D&D 5E What Makes the Fighter Best at Fighing?

[Illithidbix]

A little bit of a sideways answer but:

Their range of proficiencies, Fighting Styles, more ASI and similar class features make them the class who's features care the least about whether you're going for.

A STR based clank fighter, either shield based, two-handed weapon/polearm focused
or
DEX based lightly armoured fighter, either duel wielding, rapier and shield or archery based.

You can play a DEX focused Barbarian or Paladin, or a STR based Ranger, but arguably the class features don't fully work with you for these options.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Back when WotC was developing 5e, they had articles about their design goals for each class. I think they were Legends & Lore articles. The one for the fighter said they wanted it to be the best at fighting. I'm not sure how to get to the legends and lore article archive though. I keep getting that 404 error page.

Was there any indication of what they meant in practice by that (highest damage potential/AC? Highest attack rolls? Highest HP? All? Flexibility?), or is it as subjective as anyone else's definition of what "best at fighting" means?

 

[Tony Vargas]

Is the fighter actually the best at fighting? I mean, I'm not saying straight out that any specific class is a better fighter than the fighter, but I never really see the fighter stand out as being better at fighting than, oh, let's say the paladin.

If you can't think of any other class that's /better/ than the fighter (even if you figure some may be as good), yes, that lets the fighter claim "Best at Fighting."

So maybe to make it a bit more concrete: what I think makes the fighter distinct and powerful in a fight is its flexibility....Action Surge, Second Wind, ASI's.

Well, you got to an answer, even if it was through a quixotic line of reasoning.

Was there any indication of what they meant in practice by that (highest damage potential/AC? Highest attack rolls? Highest HP? All?)

One time he may have implied that it was really just 'best at fighting with weapons,' but the strongest articulation I remember was late in the playtest, when he said something along the lines of a high-level fighter and a high-level wizard could both defeat an army, they'd just go about it differently, the wizard blowing them up with flashy spells, the fighter mowing through them. Something like that. But 'best at fighting' was repeated rather a lot, IIRC.

And, we're not exactly getting a lot of votes against it, and, so far, no alternate candidates for the title.

 

[MechaPilot]

Was there any indication of what they meant in practice by that (highest damage potential/AC? Highest attack rolls? Highest HP? All? Flexibility?), or is it as subjective as anyone else's definition of what "best at fighting" means?

I'd have to dig up the article, and the WotC website has conveniently forgotten the past for us. If you know how to get to the article archive it should be fairly easy to do some kind of Google search for this: design goals fighter best at fighting

 

[Zardnaar]

I think they got the design goal right, just not at the lower levels.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Was this a mechanical goal for the fighter design? Seems like a questionable goal to me - runs in the face of the idea of "class balance" if every fight is dominated by one dude with the right class selection.

Because the designers told us that. Mearls specifically said, "If the Fighter is 100% combat, then the Rogue is 80% combat, 20% exploration" or something to that effect. I know, for a fact, that the Fighter was presented as being the crème de la crème of combat prowess, the standard against which everyone else would be judged and found somewhat wanting (in that category alone), because they got other benefits elsewhere to compensate. This is emphatically not true in the final game. I've crunched the numbers. (Informal and flawed investigation of the ratio of short rests to long rests also seems to indicate a bias against the Fighter's core resources, which are heavily short-rest-based, but being informal and flawed, that's harder to factor into the calculations. Even without considering that effect, though, Fighters are at very best only a hair's breadth above other classes, assuming equal commitment to a given focus, e.g. being a meatshield, pushing out lots of damage, etc.)

 

[I'm A Banana]

Well, you got to an answer, even if it was through a quixotic line of reasoning.

The big point is that "best at fighting" is an ambiguous term that could apply to any class under the right lens. It's like asking what makes a^2 + b^2 = c^2 the most beautiful theorm or asking what makes Coyote the best trickster god. There's no actual answer, just a bunch of opinions that don't talk to each other much because they don't actually agree on what "best at fighting" means.

Because the designers told us that. Mearls specifically said, "If the Fighter is 100% combat, then the Rogue is 80% combat, 20% exploration" or something to that effect. I know, for a fact, that the Fighter was presented as being the crème de la crème of combat prowess, the standard against which everyone else would be judged and found somewhat wanting (in that category alone), because they got other benefits elsewhere to compensate.

This seems really squishy. How do you know that for a fact? Do you know that this stated goal in an article (giving you the benefit of the doubt there) was also the goal for the final class? Do you know how the numbers were calculated? Were the pillars balanced against each other like that?

I mean, in the PHB, all classes seem to fire at least potentially, at least a bit, on all pillars. The Fighter we got clearly has benefits outside of combat, which makes them less combat-focused than a sorcerer or wizard with combat-only magic, forex. If we use that as a guideline, and presume the pillars are balanced in ratio against each other, then the fighter should suck more at combat than a blasty sorcerer.

How do you define "good at combat," and what classes are, by that definition, "good at combat?" Do they also get things that are not combat-related? Would that maybe indicate that there's not an explore/fight/talk ratio in the final class design goals?

 

[Zardnaar]

The big point is that "best at fighting" is an ambiguous term that could apply to any class under the right lens. It's like asking what makes a^2 + b^2 = c^2 the most beautiful theorm or asking what makes Coyote the best trickster god. There's no actual answer, just a bunch of opinions that don't talk to each other much because they don't actually agree on what "best at fighting" means.

Best at fighting doesn't always break down to a DPR number (the Barbarian would win that). The problem is I think is a lot of classes get multipe attacks at level 5 and the other things that make classes good are front loaded such as Barbarian rage and half damage thing, the Paladin smiting and charisma to saves etc.

The fighters 3rd attack doesn't come online until level 11 the 4th attack level 20 (fairly useless as an ability really when evaluating power).

The Battle master fighter is the best one overall but I suspect not many people can use it right as it is complicated and also depends on party make up to how effective it is. Basically how many people are playing Rogues or using Sharpshooter/GWM feats determines how good the BM fighter is. Second wind is not really any better than half damage (Barbarian) and is barely any better than lay on hands and worse in other ways.

Rangers can get horde breaker online early and 1d6 or 1d8 extra damage is generally better than an extra attack or two once per short rest.

Most likely the Fighter will be getting out damaged by Rangers and Paladins for much of his career and it lacks the other options (spells and abilities) those classes have. Barbarian excluding feats can have advantage to hit which still translates into more damage and the drawback can be mitigated easily (healing or kill stuff faster).

 

[NotActuallyTim]

This may be a useful resource, even if it from last year
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...zzaS8vpKMFXG7o6gk70CCdoe-k/edit#gid=952243112

Credit goes to waxeagle of the RPG Stack Exchange

 

[Tony Vargas]

Even without considering that effect, though, Fighters are at very best only a hair's breadth above other classes, assuming equal commitment to a given focus, e.g. being a meatshield, pushing out lots of damage, etc.)

As I pointed out above, even just being able to achieve parity with what each other class can do optimally at 'fighting' would be enough to claim the 'best.'

The big point is that "best at fighting" is an ambiguous term that could apply to any class under the right lens.

I'd think it'd be a stretch for some classes. OTOH, the fighter's class features aren't all that ambiguous - you were still able to pick three, for instance.

Another way to look at this is which features are the least dispensable? How far would a fighter drop behind his rivals if he didn't have Second Wind? Action Surge? Extra Attack?