Class Tier Rankings for D&D 5e: Who is the best Utility? 

I agree with Barbarian conclusion: They are the epitome of "violence isn't the answer, it's a question and the answer is yes"

At the end of this series it would be cool to go through each class one by one and see all it's results on screen at once just as like a final review

A huge part of the satisfaction of playing a utility character is shocking the party by having the exact clutch solution to whatever problem happens to arise. “You can do what?”

In my current campaign, my Barbarian has a criminal background, which lets me pick locks as well as smash doors open, but that's about the only utility it has. I comes in handy some since we don't have a rogue, and leads to funny moments when my lockpicking fails and I say that I got it unlocked and proceed to smash the door open anyway.

My biggest problem with the wizard is that when I play one, I always find myself wishing I had done my daily spells differently. "Hey, um, guys... Anyone feeling sleepy? If I take a long rest, we can do this thing ..."

10:06 this amazing passion and this beautiful motivation when Monty talks about chocolate. I have never seen someone talk with so much love and passion about another subject than D&D who enjoys D&D so much. You really can see the sparkling in Monty's eyes upon talking about chocolate cake.

My favourite trait of Monty's is that he always gets even more invigorated and enthused whenever Kelly disagrees with him. To value discussion above being right!

I'm playing as part of a party with a wizard (who has a few levels of artificer), a bard, *and* a druid. We'd be unstoppable if we didn't have a long record of making everything more difficult for ourselves.

As a lvl 11 Shepard druid I’ve been able to do so much for my party: summoning, battlefield control, help with travel, scouting, infiltration healing etc. definitely an A+ depending on the campaign.

Blind prediction before watching: bard, it has to be bard. They get expertise and automatic half proficiency in everything. On top of that, any argument made in favor of another caster on the basis of spells also applies to the bard because of magical secrets.

Thats why I love wizards. Ritual casting straight out of the spell book without the need to prepare it is such a cool and unique feature.

Exception that proves the rule for Fighter: We had an Echo knight in our party and they can manifest their echo (like aspectral person or something) and the important thing is they can swap places. We encountered a small window and we needed to scout the place before we opened the gate. And the fighter made the echo on the other side of that window, swapped places and waved us and went exploring.

My thoughts on Bard. I have played a Creation Bard, the bard whose whole shtick is utility. It performed utility amazingly, and did things no other build could. But I'll be damned if I didn't look at my spells and wish I was a Wizard.

If you get a warlock with pact of the tome and he knows every ritual, he is really good at utility. Water breathing, tiny hut, water walk, telepathic bond, augury, purify food and drink, find familiar, floating disc, unseen servant, all as rituals so limited spell slots aren't a factor and they are always prepared.

Hey dudes, just wanted to jump in and say I got my drakkenheim stuff today, and it is amazing. The quality is so much better than I was expecting, and everything is so gorgeous. Good work to you guys and all your product guys involved. You all outdid yourselves.

Fun fact! The Ancestral Guardian barbarian can cast augury and clairvoyance so that's a thing. One of my fellow players in a campaign I'm playing in didn't know that until I told them, and they were way beyond the level they got it. When I told them their reaction was basically "Why would I ever use that?". So...yeah. Some Barbarians have a few weird subclass abilities that feel like a sad attempt to force utility onto a class that doesn't need it.

Monty doesn't understand Artificer, and it shows sometimes. He's absolutely right, being a half caster does make artificer inherently less capable than full casters, but they have an amazing spell list for utility, can hand out magic items when needed, provide boosts to saving throws or ability checks, they have guidance, and at level 11 they can literally hand out a spell to their allies that can be used up to 10 times A DAY. they are absolutely not better than wizards, bards, or druids but they still deserve a solid A rank (bard and druid should be S but I guess they're doing a thing so whatever).

Some interesting takes here. I think only having one S ranked class really makes the A field stretched out.

A thing I see people overlook with the wizard too is that they can copy spells into their spell book as they're adventuring. It costs time and money, especially high level spells, and depends on what spell scrolls and loot your DM gives out, but getting more spells you can choose from to prepare that don't count against your number of spells known is a great class feature for a spellcaster

Wizards are great at utility, especially when they're being used "strategically". Unfortunately players rarely play like this. Usually it's getting fireball as fast as possible and hoping that party's tanks will hold the line

On paper the wizard is S. In game its very dependent on access to spells. Some DMs are very tight fisted with spells scrolls or books. Sometimes the two spells you get on leveling up is all you can count on.

