5e Class Tier List

I reckon they are more popular now, with the rise of critical role and 5e bards being VERY strong

Wizards = Lore Bards > Clerics > other Bards > Druids > Paladins > Warlocks > Sorcerers > Rogues = Barbarians = Fighters > Monks > Rangers

It's decently balanced but it still swings heavily in the favor of casters. The designers still have an obvious caster bias, and all of the content that's been released since the initial books have just been making casters stronger and barely improving martials. The only one that actually gave a worthwhile fix to a martial (Revised Ranger) was pretty much disowned by the designers because they were afraid that people would be confused by it.

Why are lore bards good?

Aren't the extra proficiencies made redundant by Jack of All Trades?

Don't you want to be a valor bard for that sweet half-plate proficiency and shield proficiency?

The extra Magical Secrets you get at level 6 are meh anyway.

A lot of it comes from...well, spellcasting is just so very versatile. They'll print non-combat spells but they don't print non-combat battlemaster abilities.

Cutting Words is one of the most powerful abilities in the game.

>>barbarians are rank 3

explain yourself

I mostly agree, except for the fact that warlocks aren't dead last.

It's not even that warlocks are objectively the worst class, their existence is just entirely redundant. Wizards outdo them for versatility, and Warlocks outdo them for sheer damage (unless your DM is giving you long rests after every single fight). They simply have no reason to exist, except multiclass cancer.

I miss 4e warlocks on that front, where they were the utter masters of horrific status effects.

Cutting Words is incredibly powerful and Magical Secrets is the single strongest class feature in the entire fucking game, even edging out Portent. It's absurdly powerful. You can even pick Paladin and Ranger's iconic, super powerful, unique spells BEFORE THEY CAN. A Bard can get Aura of Vitality incredibly early and make hit point recovery a non-issue.

And that's all on top of being full-casters with a strong spell list, decent longevity, the best skill features in the game (even better than Rogue, who are supposed to be the best skill monkeys), and unique support abilities that are always useful. They also use the best casting stat that has the most multi-classing potential.

If I had to be more precise with that tier-list I'd say that Divination Wizards are a bit better than Lore Bards and other Wizards, but it's less of a distinction than Lore Bard compared to every other type of Bard. Valor is utter shit compared to Lore, and Valor's honestly a great archetype.

That's a lot of it, but even in regards to combat they've just buffed casters again and again. They keep adding more options for them to excel in combat as well as have more out-of-combat options. The SCAG cantrips, Hexblade, options in Xanathar's, etc. You just have to look at the UA and see how obviously biased they are towards Wizards. Every single Wizard archetype is incredibly broken or rips features from other classes (they keep wanting to destroy Sorcerer by giving Wizards what amounts to metamagic).

There's plenty of ways to make martials better at out-of-combat stuff, which is their real flaw. WotC just doesn't want to do any of them.

Warlocks are mid-tier just because of how good they are for multiclassing. The first three levels are so absurdly front-loaded that basically any class can invest in it if they have the stats and they won't be damaged. Sorcerers, Paladins, and Bards can do absurd shit with it.

They also get bumped up because Hexblade is so fucking broken. Every time WotC fixes the slight issue that is Blade being worse than the other Pacts they wind up absolutely fucking the balance of the game in every other way, without even fixing the initial issue.

Sorcerer just doesn't have an identity, which makes it incredibly hard to define something as 'it's thing' that it should keep. I mean, that's not really a new thing. They didn't really have a 3.5 identity either. I think 4e handled the sorcerer best fluff-wise weirdly enough by starting off with their mechanical role (Another area the sorcerer has often had issues with) and letting it grow from there.

Pretty sure you meant to say Sorcerers.

>Cutting Words is powerful
Yeah fucking right.

>Lore Magical Secrets
Woooooooooooooo, 2 more level 3 spells from any list! That ain't breaking shit.

Valor bards have, like, 5 more AC than Lore bards and don't die as easily.

Their mechanical identity in 5e is supposed to be metamagic, which is all they have. And while it's not enough to make them as good as the other casters, it's still really strong for some niche uses. Twinning Haste is always great, for example.

The mechanical role they -should- have is being the best blaster casters. Wizards need to have their damage capabilities gutted until they're just utility casters. The fact that Wizards outshine Sorcerers at damage and the Sorcerer's best use is as a buff-bot for other party members is fucking stupid.

