D&D 5E The New Class Tiers

[Mort]

Wizard has more in combat influence. Bard has more out of combat influence. Especially at levels 1-4. Neither of them come close in tier one to what an optimized battlemaster fighter with feats can do in combat.

Are you limiting your definition of "in combat" to direct DPR?

A bard, for example, can hugely increase others DPR (especially an optimized BM fighter) AND increase the survivability of the group.

It must be considered that 5e is rarely a solo game. Effectiveness in combat includes how much better you make those around you.

 

[Hussar]

As far as ranger/fighter comparisons go, I'd point out two things:

1. As soon as you miss by 2, Precision Strike no longer guarantees a hit. It's entirely possible that you will miss with every one of them. And, you only get 4 Precision strikes, or 5 by higher level, so the maximum effectiveness it can possibly have is 4 hits/short rest. Since, in a 20 round adventuring day, you are making 26 attacks ( presuming 2 short rests - a big presumption), the absolute best you could do is convert 12 misses. And, it's far more likely that it's only going to work about 50% of the time. So, you go from 17 hits standard (66% hit rate) to hitting about 22 times. Those extra 5 hits just aren't going to make up the difference.

2. Hunters mark lasts for an hour. If we're going to give the fighter his absolute best results, then the ranger should never lose an attack for casting HM. There's no reason he can't cast it before a fight, or at the beginning of one fight and it lasts for multiple encounters.

Look, I know that people are convinced that fighters are damage kings. To me, it's white room theory crafting that does not reflect what actually happens at the table. The fighter is, at best, equal to other fighter classes and is generally overall weaker.

 

[Zardnaar]

Wizard has more in combat influence. Bard has more out of combat influence. Especially at levels 1-4. Neither of them come close in tier one to what an optimized battlemaster fighter with feats can do in combat.

I know BM fighter lvl 1 to 5 is tier 1. Bard I would put there as well though due to other stuff like bard dice and out of combat.

BM fighter is clearly the best one early on IMHO.

 

[FrogReaver]

Are you limiting your definition of "in combat" to direct DPR?

A bard, for example, can hugely increase others DPR (especially an optimized BM fighter) AND increase the survivability of the group.

It must be considered that 5e is rarely a solo game. Effectiveness in combat includes how much better you make those around you.

Not at all. Though the Bard basically lacking DPR spells and cantrips AND defensive spells does play a role it's not everything.

For tier 1 Faerie fire is a good debuff spell but you are vastly overrating it IMO. It's a much better spell later than it is early. Buffs and Debuffs in level 1 slots tend to scale very well. Other spells cast in level 1 slots tend to lose effectiveness. That makes it much better in tier 2+ as your level 1 slots would normally be doing next to nothing but yours are quite effective.

So for tier 1 alone, I'd rate sleep and tasha's hideous laughter as better bard spells.

Wizards get both of those and other highly rated spells for tier 1 combat. Magic Missile. Shield. Mage Armor. And out of combat he gets the beloved find familiar (or maybe he takes an owl and uses it in combat). The wizard also gets the often forgotten arcance recovery which gives him an extra spell or 2 per day in tier 1 compared to the bard and that's before we even consider wizard subclasses like blade singer or abjuration wizard or divination wizard.

Looking at level 2 spells the bard has nothing notable that I'm seeing that the wizard don't get. The wizard though has, web, misty step, rope trick, levitate.

There's simply no way I can look at all that and come away with the Bard is better at combat than a wizard.

Now out of combat, the wizard is not very good at the social pillar. The bard is fantastic there. In the exploration pillar though the wizard is better. Teleport with misty step and familiar goes a long way there. Rope trick is also a cool exploration and recovery spell. Levitate doubles as a debuff and an exploration enabling spell.

Overall I'd probably give a slight edge to the bard. But in combat and exploration the wizard outperforms the bard IMO.

