Martials vs Casters - Deep Dive Series - D&D 5e 

This video really underplays just how powerful casters are. Rogue and Rangers cant cast detect thoughts in an RP encounter, or sending to alert a key npc of a new event. The flexibility that casters have in RP encounters is mind boggling compared to martials. Cant get into a tower? Meld into stone. Stuck in an inhospitable place? Tiny Hut. There are far too many great spells and rituals that you would have to ignore to say they are similar. The truth is Casters after level 7 are playing a different game than martials.

But the shenanigans a wizard can do are absurd. Like have one of every elemental planar bound to you. Those will out tank and out damage any martial

By around level 9 casters pull ahead and stay strong. No martial can compare to mid to high level spells.

2 notes: 1. Huge props for your passing telekinesis love! Enjoy that spell so much. Kinda doubt it’ll reach 6e as is, which makes me a bit sad. 2. I agree with many of your points, but would expect many optimizers’ answer to them would be “Conjure Animals, Conjure Animals, Shepherd Druid, Conjure Animals.”

I think your DM point is kind of the main issue, though I'd lay it more at the designers and how they balanced the game under assumptions of a large number of daily encounters. When you balance across a day vs across an encounter its really hard for the balance to last across the community. There are too many play styles out there and I suspect the majority actually don't do the 6-8 encounters a day thing so now all those other styles will see balance skewed. That being said I will say at most levels we have not seen a issue in combat at least. The damage martials do is absolutely insane most rounds, even into tier 3 and the best crowd control is a dead enemy. Sure the barbaians damage kind of plateaued but the rest kept it going.

For one dnd specifically, the main problem for martials is the inability to get a good feat at level 1. This severely limits a martials capability in the one tier of play you could argue they shine in. Also a well built party of nothing but casters should probably have a druid cleric or warlock, all of which are much better than most martials in single target and even multi target dps

From my own experience I have never seen a Martial have the kind of staying power and longevity of their Spellcaster peers, both as a player and as a DM. What I tend to see from both sides of the table is: Martial characters trade taking more damage due to being in melee range far more often, or otherwise trading more difficulty in managing ranged targets from the back row, having far worse saving throw bonuses against the most debilitating effects, but albeit good single target damage. for Far less versatility and flexibility in responses to situations, fewer resources to access to facilitate tactical options and decisions, fewer defensive and mobility options that improve their staying ability, few or no non-single target options for dealing damage or affecting creatures, and frankly, less fun and engaging play. Every Martial character I've played with or run for has found themselves having far more fun, engaging far more in combats, and being overall far more effective either multiclassing into a spellcasting class or gaining access to spells in some other way. To them, and to me, the trade off of decent single target damage (no doubt that an Action Surging Crossbow Expert Battle Master Fighter is impressive in single target damage) seems to pale in comparison to the ability to simply shut down encounters, directly counter certain enemies, keep allies alive and fighting, take advantage of both action economy and force multiplicative effects (such as Summons Spells and AoE Control Spells while Dodging or even dropping more damage), deal damage to or control multiple creatures at once, all while having a vast trove of resources. The resource management has never really been an issue. For every spellcasting character that I've played, played with, or DMd for, they tend to have so many various options and resources that they can manage that by the time any Spellcasting character is low or out of resources, the Martials have been saved from deaths door numerous times over. When you start talking about optimal play, incorporating multiclassing and Feats, Spellcasters have so many advantages in terms of durability, damage, and resources that the strong and steady Martials tend to only ever start to shine once the Spellcasters are finally out of their options - at which point they can become unfun to play for obvious reasons.

Both can be extremely strong when optimized. They are far stronger when working together to each other's strengths. I have several Martial characters in AL-style games that hold back on damage in order to let other people have a turn before they kill the bbeg. The damage gets so high I stopped taking GWM because things just drop in less than an action. On the other hand when I play a caster I can often shut down a battle without any damage being dealt. What really works well is when a caster segments a battle with a spells like Sleet Storm or Plant Growth leaving 1 or 2 enemies outside for the party to devour as they stagger out of the area effects. Some optimized martials can kill the godlike creatures in adventure paths before they even get to act.

I'm glad you decided to talk about this. I also had the impression that casters were superior when I first started looking at optimization. But in actual gameplay I find that DM's will rarely try to challenge martial's damage output and more often think of counters for whatever gimmick a caster is relying on. Since damage is something universal, it's difficult to curb the effectiveness of martials without accidentally making something too difficult for other players who aren't keeping up in damage. In this way, martials seem free to be strong while casters have to be extremely paranoid about becoming overly reliant on certain spells.

The biggest problem is versatility. You can build casters who are perfectly capable of dealing damage after their big cast for the combat, in certain cases being at parity with martials. Or making damage a part of their big casts. There's just so much more they can do.