A flaw, fluff-wise, in 5e is that they leave Sorcerer, Wizard, and Warlock too open-ended because they don't want to step on toes. Somebody that makes a pact with a dragon for tutelage in the ways of magic could easily be swung as any of them if the player had a mind to, which is just kind of ridiculous. It needs to be defined better. Of course, it's not that much dumber than the fluff difference between Fighter and Barbarian.

pic related

If you don't know what the fuck you're talking about then don't bother.

>There's plenty of ways to make martials better at out-of-combat stuff, which is their real flaw. WotC just doesn't want to do any of them.

It's not just that. We've gotten (A little) non-combat stuff for martials but in order to get that, you need to give up combat power (See: The Mastermind Rogue). That's not something spellcasters tend to have as an issue, as they've got enough spells that they don't lose any real power by spending a couple on non-combat stuff. A divination wizard doesn't give up combat power because he chose a non-combat school of magic.

I would like to remind you that these are all only 3rd level spells:
-Haste
-Slow
-Aura of vitality
-Blinding smite
-counterspell (perhaps the single best spell in 5e)
-Hunger of hadar
-Animate dead
-Conjure barrage
-Lightning arrow

and of course, Fireball and Lightning bolt

The sorcerer desperately needs some unique spells, rather than having the same spell list as the wizard...except smaller.

The only sorcerer archetype i think is worth anything is Divine soul, its really just a charismatic cleric without armour proficiency.

having access to both spell lists makes the sorc's limited spells known tolerable since they have access to both a good offensive and defensive list

Yeah, that's really part of the flaw. All of the non-combat options are either useless and tacked on (Battlemaster's) or treated as a trade-off. Martial non-combat utility should have come as an inherent part of each class that you don't have to sacrifice to get. They can't really change that, now, without rewriting the classes (which they did with Revised Ranger but went back on despite it being pretty much perfectly designed). The balance should have been that martials are MUCH better at skill checks than casters, but as it stands casters are just as good or better at them than all of the martials besides Rogue, who's still worse than Bard.

Giving a full-caster traits that resemble a martial is worse than just giving it more full-caster traits. Valor bards can do better in a straight-up fight than Lore Bards, but the Bard shouldn't be getting into a straight-up fight unless it's an absolute last resort. It's the same reason that Blade Warlocks are shitty and why Bladesinger is mediocre (despite retarded AC stacking memes). The best way to use those traits is as a safety net if somebody slips past the frontline and starts fucking with you, and picking an archetype because it gives you features you might use in a panic situation is worse than picking an archetype that gives you features you will ALWAYS use.

That would help with it, too. If they were to remove Wizard's damage capabilities a lot, I think that would help with that endeavor. I doubt they'd ever do that because people would throw a fit if Wizard was drastically changed for the benefit of other classes/the system, though. Not to mention that 5e's designers have huge hard-ons for Wizards and the like.

>That would help with it, too. If they were to remove Wizard's damage capabilities a lot, I think that would help with that endeavor. I doubt they'd ever do that because people would throw a fit if Wizard was drastically changed for the benefit of other classes/the system, though. Not to mention that 5e's designers have huge hard-ons for Wizards and the like.

Yeah. Which is annoying, as I'm sure they could do some very fun unique spells for the sorcerer. Play up the fact that sorcerers have more raw power under the hood than most other spellcasters and say, introduce a counterspell variant they get access to that does hefty damage to the other spellcaster as you immolate the spell in his mind rather than carefully unweaving it like a wizard would.

It doesn't need to be a dramatically new spell, it can be variants with unique tricks.

They're not much better than the other level 3 spells a bard has native access to.

>I'll be fine with my crap AC. I'm in the back row anyway, so I'll be fine!
>Ooops, those archer enemies sure focused their fire on the squishy mage, and now I'm dead.

honestly the level 3 bard spells are garbage aside from:
-bestow curse
-dispel magic
-glyph of warding

the rest are honestly very situational and generally not great

Oh I should add that this list is core only, I dont have access to my other books right now

>Lore Bard totally isn't the best archetype in the entire game and Valor Bard is just as good, what are you talking about guys?

Again, if you don't know what you're talking about, don't bother talking about it. Lore Bard is just as good, or better, at avoiding damage in a panic because of Cutting Words, anyways.

Also
>20d6 healing isn't that much better

Tier 1: Wizard, Warlock, Bard
Tier 2: Cleric, Druid, Sorcerer
Tier 3: Paladin, Barbarian, Ranger
Tier 4: Fighter, Monk, Rogue

It all comes down to versatility and flexibility. Tier 1 classes have a large toolbox of problem solving options at their fingertips. Tier 2 classes have a moderately sized but no less effective toolbox. Tier 3 classes have very effective but niche aptitudes. Tier 4 classes are good at maybe one thing, but it's something another class does as well or better than them.