Watching you both come to your senses on the Sorcerer was really fun

Wizard definitely deserves the S ranking. Not only is their spell list the most expansive and they get the most casts out of anyone with Arcane Recovery, the sheer number of spells they learn outweighs anything. If a Bard wants to take Comprehend Languages, they have to weigh it against every other spell they can take at that level, an issue which is further exacerbated if they need to take a spell not on their list like Fabricate or Alarm. If a Wizard wants to take Comprehend Languages, they can get it as one of six 1st level spells they get at level 1, and they'll get another two spells every time they level up from there. Even in a campaign where there's absolutely no chance to add spells to your spellbook without leveling, Wizards get more spells overall from a more expansive list, barring Magical Secrets. Bard is still an amazing utility generalist class of course, but like... Wizards can have a solution for basically anything in their spellbook. It might not always be the best solution, and someone else might be able to do it better, but the only situation where a Wizard can't do something effective about the problem in front of them is if they're separated from their spellbook. Edit: It's a point in the Bard's favor that they don't need to prepare spells like the Wizard does and they always have access to their entire spell list, but many of the best utility/problem solving spells are rituals they don't need to prepare to cast. The ones I listed above (except Fabricate), plus Detect Magic, Identify, Find Familiar, Augury, Leomund's Tiny Hut, Water Breathing...

This makes me really want to build a clockwork soul sorcerer with the ritual caster feat. All the benefits of sorcerer metamagic with the best wizard spells and the ritual casting to boot.

8:24 my firbolg bear totem barbarian avoids violence and loves talking to plants and animals and lifting heavy things for the party, he also used a special chain weapon that can trip enemies and entangle tem to make it easier for his fellow party members to hit them. I'd say its a lot of fun to aim towards a more utility-focused skill set as a barbarian, even if its not the MOST effective.

2 approaches to utility: wizard: "i encourage planning". barbarian: "i encourage violence." great video!

Love all the well thought out videos. I keep coming back and watching these as a newbie to 5e. Really gives me good insight.

Love your channel. Thanks guys! Wizards being able to cast rituals from known without preparation is insane, too.

Gonna balance out the comments bc it's mostly going to be filled with ppl who disagree w u guys. Like a lot of the commenters, I too thought S would go to bard, but then when you didn't and instead gave it too Wizard, i went, "yeah, that actually does make sense". And really, depending on the build and the campaign, you really can argue for either one. Monty explained it pretty well: bards are better with skills, wizards are better at spell flexibility.

Bard is very much the '5th character' of choice in a party. They can cover every other role in some way when a player or PC is not available.

Bard is my personal S pick, but I also think they are undervaluing Warlock a bit. The low number of spell slots certainly hurts, but several invocations are things like "You can cast X spell at will without using a spell slot" which is really strong. Plus, since Eldritch Blast is such a strong blaster cantrip and all leveled spells are upcast based on the level of the Warlock, it makes a lot of sense to build a Warlock where Eldritch Blast is the primary go-to damage spell, keep maybe a big AoE and a larger blasting spell in the back pocket for groups and burst, and then primarily focus spell choices on scaling utility spells and save the spell slots for those. Things like summon spells, fly, counterspell/dispel magic, hold person, etc. And that's not counting Book of Ancient Secrets for Tome Warlocks, which gives them ritual casting and the ability to learn every ritual spell in the game, regardless of class, and cast them as rituals.

A subclass for Artificer that focus’s on utility is the Maverick from Explorring Eberron. You get to borrow from other classes spells constantly

Playing wizard for a couple years know, wow yeah, great utility! I may not bring much dps to the table, that’s the rest of the party’s job, but I do provide spells like rarys and water breathing like you two mentioned, I’m the party’s personal guide to Fearun with all the teleporting around. A few spells for getting past obstacles, protecting the party or dispelling magic, an a handful for debilitating stuff like flesh to stone. Not having to prepare ritual spells is my favorite part. Only downside is just how overwhelming it can be. My next character will likely be a barbarian Edit: weird how many people are upset by Bard’s placement. A++ isn’t enough?