 

[Zardnaar]

As far as ranger/fighter comparisons go, I'd point out two things:

1. As soon as you miss by 2, Precision Strike no longer guarantees a hit. It's entirely possible that you will miss with every one of them. And, you only get 4 Precision strikes, or 5 by higher level, so the maximum effectiveness it can possibly have is 4 hits/short rest. Since, in a 20 round adventuring day, you are making 26 attacks ( presuming 2 short rests - a big presumption), the absolute best you could do is convert 12 misses. And, it's far more likely that it's only going to work about 50% of the time. So, you go from 17 hits standard (66% hit rate) to hitting about 22 times. Those extra 5 hits just aren't going to make up the difference.

2. Hunters mark lasts for an hour. If we're going to give the fighter his absolute best results, then the ranger should never lose an attack for casting HM. There's no reason he can't cast it before a fight, or at the beginning of one fight and it lasts for multiple encounters.

Look, I know that people are convinced that fighters are damage kings. To me, it's white room theory crafting that does not reflect what actually happens at the table. The fighter is, at best, equal to other fighter classes and is generally overall weaker.

It's not a either or for me I think the Hunter and Battlemaster are competitive with each other. Hunter might also be tier 1 level 1 to 5. Hunter might stay rated higher for longer though as eventually the BM will fall down to tier 4 while the Hunter would be tier 3 or so.

Spells plus out of combat stuff would bring it up while the world's best BM is only really good at one thing. I would probably knock the BM down to tier 3 from one from levels 6 to 10 then another tier down at 11.
Lore Bard tier 1 level 1 to 20 IMHO.

 

[FrogReaver]

As far as ranger/fighter comparisons go, I'd point out two things:

1. As soon as you miss by 2, Precision Strike no longer guarantees a hit. It's entirely possible that you will miss with every one of them. And, you only get 4 Precision strikes, or 5 by higher level, so the maximum effectiveness it can possibly have is 4 hits/short rest. Since, in a 20 round adventuring day, you are making 26 attacks ( presuming 2 short rests - a big presumption), the absolute best you could do is convert 12 misses. And, it's far more likely that it's only going to work about 50% of the time. So, you go from 17 hits standard (66% hit rate) to hitting about 22 times. Those extra 5 hits just aren't going to make up the difference.

I gave you the math for it. In a 40 attack adventuring day you on average will convert 68.75% of your misses to hits when using precision attack. You use it when you think you miss by 6 or less. It's a very forgiving skill in that regard. Even if you misjudge and use a dice or 2 per day when you shouldn't or fail to use one or 2 when you should the results won't significantly change.

2. Hunters mark lasts for an hour. If we're going to give the fighter his absolute best results, then the ranger should never lose an attack for casting HM. There's no reason he can't cast it before a fight, or at the beginning of one fight and it lasts for multiple encounters.

Hunter's mark competes with crossbow expertise bonus action attacks. Just using the bonus action attack with -5/+10 and forgetting about hunter's mark is better in almost every situation. Damage Now > Damage Later.

Look, I know that people are convinced that fighters are damage kings. To me, it's white room theory crafting that does not reflect what actually happens at the table. The fighter is, at best, equal to other fighter classes and is generally overall weaker.

I've used it in a real game. I was the damage king. I've actually used that setup in 2 different games now. It's the same result. When I'm level 5 and open the combat and action surge and hit on 3/5 of my attacks I just did right at 50 damage. My average hit rate usually comes out around 60% (after precision attackand -5/+10 is factored in... effectively at a +6 attack = AC 15 and below I have a 60% or higher chance to hit). I'm only level 5, so most of my opponents are in the 13AC - 18AC range.

By round 2 I'll have done about 80 Dmg. If I get lucky I can get that up to nearly 100 if roll a little lucky and get 6 of my total 8 attacks I've made instead of the average 5 to land. When you start a combat at level 5 doing 50 average DPR on turn 1 and follow it up by another 30ish on turn 2... the normal level 5 enemies you fight will die in 1-2 rounds.

The ranger doesn't get close to that.

