D&D 5E The New Class Tiers

[FrogReaver]

The accuracy of the SS CE BM Fighter is far lower than the Cleric. The Fighter has a -3 to hit while using SS, while the Cleric has likely raised his Wisdom to 18 at level 4. So we are looking at the Fighter hitting ~20% less often than the Cleric.

No. Precision Attack! It fixes your chance to hit

 

[FrogReaver]

I'll add that the highly optimized crossbow wielding VHuman Battlemaster you proposed is not representative of how most Battlemasters perform at the table.

Agreed. Most people make poor tactical decisions and highly underestimate the power of precision attack.

 

[Merudo]

Agreed. Most people make poor tactical decisions and highly underestimate the power of precision attack.

In most conditions the Gloomstalker is going to attack with advantage because of Umbral Sight. This is roughly equivalent to Precision Attack.

 

[FrogReaver]

Now suppose 3 such Fighters are Blessed by the Cleric. This will increase their accuracy from 45% to 57.5%, meaning the Cleric increases their expected damage by 12.5% * 33 = 4.125 damage. Since there are 3 of them, the Cleric increases the party's damage by 4.125 * 3 = 12.375.

You realize that's a never going to happen fantasy right? 3 BM fighters in a group all optimized for damage. NAH. In fact, it's going to be fairly rare to have an even halfway optimized character that can use GWM or SS so I wouldn't factor in other highly optimized party members into the party. Just average joes.

This is optimize the class and compare, not optimze the whole flipping team to make my characters buffs look better than they will ever actually be in the game.

 

[FrogReaver]

In most conditions the Gloomstalker is going to attack with advantage because of Umbral Sight. This is roughly equivalent to Precision Attack.

You must fight a lot in the dark with no light at all. I find in my games everyone constantly has light. So I don't really find that ability all that likely to trigger.

 

[Hussar]

You must fight a lot in the dark with no light at all. I find in my games everyone constantly has light. So I don't really find that ability all that likely to trigger.

But, which are we talking about? Your games or games in general? It seems that your list of presumptions just gets longer.

I would think that anyone playing an Umbral Ranger is going to make strong efforts to get out of the light as fast as possible. Considering torchlight isn't actually all that big of an area, getting into darkness shouldn't be that hard. But, I suppose if your adventures are always well lit, then, sure, it's going to put a serious crimp in an Umbral Ranger's style.

But, again, that gets right back to my point - you are insisting on the perfect set up for the fighter, but, every other class is automatically in the worst possible position it can be. Of course you're going to think that fighters are head and shoulders better in that case.

I mean, good grief, you're using a human archer. In many, many situations, he should be attacking at disadvantage because he has to rely on light sources. Note, the ranger doesn't have to be human - doesn't need bonus feats to take the prize. Heck, doesn't need feats at all.

 

[FrogReaver]

But, which are we talking about? Your games or games in general? It seems that your list of presumptions just gets longer.

I would think that anyone playing an Umbral Ranger is going to make strong efforts to get out of the light as fast as possible. Considering torchlight isn't actually all that big of an area, getting into darkness shouldn't be that hard. But, I suppose if your adventures are always well lit, then, sure, it's going to put a serious crimp in an Umbral Ranger's style.

But, again, that gets right back to my point - you are insisting on the perfect set up for the fighter, but, every other class is automatically in the worst possible position it can be. Of course you're going to think that fighters are head and shoulders better in that case.

I mean, good grief, you're using a human archer. In many, many situations, he should be attacking at disadvantage because he has to rely on light sources. Note, the ranger doesn't have to be human - doesn't need bonus feats to take the prize. Heck, doesn't need feats at all.

To have SS and CE as a ranger you are using variant human too

 

[Zardnaar]

To have SS and CE as a ranger you are using variant human too

Hunters quarry lasts an hour or more, it may not be wasted casting it. I have seen hand crossbow PCs using it + CBE as well. Even without it throw in horde breaker or colossus slayer and the Ranger is still coming out ahead. The payoff is usually the same round assuming sharpshooter is not used (which at low levels is very risky).

Even with a bow you are inflicting +4.5 damage with no penalty (1d8 vs 1d6 + 3.5 hunters quarry), so 2 attacks with that is dealing +9 damage vs a CBE less damae and the 1d6+5 even is still dealing less damage than the longbow and that is not factoring in colossus slayer or hordebreaker.

Since you don't use the -5/+10 part all of the time the the bow is actually ahead at this point. Until level 11 the Ranger can also take XBE and SS, the fighter might get the combo up 2 levels earlier or have +1 to hit and damage for a bit which is still less than the ranger. You need an 18 dex to equal the damage a bonus action using for hunters quarry on 2 shots vs taking 3 with XBE. The +10 damage can change that assuming it hits though the -5 does matter. On boss fights you often fire your crossbow, throw on hunters mark and then next round fire 3 shots with +1d6 on each one. At least that is what I saw the player doing.

After a few levels hunters quarry is essentially on 100% of the time as its only level 1 or can be made to last a lot longer in higher level spell slots.

They are both situational but the Ranger with bow is always good, high AC target the XBE guy is going to be less effective along with longer range combats (I had an airship fight once, the hand crossbow lacked the range to shoot the flying Dragons). Chuck in magic bows being more common in published adventures I wold probably save the feat from XBE and use a bow as a ranger. As I said in a real game with real conditions Ranger> battlemaster fighter archer and that is ignoring the rest of the Ranger package outside combat.

 

[Zardnaar]

The tier list is based on a "formal" test, not just a gut feeling about combat and utility. Specifically, it is how useful a PC is in each of the following situations:



This results in a tier system that promotes versatility and problem solving above all else, and is why the full spellcasters tended to be tier 1.

That being said, I fully agree with you that level 1-10 are far more important than 11-20

Edit: the fact that the word tier is used for power level and "adventure class" (beginners, veterans etc) is confusing.

If I do a list my criteria wiull be more overall package in real life games (vs white room theory crafting) and a focus on the lower levels. I'll be rating all o the tiers though so yeah things like wizards will move up the tier list and others will go down.

5E you can't get lots of scrolls/wands and potions, might not even find that many rituals, so I'll be looking at power, utility, damage etc. Versatility is a bit over rated in 5E IMHO, the monsters tend to be easy, skill DCs are fairly low and you can get cheap wands of knock and the spell functions differently as well. The old 3.5 criteria no longer apply.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Are you wanting us to rate based on power or versatility?

Versatility is power.

One thing that's worth considering is the apparent versatility of a class vs the versatility possible for a single instance of that class.

For instance, the fighter class gets all six fighting styles, while the Paladin class gets 4 and the Ranger only 3. It'd seem that the fighter's greater choice in fighting style makes up for some of the added versatility of those other classes...

...except you don't ever get to change your Fighting Style once you pick it. For a given character, that's no versatility, at all.

There's many other comparisons analogous to that in ranking classes into tiers. That's why, for instance, the 3.x Wizard was ranked above the Sorcerer, because being able to choose your spells each day was more versatile than choosing them at chargen/level up, even given that the Sorcerer got to cast spontaneously, meaning more versatility was retained after slots were expended. (The 5e wizard, BTW, not only retains the 'prepped' advantage in versatility, but combines it with the 3.x sorcerer's spontaneous casting.)