Martials vs spell casters in combat is very game and dm dependent. If you're running gritty realism or 6-8 combats per adventuring day, then Martials get a huge bump in relative power as most martials damage output is consistent and doesn't consume resources. However if you run 1-3 encounters per day (like my group typically does), casters are stronger due to being able to cast high level spells in every combat

Optimizers know that martials aren't "weak". The complaint is more that martials are less interesting compared to casters in gameplay. Take how battlemaster is one of the most favored fighter classes, manuevers give them more to do than just attack 4x then check their phone, repeat. DMs give martials alot of magic items to make things more interesting but this just leaves the caster without getting any toys simply cuz the martial feels bad. Echo knight and rune knight are also fun cuz you can do more "stuff".

But bilbron, if your caster is so powerful that it forces the dm to look through your spells and circumvent them, isn’t that the strongest show of power a player can reach, and more in favor of spellcasters? Furthermore, if the dm gives the martials more magic Items then they give to casters in order to balance the game , that means casters are more powerful and the dm needs to compensate for that?

Alright martials if you got archmages terrorizing your city go for the spell focus or get you a fancy enchanted sword that can cast silence and put them in a full Nelson . Either way those nerds will probably cry.

BILBRON when you say exploration is the least important, I see your point, but you could have at least said, "your mileage may vary". There are some campaigns they are largely Hex Crawls. Tomb of Annihilation for example put explorations way out in front of mostly everything else.

I strongly prefer playing full or half casters. BUT... I have also noticed that groups that lack a martial, can struggle. I think the martial vs caster discussion is in many respects akin to the male vs female discussions. Both are good, each is typically better at different things, some can perform the traditional roles of the other as well or better than the other. My personal problem with the proposed crit rules, was that casters not being able to spell crit only minimally impacts their gameplay. A martial (rogue / paladin specifically) not being able to double their bonus dice from class features feels un-fun. And DM's not being able to crit... feels like adamantine armor would be pointless, and combat would be toothless.

But Bilbron! If a caster can’t consistently outdamage a high level fighter of the same level without casting a spellslot that round they aren’t optimized. They’re optimized within reason. The wizard could perma magic jar a githyanki gish and make 3 attacks per round each dealing 30 Damage a pop and have all the demon lords and arch devils Planar bound to there service for more damage and they also have Infinte simulacrums for more damage oh and they set up a Bunch of glyphs of warding packed with …….. and it keeps going from there .

Hey don't diss my boy mind whip It's a great control spell! No concentration, removes reactions! Make them choose between a bonus action and an action! Make them spend their turn moving up to you with good planning and a bit of luck! It's not about the damage (though it is decent damage for the level of spell). Same with the lance, throw it at enemy clerics and sorcerers and watch them loose concentration.

For magic items, that argument is invalid because casters get access to just as good of magic items, and artificers are even better at using them than any martial. For resources, you’re forgetting the biggest resource in the game, hp. Martials who stand on the front lines are far more likely to take more damage and therefore have less survivability. Ranged martials do admittedly fair better in this regard. As for complexity, we have to assume optimal play for all classes and abilities when rating things, otherwise there is no standard by which to measure anything. For legendary resistance and other things you mentioned that hinder casters at high levels, you’re just using the wrong spells. Save or suck spells in general are bad, and no optimized caster would rely on them. I currently DM for a group consisting of a ranger, fighter, barb and monk all who just reached lv 14. Their damage output is very good, but I tried to throw a 4 encounter day at them recently and they almost tpked, even with a short rest. They are all pretty optimized characters but 3 of them are melee so a few good hits is all it takes to make them want to take a rest. A single wizard in this party would solve all of these issues. That isn’t something I could say for any class that doesn’t get spells.

Packtactics just featured a link to Ahero a new RU-vidr taking the opposite view that martial are indeed outclassed by casters.

If there really were an average of 8 combat encounters per long rest as I think the DM guide suggests that would hurt casters considerably. Also if so many DM's didn't waive the component aspect of spells, basically warcaster would be a feat tax on every caster like a sharpshooter or great weapon master is to a martial and even that wouldn't solve all the problems with having your hands full.

i don't think casters are really behind martials in single target dmg output. it's just that there are less players who make striker casters aside from EB users. there's many options among casters to make them on par with martials in single-target dmg with the proper spells and of course caster handle AOE (blasting) better as well. moreover, casters do have a significant advantage over martials in social/exploration pillars because as the dungeon dudes said, rogues have to play by the book. bards can get expertise like the rogue can but don't have to play by the book due to their spells which can circumvent certain social or exploration challenges without rolling a single skill check. i don't think controllers who throw out psychic lance or mind whip are after the dmg there. the dmg is just icing. these are control spells to use when you've already laid out your concen spell or combo with your concen spell. these are bad examples of single-target dmg spells. the good ones are scorching ray, magic missile, conjure animals and inflict wounds. but yes i agree casters don't really have alot of choices for single-target dmg but they are comparable with proper optimization of them.

