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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Tony Vargas" data-source="post: 6659959" data-attributes="member: 996">My impulse is to deny the question:  5e is based around the roving-spotlight style of balance.  No class is 'most powerful,' in every circumstance, each will shine some fraction of the time.  When you need to beat down a magic-immune golem, the fighter will shine, when you need to bring back a dead comrade, the Cleric will shine, when you need to steel a sacred scroll, the Rogue will shine, and so forth.If you want raw, quantitative, easily measured power, look at DPR.  You have a crowded field:  the Fighter leads the pack in the simplest analyses due to multiple attacks, while the Barbarian, Paladin, and Warlock can all rival it - and so can most other classes in just the right situation, or by a metric that favors them (adding up all the damage done to each of many enemies in an AE, for instance).If you want to shake the classes out into Tiers (which, more than anything, were a ranking of versatility), the usual suspects - Wizard, Druid, Cleric - bubble to the top (and, together, they represent 17 of 38 possible sub-classes, so in a sense, that's half the potential PCs in Tier 1, making it a lot less meaningful). The Bard can't be far behind them, while Warlocks and Sorcerers are solidly Tier 2.  Tiers 3 & 4 would be inhabited by the half-casters (Paladin, Ranger, Eldritch Knight, Arcane Trickster), Monks, Barbarians, and the Assassin, Thief, and perhaps even Battlemaster, with the Champion bringing up the rear, but hardly bad enough at his specialty to rate Tier 5.  A bimodal distribution, really, with Tier's 1 & 4 predominant.Still doesn't give you a clear answer to the question, though. ;P  I mean, think about it, you've got two plausible rankings, and the guy arguably in the lead of the one, is right at the bottom of the other.  It's not a tight, robust, or predictable sort of balance - but it's not entirely unlike the volatile balance of the classic game - which, is, afterall, the feel 5e was aiming for....And, don't forget the other major goal of 5e:  DM empowerment.How powerful the class is in the standard game is just a starting point.  The DM could take a lowly class and elevate it, or cut an 'overpowered' one down to size, either by modding them, or by manipulating the situations in his campaign, or by simply ruling consistently to (dis)favor one or the other.</blockquote>

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