Absolutely love these tier list style videos!

Thank you for doing these videos, Dudes, they are fun, informative and well made :D

I love your video on running a dragon encounter. I'd love to see you do a series on running each dragon by color / metal / etc. You could talk about how to run the dragon and design its lair. Then, in the second half of the video, talk about how players can prepare to battle that type of dragon.

About warlocks: i think that the potential to learn ALL the ritual spells in the game is a strong case for the warlock, they are potentiallu the best ritual caster in the game

I kinda disagree with your method of only giving out a single S-Ranking. Bard has a good case for being just at good at Utility if not better, depending on what exactly you consider to be Utility. This ranking, there should've been two S-Rankings and I feel like you are kinda compromising the value and accuracy of your grades by fixating on keeping it to one single S-Rank.

This is so well reasoned! I might suggest in the future to cut to a screen and that displays the spells or abilities in a list styles that you are thinking of, or highlighting as examples in your commentary.

My personal S tier is Druid. Wild shape for scouting or infiltration, crowd control, battlefield control, summoning, spot healing, can talk to animals. Pretty much anything you'd want.

I love this series. You two have excellent debates about class features and abilities, and I think this is my favourite avenue of critique yet.

Mask of Many Faces and Devils sight on a warlock make a pretty great use of Utility

As a Paladin, I've gotten a lot of mileage in...curse of Strahd. Divine Sense is really a neat ability but it could do with being a tad more broad. Scanning for consecrated/desecrated things and hidden undead has been fun though. A few of their spells are also very handy, although they don't often have the slots or preparations to have those utility items available in a day. I managed to give some spirits a send off with Ceremony as well as officiate a wedding. It's such a fun spell to use just to be a priest and do various story events that I wish Paladin was a ritual caster. Zone of Truth has a lot of interrogation/legal setting uses.

This video just made my day. Thank you dudes. Keep up the good work.

Once again, we see the problem with "half casters" in 5e: their spellcasting (past level 1) is really only useful to supplement their martial abilities, or to provide some emergency backup healing/utility if the full casters are down/depleted.

the Artificer presents an interesting problem. I understand wanting to give it an A, but if you are doing an A for druids and bards, artificer is no where near the same. I think I would have to give it a B overall and say there are A tier options if you focus.

I'll be honest, I didn't get any notification from this channel for a month, and now it's time to binge watch all the back catalogue lol. I really missed you guys.

I imagine there is a lot of variation based on what problems people encounter in their games, and what levels they often get to. (As well as how creative the players are, and how they enjoy playing.) One of the most memorable games my group did recently I was a multi-class (bard/warlock) who was playing with the criminal underworld of the city. The other PC was a straight-class wizard. We built a party of NPC-companions that included a paladin-hexblade, a fighter-barbarian Pole-arm master, and a host of other guests. My warlock-bard basically ended up being able to move at will between the social-strata, comfortable in almost any setting. We came up with wired solutions to any number of problems, and ultimately changed the original setting beyond recognition. I think it's only the second game where we legitimately got to level 17+.

I love playing Warlocks as Utility with Invocations, completely ditching Eldritch Blast.

Make no mistake, my Wizard is a damage dealer, but I also go with as many utilitarian spells as I can, especially ritual ones like water breathing and Tiny Hut. I told my DM that I have tea with my party every morning, this applies the water breathing automagically. My party pays me for the mats and I keep Identify rituals at the ready. Cant wait to get Control Water and then have the option to drown and entire room of enemies while we sit back and laugh...lol.

In my current campaign we're working on expanding spells known for Sorcerers and Bards. Bards a getting additional spells equal to Level. Sorcerers are getting spells equal to half level plus origin spells for each Sorcerous Origin

Excellent conversation again. This video does bring up a really big problem of how do you exactly define some of the roles in a party. Frontliner was easy, but after that there is a lot of gray area.