Being a rogue advocate, I don't see any changes in DnD1 as helping Rogues in any meaningful way. Although not relied upon since Rogues typically get but a single attack (albeit if played well at advantage) the crit nerf really hurts. I fail to the see the necessity of crit rule changes for martial or casters.

At lower levels they’re kind of balanced when but at higher levels there’s shenanigans that make casters better then martials at there very own game .

I agree that there is some propaganda on the wizards behalf. They got think tanks putting out hitpeices. We got tankthink But kidding aside, the best argument in favor of caster imbalance is I don't ever get any bad feelings when a fighter or paladin deals 120 damage. I have been annoyed with druids in my party casting conjure animals. I've been annoyed with me casting that stupid spell. To that effect I think casters will be much more in line with martials in one DND. Those problematic spells are getting axed for sure.

When analyzing builds in isolation, I'd say the disparity does exist. Even in the combat phase, I'd argue an optimized full caster is more impactful than an optimized martial. Control and AOE are more important than DPR, and while a caster can do 2/3rds the DPR of a martial, a martial cannot do 2/3rds the control or AOE of a caster. However, that's like saying "When it comes to knives, the blade is more important than the handle." Arguably true, but you nevertheless wouldn't want to use a knife that's all-blade. Builds don't exist in isolation, they exist as components of a party, and parties with a mix of martials and casters seem to perform the best. The three big reasons for this, I suspect, are that (1) the consistency of martials allows casters to conserve their resources, so casters can deploy their big-guns at more opportune moments, (2) casters provide buffs that amplify martials more than they amplify fellow casters (voice of authority, emboldening bond, bardic inspiration, bless, haste,, greater invisibility - the list goes on), and (3) additional control effects result in diminishing returns (the wizard's web isn't that helpful when the druid has already cast spike growth), while additional damage is almost always useful. I'd rather have too many casters in a party than too many martials. However, my ideal party is comprised of a relatively even mix of both. The heterogeneity results in a whole that's greater than the sum of its parts.

You're absolutely right. Casters do have much more utility, and I think that the 'perceived superiority' is partly because a very experienced player playing a caster can potentially overshadow most of the other party members in almost any aspect of the game, including some less experienced martials in combat. Now instead of thinking different classes in a vacuum, I think a party without martials is going to suck way harder than a party with at least a few. So in no way are casters "always better" (as some claim).

ב"ה I run a 6-8 encounters adventure day as suggested in the dungeon master's guide (the party is currently levedl 8), and the martials in the party do most of the job most of the time while the sorceraa cast twice per day twinned polymorph on the cases it is most helpfull (two party members turned into dire apes is huge) and through a few fireballs when she can target many enemies without harming the party. Technicly the warlock is also a caster, but most of her turns she shoot with her bow using sharpshooter (she is pact of the blade so she is basicly a martial as well) when she mostly summon things for even more damage and heals the party (her race is mark of healing halfling so she have prayer of healing and aura of vitality as well as mass healing word for emergency). Generally, I totaly agree that a good party combine martials and casters, and both are required to perform well. About casters access to singly target damage, let's leave clerics alone for a moment, because they are an exceptional damage dealer among casters (even though most of it is AOE, but it is good persistant AOE). Warlocks have martial options as well (due to pact of the blade option), and their cantrips options are way stronger than most casters even if you don't go pact of the blade, so we can leave them aside as well (though they can boost their damage by summoning, just like your warlock). Wizards, sorcerers and bards have access to the spell Animate Objects, which is one of the best single target damage spells in the game.While they concentrate on this spell and keep their animated objects alive, they deal really good single target damage round after round, and can fill the damage gap heavy caster parties sometimes have. While conjure animals can work differently from table to table about how it is exactly determined which creatures are summoned, it can still be a really powerfull single target damage spell. Either way, even though casters do have their options for single target damage spells at high levels (such as animate objects and conjure animals), generally they are better of with martials in the party. Bladesingers and Hexblades that do martial things as good as martials and have plenty of spells are where the martials are in a tough spot compared to them.