As long as D&D uses Vancian magic spellcasters will always be stronger than martial characters. I'm not saying 'muh caster supremacy reeee', I'm saying that no amount of hit points or attacks per round or skill proficiency is going to prove equal to a Wizard's ability to bend reality in specific, quantifiable, and incredibly powerful ways.

>Cutting Words
Any uses of that drain your inspiration dice you could've given allies.

>20d6 healing
More like 2d6 per round, with your bonus actions and undisrupted concentration.

You use Aura of Vitality out of combat. And using your inspiration die to basically ensure that a hit doesn't land is a great use of it. You can choose to use it after you see the attack roll, so you can judge if it's worthwhile to try to get it below your AC. On top of that, you can also choose to lower the damage if it does hit you. Cutting Words is MUCH better than Valor Bards having to rely on their teammates actually remembering that they have inspiration dice and using them at the right time, because Cutting Words can always be used at the right time by its nature.

You clearly don't know what you're talking about. I like Valor Bard, too, and I think it's much cooler thematically than Lore Bard, which is incredibly bland. That doesn't change that Lore is much stronger than Valor.

in what world is sorcerer better than paladin??

Am I the only one who likes revised Ranger, but hates the fact that it gets the full humanoid group as a single choice?

i would guess the other way around
Bards we're shit for the longest time and 5e makes them one of the best classes easy

Why is that any worse than getting all demons and devils as a single choice?

depends on your setting but you generally encounter a lot more humans than demons and devils

So can anyone tell me how this makes sense?
>Casters work based on magical ammunition(spell slots)
>Caster spells are stronger than martial abilities(generally), but cost spell slots to use.
>Cantrips are the spells that casters use when they either, don't want to use spell slots or don't have any to use.
>Cantrips scale with level, meaning that the main weakness of a mage is gutted.
> Cantrips do comparable damage to Martial a of similar level.
What were they thinking?

they weren't

>When brainlets let you have the most powerful class and not get nerfed because they don't understand it
Truly being a lore bard is glorious

they wanted to "balance" casters with concentration. then they gave them cantrips that do crazy damage. I would rather not have to deal with concentration and not have cantrips then the other way around

Yes. Humanoids are both more numerous and more common than fiends.

VS 1/2

Don't they have Hypnotic Pattern? Or whatever that single save AoE disable was called.

2/2

You should turn off Veeky Forums and reply to that woman trying to talk to you user.

Or do the job that I'm supposed to be at.

But can wizard twin haste?

-Hypnotic pattern charms AND incapacitates people, so a good chunk of the monster manual is immune to it.
-an ally that passed its save can shake its allies awake
-any damage taken ends the effect
-is concentration

otherwise its a pretty good spell but I would more often than not prefer to use something like bestow curse

Tier 1: Wizard, Bard
Tier 2: Paladin, Cleric, Druid, Warlock, Sorcerer
Tier 3: Barbarian, Fighter
Tier 4: Monk, Rogue,

So, how do we fix rogue?
My suggestion is damage die increases based on number of advantages.
A stealthed, flanking, rogue fighting a blinded target should deal D12 worth of damage with SA.
Starts at 1d6 with ally within 5ft, then d8 with stealth advantage, then d10 with flanking and D12 with blinding.

Makes the striker actually a striker.

>So, how do we fix rogue?

does every class need to be competitive in combat?

Why not? Each class should be competitive in each of the three pillars.

In d&d? Hell yes.
And what advantages do they get elsewhere? RP they get shafted due to looking shady.
Traps are garbage in 5e, and a non concern.
Expertise? Go bard then.

As far as Tiers go I find magic users to be much too situational unless you're just spamming fireball.
DMs have way too much easy ways to instantly stop anything you try to throw at them magically, but zero ways to stop anything a martial can do (By level 5 an enemy with 20AC is still a 50% chance to hit)

After my experience at multiple tables and multiple DMs constantly shutting down your spells and ideas with handwaving I'll be real with the tier list.

Fighter >>> Paladin >> Barbarian/Warlock/Sorcerer > Ranger/Monk/Rogue > Cleric/Druid > Wizard/Bard

>DEX, CON, WIS
That's three abilities and it's the three big saving throws. It's not MAD that's killing monk, it's that they get a bunch of useless and bloated features that barely do anything when all you really want to do is lay down the punches and status conditions.

Post-AD&D D&D is all about combat, so yes, all classes should be competitive when it comes to combat.

Is this bait?