When you mixed warlocks with sorcerers in this videoyou really missed out on actually talking about Warlock utility. In any situation where you are taking a short rest anyways, which is pretty common in utility situations, that spell slot is free. Combo that with invocations like mask of many faces, misty visions, repelling blast in combat, and either the pact of the chain familiar or pact of the tome’s Book of ancient secrets (access to every ritual spell of every class in the game!) High B tier utility at minimum, even without considering subclass.

I want an artificer subclass that’s just bob the builder.

Like the list. I literally came up with the same score as soon as you said the class name.

The moment I realized four elements monk is a utility subclass and not a damage subclass, it became fantastic. Shape the flowing river, water whip, elemental attunement are all fantastic utility and/or battlefield control. They can also get hold person and fly.

Before this started, I KNEW you were going for Wizard. Yes, ritual casting and a huge spell selection is great. Now get them to climb a wall or open a door without the right spell. Ask them to participate in melee, or engage socially. Can they heal? No? Bards can. They can do all of that. I play a Tiefling Sword Bard, and you'll be hard pressed to put him in a situation he can't solve. There are times the right spell isn't there. There are some times you have to rely on more than a scroll. Bards can. Wizards can't. Fact. Place a wizard in the back and give them time to perform a ritual and there's little they can't do. But you can't ask an artillery piece to scout. You can't ask it to negotiate. Remove spells and wizards are a guy in a dress.

Wizards is the best utility class if you can afford the investment and you are in a campaign that you can actually find new spells. In a low investment scenario, a bard would be better I think

Loving this series!

The Warlock have their full utility potential in their invocations. I would not underestimate that.

I feel like Lore Bard is the best utility bard, especially at 6th level when they get the extra magical secrets to fill in any utility spells the party needs.

I was a tiny bit butt hurt Druid wasn't S. But was pleasantly pleased to hear you put them next to Bard and RIGHT there by S. And it's funny ppl don't really agree because both players haven't played one themselves or seen how incredible Druids can be.

This is a fun video that our table debates constantly. A lot depends on the playstyle of the jockey riding the character. I'm always drawn to build characters that are utility players. I want to be the party's pair of vice-grips - maybe not the RIGHT tool for the job, but a tool that will get the job done, quick n' dirty. I'm also an incurable theory-crafter/multi-classer, though I wouldn't say "min-maxer." My thing is to take some combo of Bard/Ranger/Monk, be confident that I naturally have the utility role covered, then made decisions based on at finagling a way to contribute SOME burst damage or DPR. I'll never keep up with a dedicated Barbarian/Fighter/Paladin for damage, or a dedicated full-caster in utility spells, but I've ALWAYS got SOMETHING in my back pocket.

It kind of helps get your bearings better. 1. Front Liner (Iron Chin) 2. Beat Downer. (Heavy Hands) 3. Utility. (Brings tools to the Party) 4. Support (Sharpens tools the party has) 5. Negotiator (Face) 6. Investigator (gather clues and shed light on problems) 7. Infiltrate/Exploration (find out information and see if there is a problem worth solving.

I knew they would pick wizard, but I was really hopin for the Druid to secure that S tier. Wildshape is just so much utility at every level of play that even without their spell list they should score high on the list.

This definitely shows the Rogue’s absurdly good skill set. Monty and Kelly average out the Rogue as B+/ A-, and the other two classes with limited/ nonexistent spell casting, the Barbarian and Fighter, are both listed as D.

I played a land druid who took a single level of wizard. For my wizard level, I picked almost all rituals & utility-type spells, including find familiar. Match that with the druid's wildshape and quite different spell list, and I ended up with a PC that had a solution to almost every problem. Need to sneak into a tomb and listen to understand two Dao conversing? Comprehend languages & wildshape rat. Need to distract a roper while the party runs though a cave? Find familiar scout & conjure animals. The combinations went on and on. I never used any attack/damage spells from the wizard list. I was in a party with very little other utility & every time we needed a problem solved, they all looked at me, and I always had a solution. It was amazing to play.

Thanks for the video guys. Very interesting comments. In my case i'd take druid over any other class any day as mostly playing solo or in 3-people group the versatility druids offer in being able to fill in different roles saves the game. Wizards being really squishy always makes it difficult to play in smaller parties imo.

