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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Zardnaar" data-source="post: 7575098" data-attributes="member: 6716779">Level 1-4 Local HeroesTier 1 Cleric: Light. Most spellcasters lack resources at low levels. The light cleric does not. Its flare ability is comparable to shield but you can use it at least 3 time/long rest. Its key ability hoever is radiance of the Dawn which is in effect a level 2 spell. It has a massive AoE for low levels (compare with sleep, burning hands), deals radiant damage and avoids hitting your own allies. And it gets even better later on and it scales. In addition you get a free light cantrip, and are still a cleric and can wear medium armor and use a shield. You also key everything off wisdom that matters.  Druid: Moon. This is all about wild shape and turning into a bear or other utility. Front loaded. Yep, over powered yep. Still a primary caster although you will usually resort to that when you run out of wild shapes yep.Warlock: The Warlock doesn’t really have subclasses as such but it switches on very early and with the default 2 rests (or even 1) it will have more spells that matter than the other spellcasters. And there is the whole Eldritch Blast+ agonizing blast combo. And hex. Basically you have one of the highest damage low level options in the game, plus the option of casting some real spells plus a bit of utility from your invocations, a d8 HD and you can use light armor and simple weapons. And you’re charisma based. You can also pick up rituals in your book of shadows and be a fiend pact warlock that drains life which makes you a bit tougher. Damage, spells, utility, social game, and lots of options make the warlock great at level 1-4. Your book of shadows also gives you 3 cantrips that become warlock spells for you and key off your charisma. Guidance should probably be one of them.Tier 2Bard: Lore Bard. The Lore Bard offers some great things at low tier. It has several great abilities that other spell casters lack such as bard dice, song of rest, and expertise in 2 skills. Additionally being charisma based with extra skills gives it more use once it runs out of spells. It also picks up cutting words which while not as good as shield is not to far off. It’s a bit more front loaded than most spell casters and is almost tier 1 but its not quite there yet. Cleric: Life. The life cleric is roughly twice as good at healing as every other cleric, and gets a short rest ability to heal more. Baiscally the best healer in the game (except maybe multiclass life clerics ruids/Valor Bards). Has some competition from Xanathars and Healing Spirit but you get to play with heavy armor as well. Raed lower than light as the lights abilities are on top of the spellcasting while the life clerics abilities except for channel divinity are still spell based for the most part. Still even a prayer of healing + bonus healing is decent. Fighter: Battlemaster. Fighters tend to take a bit long to get going and by the time they do it’s a bit to late. Well the Battlemaster is an exception to that rule. Its front loaded, the resources refresh on a short rest (including second wind and action surge), the battlemaster is the best low level combatant in the combat pillar. Itis so good at it I have rated the BM fighter at tier 2 due to its versatility, sheer damage potential or even being an archer.  Monk: Way of the Open Hand. At low level all Monks can put out a surprising amount of damage using a staff or spear two handed and getting in a free attackas a bonus action. Being dex based they are better in skill use and exploration pillars as well along with having some utility built in. Flurry of Blows also compares well with action Surge but you can do it a ot more times than action surge and short of the -5/+10 feats the Monk is beter at dealing damage than the fighters. The Way of the Open Hand monk can also knock opponents prone when they flurry which grants advantage to hit with your follow up attacks and for your melee allies. With great rolled stats I would almost put this monk at tier 1 (say if you got 18-20 after racials in dex/wisdom). With the right back ground you are almost better off playing this than the Rogue.  At level 3 and 4 with 1-2 short rests you can flurry a lot. Monk Way of the Open Hand. A low level Monk is surprisingly good with martial arts gaining a bonus action attack. In effect the monk is out damage a two handed great weapon fighter. We all know how good action surge is the Monks flurry of blows is almost better and you can use it a lot more than the fighter action surging. The way of the open hand monk also gets to make a trip attack which is a saving trow to knock the opponent prone. Dex and wisdom based they are better in the exploration pillar, but the monk is mostly focused on the combat pillar. They can sub a rogue however i the skill monkey/sneak role IMHO with the right back ground although the Rogue is of course better. Ranger: Hunter. This class is competitive with the Battlemaster fighter for damage but it a bit slower out the gate level 1-2 than default fighters. Rangers excel at being archers mostly so they don’t get hit in combat which interrupts their hunters quarry. Despite not having to many spells hunters quarry tends to last long enough and plays nice with colossus slayer/hordebreaker. Spells, class abilities and the fact you are probably dex based (lack of heavy armor) brings the hunter up in things outside combat relative to the Battlemaster fighter. The Hunter Ranger will serve you well at low levels. Tier 3Barbarian: Path of the Totem Warrior. The superior path IMHO. All 3 options are good, basically you become even more of a tank, get an aura ability, or mobility similar to a Rogue or Monk using a ki point. In general though you just don't have enough rages to go around as a Barbarian and then you are a bad fighter but on those days you get to nova its great. In general until higher level you can rage in around a third to half your combats. Bard Valor. The fighter Bard from 2E the Valor bard is weaker than the lore bard. Mostly because its not that good at fighting (due to MAD), and its weaker than several clerics at fighting as well. Due to its default bard abilities its enough to put it at tier 3 as while it lacks spells like every other caster at low levels it has default bard abilities which are utility and social.Cleric: Tempest+ Nature. The two best melee clerics the Tempest one has a side helping of blaster, roughly as good as a Druid. The Nature cleric can take shillelagh and key everything off Wisdom perhaps while wearing medium armor with the default array and it also benefits from the polearm master feat+ using a staff with shillagh. This makes it the best low level beatstick cleric.Fighter: Champion. The Champion fighter is rated this high mostly because its still a fighter and its abilities are always