D&D 5E In your experience, are some classes overshadowed by others consistently?

[ECMO3]

In my experience Rogues overshadow all others, especially Arcane Tricksters or Rogue multiclasses with a full caster.

If you play to their tropes (locks, traps, sneaking) with expertise they are better than any other class can hope to be at those things, if you put expertise elsewhere you can still be as good as others in those things while also being a better face than the Paladin or a better swimmer than the Barbarian. Their combat weaknesses aren't really weaknesses becasue with cunning action they can make the enemy play to their game when they fight or avoid a fight completely since they can outrun a wood elf Monk.

No other class is as versatile or rewarding to play. Fully half the characters I play are Rogues or Rogue multiclasses and I find they are also my most memorable characters I have played.

 

[tetrasodium]

I've played a couple casters to 14 & 16 (wiz & artillerist). GM'd for a ton of AL tables up to 10ish (2 nights a week for a few years precovid) & my home games to low-mid teens.

If no martials take things like GWM/SS things are ok. That typically lasts till 6-8ish at most when fighter & rogue rocket away. Things begin going insane the moment they do though & when fighter gets their 3rd attack at 11 while caster spell slot gains are effectively frozen. It's a very difficult problem to solve & I've not found any minor fixes I like. The llusionist bracers from GGTR that let someone cast 2x cantrips /round pull casters evenish (but still behind) except that does nothing for non-damage casters & is completely bonkers if the warlock gets it. Sorcerer can side step the problem sorcerer 10-11th on on if they have or took 2 levels in warlock to replace one high level spell slot with what is effectively 6d10 at will single target nuke with 30ft knockback from 3*(5.5+5)+10ft knockback which is easily a 4th level spell based on dmg284.

Artillerist does ok if they stick to the defender turret & web. Their damage spells tend to have equal or worse scaling than cantrips, but that only goes so far & they wind up feeling like tattoo yelling da plane da plane because the martials are so insulated they just dgaf about web at some point.

Wizard & sorcerer generally have the same must take spells so the wizard's spellbook is minimal if any benefit while the sorcerer can convert their one high level slot into a bunch of lower slots (ie 2nd & 3rd level ). If the wizard gets a reasonable number of scrolls/spellbooks to scribe they are effectively in need of becoming a gold & platinum black hole while the party is constantly suggesting giving extra money for the fighter in plate to buy plate or so the cleric/druid can cast raise dead spells if needed. I've taken to doing things like "and you find 500gp worth of spellbook inks" & it helps some but becomes a double edged sword of impending depression as the wizard realizes not only do these spells not solve mech but the others in phb/xge/tcoe/etc(?) don't either.

Warlock might as well be lumped in with fighter & rogue as far as visible contribution since basically nothing but the helmed horror is built with screw you features to hit it notably like the giant list that hit other casters

 

[Argyle King]

I find that characters who are geared toward ranged combat seem to perform better overall.

Some feats are obviously better choices than others -especially with the amount of feat choices available being so limited.

Class-wise, I've seen paladin and warlock regularly pull ahead of other classes. Paladin is one of the few classes which has subclasses which are solid 1-20; all of the PHB ones are good.

A lot of classes have somewhat lame and lackluster features for later levels, so multi-classing is typically better than sticking with them.