Remember everyone these videos are the base class WITHOUT subclass. I see some of y'all saying you disagree because x subclass makes y class an S tier. They aren't factoring in subclasses, just base classes. If we were factoring in subclasses these would be wildly different, as things like Rogue would have gotten an S tier utility just for Arcane Trickster alone.

I'm not a huge fan of the only 1 S tier ranking. Bard is definitely an S tier, and arguably as good as any other class.

Love this kind of videos

I really enjoy this series of vid's, keep up the good work gents.

I feel like there wasn't enough conversation about what the warlock can bring to the table with invocations because the warlock's utility shouldn't come from it's normal spell list because you don't have enough slots to be helpful reliably. No, their utility should come from all the spells and unique abilities their invocations allow them to do at will.

Warlock can be amazing as a utility caster, because they can cast a utility spell without wasting a spell slot, because they can just short rest after. You don’t even need to think about a wasted resource as warlock, while other classes do. Warlock also has too many utility Invocations to ignore. Wizard can also do this, because they can use arcane recovery to regain spell slots. Nobody talks about arcane recovery, but it can make the wizard steal some of the warlocks ability!!!

How you kept a straight face through the chocolate explanation I'll never know lol

I am a long-time MMORPG'r mostly WoW. I have always been interested in getting into D&D, so I have been consuming a lot of Dungeon Dudes videos. When thinking about how i want to create my first character, i am so grateful for your ranking videos. At first i believe i wanted to Wizard because i thought I would be nuke on the battlefield, however these have really opened my eyes to the possibilities. The Wizard, looking forward is still very much like me. I can't wait to get started. Thanks guys for your years of experience these video's are invaluable to me.

I love this new tier list series you have. This oddly enough reminds me of 4e classes and how they're structured. Are you guys familiar with 4e? I know it gets a bad rap but I really like it.

Monk saving throws being Strength and Dexterity to this day I think 5E dropped the ball.

I know people love rogues but wizards can do most of the things a rogue can (just not always as well). Need to pick a lock? Wizards have knock or they can just disintegrate the door. Need to disarm a trap? I've disintegrated traps and I've also ripped them out of the wall with telekinesis. Scouting ahead? Find familiar or invisibility.

I've seen barbarian played with a more utility focus, BUT that's because for the lore he worked a bit different: the barbarian in question is a war forged his 'raging' was just his bodies defense mechanisms activating, and with that flavor it allowed us to do things with 'minor' versions of the rage (he was playing storm Harold)

You guys were a little harsh on the fighter I think, the Echo Knight gives a whole slew of exploration and social skills just by existing, and even the purple dragon knight gets expertise in persuasion lol, maybe D is fair but it could push C if you're optimistic

New video. Neat.

Thanks for fixing the roll/role spelling issue with the ranking rubric. When it came to utility, even just seeing the title of the video, I immediately thought "Oh, Wizard is definitely the S-rank." Funny story about Waterbreathing, I remember playing a bladesinger wizard before its update in a homebrew adventure where we got shipwrecked on a desert island and just because he was paraoid of drowning after the shipwreck, he cast waterbreathing at the start of every day. It legitimately ended up coming in handy at one point when something tried to grab, restrain, and drown party members but because he had cast waterbreathing as per usual, we all just beat the crap out of the monster and ignored its main mechanic.

Barbarian utility: packmule for the hoarder, and free movement for one party member at a time As for disarming traps, disarming them isn't the only way to get through them successfully. A monk can clear traps by tripping them and relying on evasion (if it's a dex save) to take half damage if they fail to save, or no effect if they succeed. Or a barbarian can walk through it and soak whatever effect it throws at them (with varying success, but they'd handle it much better than others, and no proficiencies or tools required)

Nice video, and I agree with your conclusions. However, I believe that you should not have included battlefield control in this roles description. That, to me, is its own thing. While they may often be taken care of by the same character they are not the same role.

I think the craziest thing in the cleric's favor is the ridiculous number of spells prepared that they have. They have the most spells prepped of any caster. In my opinion, it makes them the strongest caster. The druid and cleric also have the crazy distinction of having access to their entire spell list from day to day.