In my experience during the last 5 years with 5e, I believe that casters are better than martials in two situations: one fight per long rest(s) campaigns and no feats campaigns. The former includes campaigns with very long downtimes as casters have so much more to do in downtime, not even taking scribe scroll into account. I can't help but wonder if that means that casters are simply better in homebrew campaigns as official modules tend to have a lot of combat and a lot of magic items. I have been in two campaigns with no feats (the latter on going) and everyone is a caster or half caster - except one monk who's gonne down the first round of every combat :p Now for sure casters have exploration on auto pilot and utility down with spells such as knock, detect magic, create food and water all the way to teleport and magnificent mansion.And martials are WAY more relient on magical items to truly show what they can do. However, the best situation is when you have martials and casters working together. Either via controlling the enemies or buffing/protecting the martials and letting them go ham.

in my experience, yes i would agree with you that martial characters excel at single-target damage. i would add 2 points, though: 1) the DM seriously needs to give a magic weapon suitable for the character level; and 2) the Player should be aware that the combat heroics will require both creative thinking and optimization of the character build

Thanks! Was looking forward to this video as we touched upon this topic recently. You bring good arguments and while I don't agree with all of them, I appreciate your view. A really strong argument of yours is piloting a caster right. Amongst optimizers, you'd assume casters are as well piloted as martials. Regardless if that's the case, the vast majority of players are not optimizers. So the likelihood of casters being piloted poorly increases if one is not into the mechanics.

You seem to be comparing fighters optimised for DPR to unoptimised casters. Casters can be optimised for single target nova or DPR whether that be through OP summons such as conjure animals or through good old Sorc-Lock or Nuclear Wizard builds. These builds will have similar (sometimes higher) levels of single target damage as an optimised fighter, while also being more tanky than a martial thanks to better save and access to the overpowered shield and absorb element spells. A level 20 Sorc-Lock for example can do around 140 to 180 damage per round for about 5 rounds while also having access to 24 AC (breastplate + physical shield + shield spell) without any magic items, then drop down to a measly 120-ish DPR after running out of spell slots and dropping an animate objects with their last level 5 slot. Oh, and most caster builds can do this from far far away, which half the martial builds can't.

There are 2 issues. The first is whether there currently is a power gap between martials v. Casters and most of the discussion in the video and commentary is a reflection of the current state of dnd. Feel free to agree or disagree with proposition that martials are less powerful than casters and that furthermore that disparity only is widened as the characters move from tier 1 to 2 to 3 etc. I personally think the answer is an obvious yes casters can do more and have possibility of winning fights single handedly in far greater frequency than martials. Ergo power parity obviously favors casters. The second though is the future of martial v. Caster power parity as current dnd1 is play tested. Personally I don't see much power changes in casters particularly of the control variety. I do see though that feat changes nerf the ability of martials to come on line early (no more crossbow expert sharpshooter by lvl 4) since the master feats are not valid lvl 1 choices. I also see that the nerf of criticals, hits martials to much greater effect than the elimination of crits by casters. The impacts to rogues not criting sneak damage or paladins smite crits are a huge power change (although it is debatable if a paladin is a martial or a half caster) and in the rogues case the rogue class typically is considered a C tier class at best and further nerfing this class puts it squarely into monk territory. The new rules seem to hinder martials on the whole while being neutral to caster types imo. Later edit - I stand corrected the new level 1 feats are a huge boon to casters (martials don't get anything hugely impactful. Yes lucky is great but is great for all classes). Magic initiate rewritten to allow use of spell slots and upcasts is a significant uptick in caster advantage. Divine casters getting access to multiple casts of familiars, shield, or silvery barbs get a huge advantage all of a sudden, all at lvl 1.

Thanks for the video. I noticed you compared spells vs optimised martials. A fairer comparison would be optimised caster vs optimised martial. At higher levels caster > martials at all 3 pillars of play. Casters+martials is the way to go in a collaborative team game.