Never underestimate the numerous situations in which feign Death can be used with a CHA based character

just read over the spell

please explain how this is going to be useful ever

Bump Paladin, Fighter and Rogue up one by that logic, and bump Ranger down one because they're not even good at the one thing they're supposed to be good at. Warlock also pales compared to CoDzilla which is definitely still a thing.

Different roles, a Wizard uses all those rituals and stuff for out of battle utility, a Sorcerer is strictly a battle caster with a side of coercion.

Clearly you have no creativity
>Disguise party members as a dead body to set up an ambush
>Convince your enemies that they've won the fight so they let their guard down
>If you are an important figure, you can convince the world that you are dead and then continue pulling strings from behind the scenes with no consequences
There are infinite situations where pretending you or another person is dead could lead to serious master plans. You just need creativity, and a brain, which should be a prerequisite for playing bard anyway.

No bait. I'm someone that loves playing casters and coming up with interesting ways to use them. However, anytime a DM sees something being used effectively that isn't just damage they too, come up with interesting ways to nerf you.
Some examples I've had so far:
Like to use Leomund's? DM literally sends every attack at you during long rests with a scroll of dispel, which one enemy uses to take down your hut.
Rolling all saves at once. See this one all the time with AoE disables. Hoping to hypnotic pattern the big bad and his minions? Too bad, 'cause the dm just grabs the biggest roll and says that ones the bosses, and the lesser fails are the minions. Nice level 3 to knock out two CR 1/2 creatures.
Straight up 'Fuck yous' - "X, you're up!" "Hah alright, I've got this. I cast Plantgrowth right here to slow down their advance" '...You've transitioned into a rocky area remember? There aren't any plants' "Ahh fuck none at all?" 'Yep' "Right right my bad. Alright instead I do-" 'Nope, you already said you did it, so you did it, mark off your slot. Y, you're up'

Meanwhile the ones I put at the top really don't worry about that stuff, they can't fail with their direct methods. A melee hit, a smite, or a barrage of eldritch blasts. All of these are sure ways that will always succeed without fear of DM intervention.

The only people that put martials at the bottom and casters at the top are those that have never actually been at a game.

Expensive insurance policies and fictional twins.

Or you've just had shit dms with an agenda to "balance" the game.

they are incapacitated and blind, the caster needs to touch him to break the spell, just because you roll well on your diplomacy check doesnt mean the BBEG is going to just leave you there.

Also why are your party members "important figures" within the world by 5th level, known within a town sure, not exactly going to be massive string pullers though.

The spell is too GM dependant to be anything more than extremely situational. I would MUCH rather take something like Major image, you can be just as creative if not more so with that spell

That's just a shitty gm

>The only people that put martials at the bottom and casters at the top are those that have never actually been at a game.

No, they've been to games where the DM isn't explicitly going out of his way to fuck them and ruin their game.

Are you not seeing this? These actions are all bending both rules and the internal consistency of the setting backwards to fuck specifically with that player. This isn't DMing, its passive aggressive bullying.

Furthermore
>All of these are sure ways that will always succeed without fear of DM intervention.
No, they're not, they too can be shut down just as arbitrarily.

The rules don't support any of this, and in a game where the rules are followed and the DM doesn't constantly abuse their power to fuck you over casters are noticeably superior. Sure, that's a problem at times but it does not justify the shitty behavior of these power tripping retards you play with.

Seriously, get out, get better friends. You are literally in an abusive relationship where you are blaming the class (and yourself) for someone being an utter cunt to you.

Maybe you're confusing Cutting Words the class ability with Vicious Mockery the cantrip.

Really, just those two together is enough to give the DM a stroke plenty of times, magical secrets be be damned.

Also, Vicious Mockery itself is easy to underestimate. The key is to think of it as a cantrip that grants disadvantage on attacks with a little bit of damage to sweeten the deal.

Cutting Words is coming out of your inspiration pool.

Vicious Mockery doesn't help that much with multiattacks.

depends on the creature
it works great against any creature with auto-restrain abilities like say the Giant Ant.

quite a few creatures have nasty followup attacks and rely on landing their first hit

What makes Cutting Words so good? You can use it to make enemies screw up, but can't you save the inspiration dice to make your allies succeed instead?

If you want guaranteed disadvantage on one attack just surround your ally in a minor illusion sphere or something. Auto-disadvantage for one attack provided your ally is under 5ft (Dwarf, halfling, gnome, etc)

Better action economy and much better flexibility.

If you inspire your ally, that ally might hit anyway without your help and you could just waste your die. However, when you use Cutting Words, you're using your die as a reaction, which both frees up your bonus actions and lets you use your own die more proactively.