 

[Mort]

Not at all. Though the Bard basically lacking DPR spells and cantrips AND defensive spells does play a role it's not everything.

Viscous mockery, while the damage is minimal, the secondary benefit (disadvantage to next attack) is excellent, especially in low level play.

Cutting words is an excellent defensive ability, not quite as good a bonus as shield BUT can protect others too and atc range.

The blade's defensive flourish was very good in play as it let him pump damage and AC at the same time.

For tier 1 Faerie fire is a good debuff spell but you are vastly overrating it IMO. It's a much better spell later than it is early. Buffs and Debuffs in level 1 slots tend to scale very well. Other spells cast in level 1 slots tend to lose effectiveness. That makes it much better in tier 2+ as your level 1 slots would normally be doing next to nothing but yours are quite effective.

So for tier 1 alone, I'd rate sleep and tasha's hideous laughter as better bard spells.

Fairie fire seems to have worked well in play. Though sleep was also extremely effective. Haven't seen Tasha's.

Wizards get both of those and other highly rated spells for tier 1 combat. Magic Missile. Shield. Mage Armor. And out of combat he gets the beloved find familiar (or maybe he takes an owl and uses it in combat). The wizard also gets the often forgotten arcance recovery which gives him an extra spell or 2 per day in tier 1 compared to the bard and that's before we even consider wizard subclasses like blade singer or abjuration wizard or divination wizard.

Looking at level 2 spells the bard has nothing notable that I'm seeing that the wizard don't get. The wizard though has, web, misty step, rope trick, levitate.

There's simply no way I can look at all that and come away with the Bard is better at combat than a wizard.

Now out of combat, the wizard is not very good at the social pillar. The bard is fantastic there. In the exploration pillar though the wizard is better. Teleport with misty step and familiar goes a long way there. Rope trick is also a cool exploration and recovery spell. Levitate doubles as a debuff and an exploration enabling spell.

Overall I'd probably give a slight edge to the bard. But in combat and exploration the wizard outperforms the bard IMO.

The wizard is definitely very effective in combat, though having seen a bard in tier 1 play for the last several sessions, if a wizard is MORE effective then that's something.

 

[FrogReaver]

Viscous mockery, while the damage is minimal, the secondary benefit (disadvantage to next attack) is excellent, especially in low level play.

Agreed. For tier 1 I rate it as a better combat cantrip than the wizards firebolt. The bard can use a short bow too, which if he has a good dex can easily match or exceed what the wizard is doing with a firebolt (if you are just looking at damage)

Cutting words is an excellent defensive ability, not quite as good a bonus as shield BUT can protect others too and atc range.

It's not bad. You do suffer from limited uses of bardic inspiration in tier 1. It's no where near as good as shield because rolling a 1d6 dice makes even a hit by 2 over your AC have a 33% chance of failure (you would need to roll a 3 or higher). Once you reach level 5 and have short rest recharge bardic inspiration I like it much better.

A lot depends for this ability on if the DM shows his rolls or not. If he doesn't show his rolls it might as well be a worthless ability IMO.

The blade's defensive flourish was very good in play as it let him pump damage and AC at the same time.

The blade defensive flourish helps more with flavor than anything else (at least until you get short rest recharge bardic inspiration dice). You just don't get enough uses of it per day till then to rely on it.

Fairie fire seems to have worked well in play. Though sleep was also extremely effective. Haven't seen Tasha's.

With faerie fire we tend to remember the times it worked. On a solo it has a pretty big miss chance. If it works great, if it doesn't then turn wasted! On smaller enemies they are likely dying in 1-2 hits anyways and sleep would have been much better anyways as it knocked a few of the enemies out of combat immediately and has no save. On larger solo enemies I'd rather have the action denial up front than at the end and so I'd prefer to use tasha's hideous laughter if possible.

The wizard is definitely very effective in combat, though having seen a bard in tier 1 play for the last several sessions, if a wizard is MORE effective then that's something.

The subclass abilities and extra spells from arcane recovery go a long way for them.