Late to the party! So it sounds like your casters are sometimes struggling because your DM is 1) specifically bringing enemies that counter some of your spells, and 2) they provide powerful enchanted items to help scale their damage. This is a perfectly reasonable thing for a DM to do, but it is a testament to the strength of casters that the DM has to do things like this to keep things somewhat fair. I DM myself, usually at lvl 5-12 because I find those ranges to be the most enjoyable to play, and I never feel the need to nerf a martial class relative to a caster. If anything, I still feel the need to provide some martial classes (the ones without spellcasting) additional magical items to remain relevant even at this range in the game, because without them they don't seem capable of competing with half-casters or fullcasters. I typically run more classic dungeon crawls with an emphasis on long adventure days, difficult combat and I think I am up to about 7 dead PCs in our current one, so this is a style of campaign that *should* balance things out according to the DMG rules for adventure day length. Long rests are only allowed in "safe" locations that I determine, so they are pretty few and far between. Even so, characters with spellcasting (half-, full- or gained through multiclassing or subclass) tend to keep up pretty easily with the non-casters who have better magic items than them. Now, if we only had martial and fullcaster characters with no half-casters and no martial subclasses for fullcasters (Bladesinger, Valor/Swords Bard etc) I think the balance could work out somewhat decently because dealing good damage directly is very, very expensive in the long run. But the game does have half-casters and martial subclasses, which means martials can't generate an advantage even in the best case scenarios. Let's take an example. You have the option between playing a Fighter (any subclass except Eldritch Knight) and a Hunter Ranger in a lvl 5-12 campaign (again, those are the levels I like) and you occasionally run into enemy monsters that can disable spellcasting, for example by using Silence in tight quarters. Is being a Fighter worth it? Probably not, because a Hunter Ranger is going to provide most of the damage a Fighter will if we look at their overall capabilities between rests (instead of single turns) and they have insanely good spells they will still be able to use effectively if the player knows how to. Pass Without Trace is one of the strongest 2nd lvl spells in the game, in and out of combat. That +10 to Stealth for the whole party will provide you with so many surprise rounds, which are insanely valuable. Furthermore, Colossus Slayer is worth ca half an attack of optimized builds and 60-70% of attacks on "regular" builds, so even at lvl 11 the Fighter's advantage is fairly inconsequential when you're down to making regular attacks, which will happen a lot for Fighters since they burn resources so quickly (assuming similar optimization on the Fighter and Hunter, of course). It's not before lvl 20 (18 in OneD&D) that the Fighter can boast a notable increase in dmg relative to a Hunter, at which point they are competing with 5th lvl spells. And this is a bad Ranger. The comparison is even more one-sided if we swap out the Hunter for a Gloom Stalker, a Paladin or something like a Bladesinger or Valor Bard. And the Fighter is literally the only non-caster that get anything resembling the tools needed to scale into higher levels. Barbarians, Rogues and Monks are barely functional going into tier 3 play.

I respect your opinion but disagree. It gets so much worse in tier 3+. The casters will have so much utility. Casters have ways to do damage and I think you undersell it. I also think casters can solve whole combats with controls. I think casters scale so much better. They continue to get choices in different spells that are good in so many situations and tier 4 spells are super impactful. Whereas mundanes do damage and it scales little by little and you push all your resources into damage. I think giving mundanes more choices as they level and are in combat would be helpful. Barbarian swing axe as only action is dull. I also feel resource management is oversold as most tables allow long rests once the casters are out of spell slot’s because casters feel bad if they can’t do anything.

he’s back 🥳🥳

It seems that marshal characters deal the most damage and casters facilitate the damage and get the party out of trouble. A party will almost always do better with one or two good marshal characters.

Not sure what it is, but for some reason the audio sounds a lot quieter and more garbled than usual in this video. (Think Discord call quality vs. proper recording setup quality - it's that much different.) Edit: The outro audio is just fine, nice and crisp like normal. Weird.

I don't see a huge power disparity frankly. One thing that isn't mentioned enough is the martials is what ENABLES the casters to function well. If martials aren't up in the monsters face keeping them off the casters, the casters will drop FAST. They work together, all casters or all martials not ideal, a mix is best!

Ask your Sax player friend to help engineer the sound of your voice out of the well, please. The music is perfect for an Eberron game set in Sharn, and the levels don't drown you out (despite the well doing that).

At level 9 a fighter receives Indomitable - at level 9 a wizard receives Wall of Force...Need I say more?

I agree with everything you said...so, new subscriber. One of your YT optimizer buddies directed me here.

My game rules are slightly different, I give all martials +10ft of movement every 4 levels. I also took away great weapon master and just made it a standard feature of all weapons. "When you make an attack with a weapon with which you have proficiency, you can choose to remove your proficiency from any attack roll made with that weapon to deal double your proficiency in damage on a successful attack.

I used to think full casters were far superior to martials. Then I played an optimized Paladin. I found it was easier to solve problems with damage compared to spells. I think Paladins, in general, and Gloomstalker Rangers have the best middle ground of useful in combat and useful out of combat for problem-solving.

You hit the nail right on the head on this one. Screw the CASTERS when it comes to dmg, the casters are screwed. Screw the martials when it comes to dmg, EVERYONE is screwed.

Generally when comparing martials to casters for single target damage, if you compare psychic lance you're doing it wrong. Conjure animals. Polymorph. Tasha's summons. Bound elementals. Summon greater demon. Animate object. All of the above can easily out-damage any martial. And at high level ? Simulacrum and true polymorph can summon you a permanent pet ancient dragon

Mic muffled. Elevator music is loud and odd.

Your music played way too loud, sir. I could barely hear you clearly.