on. The other warriors have not really switched on yet either and this is almost as good as it gets for the Champion. It gets a lot better at level 11+ but relative to everything else its not even that good then. By default this is as good as it gets for the Champion.Paladins (All of them) Paladins have a bit of utility with lay on hands, a scant few spells but fo the most part it doesn’t matter to much what one you go with at elvel 1-4 the main differences are their spell lists and channel divinity options. They are slow out of the gate as well (level 1-2) relative to the other warrior classes. Still you do some abilities and you probably have charisma as a secondary stat (or even a primary thank you hexblade). Paladins are also a popular multiclass choice due to the abundance of charisma based classes in 5E but those builds tend to take a while to get going (level 7-10).Rogues (all of them). At level 3 and 4 there is not a massive difference in the Rogues. A variant human Assassin with the crossbow expert feat or a thief with the healer feat is about as good as it gets. The Arcance trickster is the worst of the 3 but it still gets 3 cantrips and can cast 2-3 lvl 1 spells which are still useful.  You can use the cantrips from SCAG but its probably a level or 2 two early to use them and its debatable if they are an improvement over say dual wielding. Otherwise how good a Rogue is comes down to how you build it. They are never the best at anything except maybe skills and that is where they shine. They are basically tier 3 all the way up as other classes such as Bards are also good at skills or can fake it via spells such as enhance ability or even bards/clerics using guidance or any class that has certain feats, MCs etc.  Sorcerer: Dragon. Well a wizard een at low levels is probably beter at spellcasting than a Dragon Sorcerer. However a Dragon sorcerer is tougher (better AC, hp), is charisma based (social pillar) and has the best saving throw combination I the game.With Cantrips like Green Flame Blade you can do a hell of a lot more in melee than a wizard can as well and with rolled stats the melee Mountain Dwarf Sorcerer can make a surprisingly good melee combatant with a great axe. You won’t have enough sorcerery points to do much yet but you can probably quicken a cantrip on occasion (hence the melee sorcerer thing). You also know more cantrips than say a wizard.Wizard: Diviner. The diviner wizad is basically the best one but its still early days yet and you’ll suffer all of the problems low level wizards do with not enough spells to really matter than much. For example compare this class with the others I have rated higher. You will still mostly stink at combat, stink at social stuff and maybe be OK at exploration but portent dice are some of the most powerful things in the game although you want to roll high or low on them. You still lack enough spells to really abuse them and at low levels you want to use AoEs anyway such as sleep and burning hands. Still when you use it to stick a hold person spell or whatever on someone it’s a very fun moment, you just won’t have enough of them (2/long rest, may not roll low etc). Tier 4Barbarian Path of the Berzerker. Yay you get to make an extra bonus attack while raging. The mind boggles you can use a great sword like the polearm master feat. There is just a slight drawback which is the exhaustion level. Functionally this means you can frenzy once per long rest, any more and it goes from inconvenient to suck to potentially deadly. Of course if some players over look this draw back the class is great. With super high rolled stats (two 18's) and a munchkin who over looks that drawback the Barbarian is tier 1!!!!!. In the real world I'll pass more often than not.Cleric: All of the Others. The other clerics are not as good as the best ones IMHO. This is because resources are scarce and the war cleric is worse at combat than the Nature and Tempest clerics and might be better off as an archer with sharpshooter as it can make a limited amount of bonus attacks and get +10 to hit which feeds in nicely with sharpshooter. The other two clerics have a side helping of skill monkey but just play a bard as it also scales better in the next tier.Druid: Land. Take everything I said about spellcasters having a lack of resources and combine it with an OK spell list and the Druid lacks the rituals and cantrips of say a wizard. Throw in one of the worst melee combatants as an added bonus as every cleric for example gets to use better armor. Think of a low level Land Druid as a low level wizard with better armor and worse spells.Monk: Way of Shadow. You are still a monk but your ability is expensive to use and you can’t knock your opponents prone which is a debuff in effect. On the plus side you are still a monk but you are behind the Way of the Fists monk at these levels since you probably want to flurry anyway.Fighter: Eldritch Knight. This fighter ends up as the best fighter but it’s a long way in the future and by then it doesn’t matter. Its debatable if this fighter can even cast spells as a sword and board fighter for example and in any event it doesn’t get enough of them and even green flame blade is a bit of an anti combo once you hit level 5 let alone level 11. Just not very well designed I would almost rate it tier 5 but the base fighter itself is decent enough but it leaves very little room for the subclasses.Sorcerer: Wild. This class varies a bit by how much your Dm lets tides of chaos trigger. And you can hypothetically fireball the party at low level. For the most part it is just a low level spell caster that’s squishy and has no extra resources that matter such as channel divinity or bard dice. You won’t have enough sorcerer points to go around.Wizards (all of the others). Wizards have a great spell list but at low levels you won’t know enough of them or be able to use enough of them to matter. And other spell casters can also use rituals as well. Ritual casting gets very good with level 3 spells, but at low levels its mostly just cute. Throw in bad AC, weapons, crap hit dice and class features that often don’t kick in until later (or can be abused much until later) and the wizard is in a bit of a sorry situation early on.  Tier 5. Monk: Way of the 4 Elements. Generally regarded as one of the worst classes, this is because your elemental powers cost to many ki points relative to what you get out of them. This means you are probably better off just using default Monk abilities which means you would be better served by the other two PHB monks- or any of the other Monks in other books. Avoid. Ranger: Beastmaster. The animal companion is weak and awkward to use. Hunter Ranger riding a Moon Druid is a better option or just be a hunter ranger instead. Generally regarded as one of the worst archetypes in the game and is a failed concept.</blockquote>

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