 

[Zardnaar]

Faerie Fire is really good, but aid is better due to it not failing.

Sleep is a bit over rated due to hit point inflation in 5E, and its useless against thigns like zombies etc wich are fairly common.

Shield is a bad idea at low levels, you don't really have the spell slots.

Bard dice kinda scale and later on its almost like a heap of shield spells that refresh on short rests, well maybe at level 6 but the bard has spells+ does other stuff so early on I would rate it ahead of the wizard who is going to struggle with the amount of spell slots like the Bard, but the bard can do other stuff as well and Bard dice are kind of an extra level 1 spell slot.

 

[Hussar]

That is a point to remember though when talking about "tiers". Like the bard example, how much does adding a bard to the group improve the group as a whole? Between bardic inspiration and other goodies, it does make a considerable difference. The trick is, how do you calculate just how much difference is it making? That's going to be a judgment call.

Hang on.

I gave you the math for it. In a 40 attack adventuring day you on average will convert 68.75% of your misses to hits when using precision attack. You use it when you think you miss by 6 or less. It's a very forgiving skill in that regard. Even if you misjudge and use a dice or 2 per day when you shouldn't or fail to use one or 2 when you should the results won't significantly change.

But, there's the problem. No matter what, you can only convert 4 misses/short rest, 5 at level 7. You will miss more than 4 times/short rest meaning that you will not convert all your misses. And, since you are only converting 2/3 of your misses at best, in the 26 attack example we used before, you will still only hit 20 times - 17 for regular hits + 3 for precision attack. 3 extra hits cannot possibly equal the 30-40 d8 bonus damage that the ranger has done.

Hunter's mark competes with crossbow expertise bonus action attacks. Just using the bonus action attack with -5/+10 and forgetting about hunter's mark is better in almost every situation. Damage Now > Damage Later.

No. It doesn't. You don't have to use the bonus action every round. You only use it when you've first marked something. At worst you've lost about 7 points of damage on a single attack (note that you will hit more often because you aren't using SS on that attack), which will be made for by subsequent mark damage. Are you assuming that you have to change marks every single round?

I've used it in a real game. I was the damage king. I've actually used that setup in 2 different games now. It's the same result. When I'm level 5 and open the combat and action surge and hit on 3/5 of my attacks I just did right at 50 damage. My average hit rate usually comes out around 60% (after precision attackand -5/+10 is factored in... effectively at a +6 attack = AC 15 and below I have a 60% or higher chance to hit). I'm only level 5, so most of my opponents are in the 13AC - 18AC range.

By round 2 I'll have done about 80 Dmg. If I get lucky I can get that up to nearly 100 if roll a little lucky and get 6 of my total 8 attacks I've made instead of the average 5 to land. When you start a combat at level 5 doing 50 average DPR on turn 1 and follow it up by another 30ish on turn 2... the normal level 5 enemies you fight will die in 1-2 rounds.

The ranger doesn't get close to that.

Yes, but, you only do that once out of 3 combats. Every other combat you are averaging about 30 (ish) per round. Note that the ranger, either brand, has done an extra 10 points from colossus slayer and hunters mark or had at least one, possibly 2 more attacks (thus 6 attacks to your 6 attacks).

See, I've played both the archer ranger and the archer fighter. The archer ranger just outdamages the fighter so badly. Of course, you're insisting on so many presumptions that I can see why you'd think this. You are presuming the following:

1. A battlemaster fighter who ONLY spends superiority dice on Precision Strike.
2. A ranger that never fights his favored enemy
3. A group that uses feats (note, without feats, the ranger is head and shoulders above the fighter)
4. A 2 rest adventuring day.

To me, that's too many presumptions to come to your conclusion. Sure, if all the above is true, the fair enough, the fighter is edging out the ranger. Not by a whole lot, but, sure, a bit. And, not the revised ranger either because he's hitting a heck of a lot better than 66% when you gain advantage on your first round attacks most of the time. Change your presumptions and your argument doesn't work very well.