Casters have so many ways to deal good damage while also offering good no-save control that they consistently match the contributions of martials. Telekinetic+Spirit Guardians, or Thorn Whip+Spike Growth, or simple Conjure Animals, or "the Microwave" (two casters comboing Wall of Force and Sickening Radiance), to pick some eqsy examples. But then on top of that they have superior defences due to armour dips, Shield/Absorb Elements/Silvery Barbs, the ability to wear a shield and Dodge without crippling damage, etc etc. The fact that so many of the best spells (at the levels when Legendary Resistance is common) don't allow a save can't have its importance overstated. Among other things, it means casters don't really need ASIs. Martials aren't resourceless. They have hitpoints. And they end up spending more of them than optimized casters, especially in melee. Martials in melee are in fact an active liability to the casters in combat, between being a drain on healing resources and just begging for friendly fire. In 5e there are just 6 skills. Grapple (Athletics), Escape Grapple (Acrobatics), Benefit From PWT (Stealth), Avoid Surprise (Perception), Make Scrolls (Arcana), and DM Fiat (everything else). Martials aren't significantly better than casters at any of these (especially since both Bards and Rangers get Expertise), and casters have magic to supplement their skills on top of that. Often said spells are more impactful than skills simply by virtue of having defined mechanics rather than relying on DM fiat (or by providing large bonuses to skills). And then there's the general principle that martials never get any feature worth more than a 4th levels spell slot. And most of *those* are literal 4th level spell slots. And they only get as many uses of those weak features as casters get as bonus resources on top of their spell slots. This, combined with the aforementioned defences, means casters far outperform martials on long adventuring days. Oh, and casters have castly more build diversity. Not just due to rewriting their character sheets with new spell preparations on a regular basis, but also because they need far fewer feats to make their builds functional. Casters basically just need concentration protection, whereas martials need damage and defences and ASIs.

I'd say legendary resistance hurts martial more, but not by a lot. Assuming the caster knows what they are doing anyway.

Combat is NOT the most important of the "3 pillars" of D&D. It is the easiest, but in many ways it's also the least important considering it is the easiest to bypass, the easiest to deal with/trivialize, and least likely to lead to situations that expand the story or lead to opportunities for character development. Casters dominate 2/3 of D&D (exploration & non-combat). Non-caster martials don't dominate any portion of D&D (they barely outpace casters in terms of damage in some cases, but not by an outrageous amount nor do they do such consistently). Casters overshadow martials consistently. Whether or not that'll continue in One D&D is a different story.

I am absolutely Loving this new style of music, it's amazing

🧐🤔, I loving disagree. 15th level artificer with a rifle (1d10) multi attack and haste (pulse sharpshooter and fairyfire) give me 4 attacks with advantage a round with a plus 40 in total putts around 100 damage a round. Pulse I can fly because artificer. VS a 15th level barbarian max output is like 40 or 50 a round.

Well, perhaps you should make some optimized martial builds to prove this?

one D&D makes an eldritch knight with shadow blade amazing.

I think that most claims for caster superiority refer to things that are more "narrative" than functional. Sure, your wizard COULD take a year off and Planar Bind an army of demons or magic jar into a shapechanged gold dragon, but try to suggest to your party doing that and you'll realise people don't take you seriously and don't want to play with you. Also, considering Wand of Web is an uncommon item, any ranger can easily have excellent damage AND one of the best control spells in the game, so the disparity also shrinks from that perspective

I just play gishes like Swords Bard and Bladesinger. Because slots are best used for control, support, and healing (if your spell list has it), and single target damage being used via a weapon. That way, even when I'm out of spell slots, I'm still useful. Still love the presence of pure martials and pure casters still, but, eh. That's just how I roll.

The best party is one of both casters AND martials. They really appreciate having each other around. A full martial party and a full caster party will both be less effective than a mixed party.

Hi. I was listening to the previous vid in the car and then I jumped to this one. Very good both. But I noticed a very different audio setting in this one and was for worse... like.. a lot. EDIT: not the music, the music is great. The quality.

Personally people kinda exaggerate the disparity but it is there Customization, depth and dynamic gameplay are the main faces of the divide, to an extent class fantasy and experience as well

I think when you consider such things, resistances, enemy placement, difficulty-- yes, casters can seem balanced and martials can look like a great addition. But, I think a lot of it depends on the setting. Playing in a WM or AL setting can really open the door for martials to grab all sorts of goodies, but that won't always be the case. Sword-n-board martials, of which there are many, don't really have the same capabilities to pump out damage round after round like GWM/SS builds do. Unless you build correctly, your martial can be taken out by a fearful presence without much of a fighting chance. I guess what I'm trying to say is my anecdotal experience tells me there is a good reason people believe in the disparity, although I largely agree that if we're talking about the optimized and ideal, both casters and martials hold their ground fairly well.