Also something hilarious:
B: I cast a spell
DM: This guy casts counterspell
B: Okay, roll it
DM: Its an 11
B: Hm, I cast it at 4th, so it probably has at least a +3 Casting stat. I cutting words it.

Replacing a 3rd level slot counterspell with a short rest Cutting Words is just, so tasty.

But that's bullshit, because you can use inspiration after seeing the roll BY DEFAULT, and it doesn't take a reaction.

And the rest of the time you can flat-out toss aside an enemy's spell by helping an ally turn a failed save into a successful one.

The problem isn't them using the inspiration die (as the Bard most likely is reminding them like crazy)
Its giving it to the right person at the right time.
For example, I know Jim Bob has a terrible Wis save and we're going into a battle with a Wizard that might hold person them or something.
Okay I give them the inspiration.
The fight occurs, the wizard tosses some spells, none target Jim Bob, and even better for him all his attacks hit, and the fight goes great.

Nice for them, but you've wasted a die.
Opposingly: The Wizard casts Fireball, allies fail, but you cutting words the Fireball damage.
22 just became 14 for everyone. Much nicer.

>reading comprehension
You have set up your inspiration on your ally when you buff them ahead of time and it might not be needed. When you debuff an enemy with Cutting Word, you know that your die is being used because your using it right away.

This is what a non-optimizer looks like. Everybody point and laugh.

Bards were never shit.

>A flaw, fluff-wise, in 5e is that they leave Sorcerer, Wizard, and Warlock too open-ended because they don't want to step on toes. Somebody that makes a pact with a dragon for tutelage in the ways of magic could easily be swung as any of them if the player had a mind to, which is just kind of ridiculous.
What makes that ridiculous? What's wrong with picking the spellcasting system you want to fit your character? Why should anyone's toes be stepped on?

Classes in 5e are intentionally open-ended so that you aren't restricted in your characters personalities/backstories/whatever.

Other martials don't get to ignore half the damage from practically everything.

AD&D and 3.5 are based around dungeoneering and combat. 4e is based on combat. 5e is based on roleplaying and storytelling. Combat is there because it's a fantasy adventure and those always have fighting, but there's more to it than the combat.
If I wanted to play an mmo I'd play 4e.

What makes 5e based on roleplaying and storytelling that the others are not?

Greatly simplified rules and mechanics and an emphasis on "backgrounds", "personality", "flaws" and so on

You know backgrounds and themes were a 4e invention, right? Simplified rules =/= roleplaying any more than complex rules = better.

It's relatively (snrk) rules-light compared to the two other editions most people remember playing, and has more focus on stuff like Inspiration, backgrounds, and other character stuff.
It's still not even REMOTELY close to a narrative RP game, so most of the complaints I personally have with it as a DM have to do with the fact that they just don't think out a lot of the stuff and 80% of the rules, as always are either combat or spells.
IMO, they didn't go far enough, and are so caught up with "but we want people to remember that this is still D&D" that they still haven't kicked some of the shittier design choices in the game. Bringing Vancian casting back is a throwback feature and NOTHING ELSE. I think Warlock is unironically one of the better classes as far as design (not necessarily power) goes, simply because they pull their heads out of their ass for a second and realize that hey, maybe balancing things based off of short rests might still be a good idea?
But no, they decided to gut a lot of the better ideas for simplicity's sake and to please grogs.

AD&D Bards were not that hot.

It's ridiculous when you're discussing the topic of the lack of fluff and distinction between the three casters. The primary fluff difference between Warlock, Wizard, and Sorcerer is the source of their powers. This difference is incredibly muddied because of how open-ended the question really is. The same event can produce all three varieties of caster, which might make sense but isn't good for giving each class its own distinct identity. Without a doubt, Sorcerer is the class with the most issues with having a unique identity.

>why is monk so shit ?
becuase you're playing it wrong

Do they really need that unique an identity?

I'd say it's important, yeah. As it stands in 5e, both mechanically and fluff-wise, Sorcerer is basically nothing. They're worse Wizards that only have metamagic to make up for it, which is only useful in specific ways. They were originally going to completely axe the class for 5e, but it's such a sacred cow that they can't get rid of it.

The idea behind classes in 5e was supposed to be that it should be mechanically distinct from every other class. A class should only be a class if it can't reasonably be identified as an archetype of another class. Sorcerer fails in this regard. In some respects, I'd say Barbarian does, too, since it's quite similar to Fighter in concept (though it's different enough, mechanically, to justify being its own class).