo]

The ability to swap sorc points for slots is better than arcane recovery. It's not usually better than spending sorc points on metamagic though, and ends up a minor consideration because if it.

I think the most attractive thing about a high-level sorcerer is they can really leverage their spells in unique ways with metamagic and other things.

At a certain point, casters will have more slots than they will have reasonable actions to use them with. A sorcerer, in particular, will have less utility spells than other classes. However, the sorcerer's spell slots that aren't being used do not have to collect dust. They can be converted to be used with metamagic. By time you're casting 7th-level spells, 2nd-level spells aren't that big of a deal. But you can find yourself using them to enhance spells with metamagic even further. You can also convert them into more powerful spell slots more often. So you don't need to only have the 3 5th-level spell limit a level 13 wizard/druid would have.

And having extra metamagic at higher-levels is incredibly good. Being able to heighten your most powerful spells is soooo good. It's a bit expensive at lower levels but there's nothing quite like imposing disadvantage on your polymorph, then hitting them with an empowered finger of death (ignores restances/other features).