A single control spell can solve an entire encounter. No martial can do that. Arguably control is the only way to truly tank. Casters are also better in general when dealing with several ennemies. Fireball or spirit guardians easily clear crowds. Summoners also easily out-damage any martial. Conjure animal is a monster, and even without going here, polymorph or conjure elementals or any of the tasha summons can really bring the pain. Warlock can get them on a short rest too.

Hey, I really enjoyed this video as it echoed some of what I've been feeling watching optimization circles for a little while now. Spells are powerful, and control casters are powerful, but the way most people play casters are utility and control and martials are durability and damage and neither side really does well without the other. There are definitely ways to build control martials and tanky or blaster casters but it seems to me in the natural flow of the game both sides have a place and aren't outshining each other as much as the internet optimization community would lead you to believe.

The discussion of a widening disparity is evidence of a wide disparity to begin with. Also Combat is most important of the three pillars only and ONLY on a westmarch. And mostly on a one shot west march at that. This is a matter of needing to get out in ones games if they say it's the most important. It's just the most easily addressed, not important. If I planeshift level 20 fighter somewhere I can tell you right away the +18 to 8 attacks or so isn't doing anything. Spellcasters give access to things such as 2d4 to attacks and saves with just a peace cleric and bless. Temp hp and healing that Tiamat has trouble keeping up with from a twilight cleric. Spells that have no save, that end encounters like wall of force or force cage. Cheats such as glyph of warding and magical aura. A martial has hit thing. It's too one dimensional when spellcasters also have hit thing, but do it better. Have a spellcaster have 8 in every stat besides their casting stat? Have them only have non-damaging spells? Even at a DC 13 at level 11 a wizard is going to prone the enemy with overlapping grease spells if the enemy has a bad save. Martials only have one way of attacking with dmg. AC. Spells casters however get, dex, con, wisdom, strength, intelligence, charisma, as well as no saves at all it just works, long term buffs that often stack. And those don't just do dmg when the enemy fails, it often does more. And it's for every defense possible. That's ignoring the dmg reduction on reactions almost no martial gets, such as featherfall, absorb elements, shield. Spells don't have to worry about getting disadvantage in the water as well, just half dmg if they do fire dmg. Spells bypass exploration completely. Goodberry being the most glaring issue for food. Druids, and clerics are good wisdom based characters, so they ignore exploration. Wizards use familiars and the like often to scout ahead as well with little risk. Spells bypass stealth as well with invisibility, and pass without trace. Spells bypass traps most times by sending out fodder to trigger them. A druid can do all of those things with low cost. With the right build a wizard can as well now a days with low impact cost. Roleplay? Far as the mechanics go if the DM insists on rolls. Gift of Gab to fix mistakes. Glibness. Enhance ability cha. Impossible long distance communication, that too. Now, if we include equipment in the discussion, how is the martial going to compete with my wizard that has +20(or more) to hit on steel wind strike with a action surge as well? Or if we're talking early levels inflict wounds? The changes go towards martials here because martials are weak and always have been. Casters can and do more or just as much dmg casually early tiers. The only things martials have over casters is single target dmg and that can be gotten around with on a lot of casters while still having versatility. Is the fighter going to out dmg the bard with tensers and a longbow on them at the tier the bard gets access to it? Doubt. Is the fighter going to out dmg the bard at a tier where dmg just falls off in terms of use? Yes.