You also have to think with the bard, about the bardic inspiration and help action combo. It makes someone with profiency, or even expertise as my level 2 party with 2 bards will gain soon, almost never fail a check if it is an important roll.

I feel like Warlocks have the potential to build for utility better than most characters, but people rarely want to. Some of the invocations are perfectly geared toward being an infiltrator, social interaction, and other types of problem solving. You could essentially fill the role of a Rogue. Shadow Blade, at-will invisibility, at-will illusions, at-will disguise self, etc. Add in short rest spell slots, and you can now be the party's transit system by drawing teleportation circles when needed. Grab Pact of the Tome and you can also be a ritual caster. My Hexblade uses only a handful of spells in combat depending on the situation, so the rest of his spells known are utility to help us. I can make all 4 of us invisible whenever we need it, and get it back in an hour of relaxing. This lets us scout, fall back, rest, and go in prepared. If I had built him to fulfill a rogue role more though, I'd have taken some invocations meant for it, like Misty Visions and One with Shadows. I feel like if the Sorcerer deserves an A because of metamagic, Warlock should get an A for invocations and pacts.

Funny enough, I’d give the warlock a strong A grade for utility. Apart from 2-3 combat spells, every other spell on my list was utility. The warlock is the one preparing Fly, Invisibility, Tongues, etc. because they can afford circumstantial spells. The warlock’s weakness of 2 spells/rest is actually not much of an issue, because often in the situations where you need utility spells to solve a puzzle, you have time to rest. Add this to Misty Visions and bam, you’re a very strong support character.

I think there are two main flaws with this whole process: 1. Treating battlefield control as part of utility is a mistake. Controller should be its own role for the purpose of this tier ranking. Utility should be reserved for non-combat problem solving. 2. I think for all of this role-based tier ranking stuff, the "regardless of subclass" requirement is gonna hold you back from showing off some of the best options in the game, especially in base classes specifically designed for versatility. Yes, hexblade warlock built for melee is going to lack utility options, but any Tome warlock is one invocation away from getting access to every ritual spell in the game, which along with their large cantrip selection, makes them a walking swiss army knife of problem solving.

Divine Soul or Celestial Warlock [ Tomb ] ( I like to duel class them, ultimate healer / utility ) both can be A+ level utility if you use your cantrips right than the spells can all be utility. But thank you for all that you do and the time you give us...

I'm always here to say that the food metaphors are like founding out that there's still pizza from yesterday: You didn't knew you needed it until you found out how precious it is

I’m playing a Rune Knight that certainly is at least a C. The tool proficiencies offered by fire rune can’t be understated

Don’t underestimate a warlock with Utility invocations

I would 100% give my one S rank to the sorcerer. Twin spell polymorph is incredible, of course. Subtle illusions are also amazing. But subtle suggestion is potentially completely campaign changing with relative ease. During my last session, my Sorlock used disguise self, walked into an enemy presidential palace disguised as their ally, and subtle suggested the president to go by himself to a hidden location where my team knocked him out. I met up with them and polymorphed him into a snail, and brought him to a prison in our country. Now he believes he's been abducted by his ally, and he'll keep believing that because of disguise self and high deception. Almost single-handedly toppling a country, and having countless options from there without them even knowing.

The Thief's ability to use 2 items in a round seems really underrated. After looking at some of the things you can do I'm seriously considering playing one in my next game...whenever that is.

Utility: it's probably going to be a fight between bards, wizards and rogues. Wizards are the utility magic, rogues have the physical skills, but there's a reason why the bard is the jack of all. The problem in giving the wizard the utility role, is how people misquantify the amount of spells that wizards can prepare for a given day. With casting modifier+level that means they know 15 spells at level 10 and they have 11 in their book that they 'may' prepare for their next day. Level 10 bards have 14 spells, 16 if you include their magical secrets. And this is without mentioning their bardic inspiration and skill proficiencies/expertise. Wizards have good utility, especially if you keep a bunch of rituals in the book for everyday casting, but that alone can't just make them the S.

Bards are my S pick. They are just perfect for the role.

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interesting discussion! love hearing about utility; i think it's so underrated. may i also ask where the thumbnail art came from? or who the artist is? :)