So lets take a 20 level wizard, and a 20 level fighter, A wizard can, with a day or 3 of setup, whish a simulacrum, true polymorph it into an ancient brass dragon, then magic jar it and swallow the magic jar, you are now permanently an ancient dragon with legendary resits, a burrowing speed, and full level 20 spellcasting capability, in addition, in the event of your death, you first turn back into a simulacrum of yourself, getting all your spell slots recharged, and if you manage to die again you can still use your magic jar to retreat, and maybe snag up a new body, and if you dont get to do that you might be able to set up a clone beforehand, so you are still fine. Since clone requires an inch of flesh, I would argue that you would be come back as a dragon, yes you can only magic jar humanoids, but brass dragons can shape change into one. Thus. Even if you say half this stuff is utter bullshit, you can still just permanently turn your simulacrum into a dragon, and have an ancient dragon as backup. Also, if you focus more on control, of course you deal less damage, but that does not mean you did not contribute. Further you say combat is the most important, and while I agree, the other pillars still take up a relevant amount of time and have significant impact. So practically the only thing going for martials at this point is their ability to do combat hopefully better than casters, which they cannot. Social interactions: Most casters use mental stats, martials often need to invest heavily into physical stats, this results in the casters often simply having better scores for social interaction, you could say fighters are not much worse, but that is because it is often decided with roleplay, and mechanics are not used as often. In conclusion, casters are not better by a landslide, but martials cant claim any advantage in social interactions. Rangers and rogues are good at investigation, however if familiars are used for scouting, especially the owl, and druids cast spells like pass without trace, they get quickly overshadowed by optimized casters. In combat, casters lack damage, so I agree that a lot of later game spells are not damage focused, however there are still a lot of spells that deal silly damage, conjure animals for instance is an easy example, aoe cannot be so easily discredited, since if you can hit 3 things, it is definitely worth it in respects of damage to use spells like fireball, and with spells like phantasmal force damage is still ok even if you just put them in a iron maiden and start hitting the monster with a dagger round after round. In addition, I would say burst is more important then sustained damage, since ending the fight earlier means taking less damage and risk, and casters can put down big damage quickly. I do not know why you bring up psycic lance as an example for damage, it is a spell that can incapacitate an opponent for a turn, as in, control, in addition to dealing damage, in addition, it also deals damage on a failure, which martials often lack, if you want to make an example of damage for a caster, a fireball does ~23 singe target damage instead of 20, is a level lower, and can hit multiple enemy's. In addtion casters get access to spells that just end combat without needing to fight, sleep in early levels is basically defaultkilling things, and calm emotions is able to end a surprising amount of fights. Another example you give is mind whip, mind whip does not deal damage, that is not why you cast mind whip, the point of mind whip is that you use it on a dumb melee enemy, they nearly always stick, because int save, and they take away the reaction, so you can just walk away, whereupon the monster can choose to either move or take an action, resulting in it basically skipping a turn if no one decided to hug it, denying a turn with a int save and a second level slot is amazing, and on top of that it still does 2/3rds of a martials damage apparently. Then you mention disintegrate, I would like to see a martial do 10d6+40 is on average 75 damage in a singe turn without ruining all their recourses, on top of that Disintegrate can be set up with things like cutting words and mind sliver to increase the chance of success, I am not a fan of it, but its okay damage. Yes, spellcaster slots drain, also, if enemy's would not be shut down, martial health would drain quickly. Yes counterspell wars drain spell slots, you can also choose to not counterspell and see what happens, but that option somehow is even worse, since you choose to assume counterspell wars by default, and yet just letting it happen is a martials only option against spellcasters. sure you can break concentration, but magic missile is better at it, or dispel magic at higher levels. Martials will also struggle if there are a lot of battles, running out of their primary resource. Also casters can get okay combat damage on the side with a summon or concentration spell like conjure elemental, spirit guardians flaming sphere etc, which combined with shutdown can do a lot. If you get late game enough that saves get silly strong, landing a single watery sphere can practically end the evil wizards whole career. So they need those saves to not instantly die, and you can still box the enemy with wall of force, cast over time concentration effects, or simply mob up minions with fireball, while dealing a little bonus damage to the bbeg. If something gets thrown 3 times through a prismatic wall and not die, do nothing even, it either is immune to magic, which yes, can be a problem, or it can be specifically immune to 3 different damage types and a good bucketful of condition. Yes, a lot of enemy's can no longer be counterspelled, that is now no longer an option, it never was to begin with with martials, you can still silvery barbs, bless and other shenanigan's to doge the really bad ones though, and with good mental saves, where the worst effects are concentrated, casters are still less affected than martials. "Its hard to be effective as a a save or suck caster against legendary resistances" Then don't? casters have so many tools, transform into a t-rex and wail on them, summon minions to soak damage, buff allies, take care of minions. Casters have unrivaled versatility and if your only way to victory is to force a save or suck, you might want to pick up some different spells. "It is hard to pilot a caster" I agree, that is, in my opinion, why they are fun, for a barb, you can practically write a flowchart, if enemy in range, rage, run at closest enemy, attack recklessly, repeat Casters allow for a lot of freedom and choice, which also opens up mechanically inferior options, making the right choices is what in my opinion makes casters interesting. "Martials get spell like ability's" yes, however spells are more versatile, since they can be chosen more freely, and past level 5, it is rare to see a spell like feature be stronger than a spell, martials do things indeed, however in my opinion rarely as greatly as casters. Also, magic items exist, yes, however these also make wizards stronger, assuming the dm hands out items equally, saying that only martials should get magic items is admitting that martials are inherently weaker and need help, just like there are legendary weapons and armor, there are legendary wands and robes. An optimized martial with an great item loadout is crazy good yes, however an caster with an optimal item loadout is just as good. For a one-shot I once played a rogue with an eversmoking bottle, practically invincible hiding in the smoke every turn, Now que a goblin wizard with fog having the same options without the magic item, and still casting things from within the fog.

I feel like the problems with martials is that their damage doesn’t really scale. Fighters are the only class that gets extra attacks at higher levels. Barbarians, monks, rangers, and paladins just plateau so hard, so I feel like getting five levels of them and then just going into a spellcasting class will usually be better than straight martial.

Long time viewer, 1st time commitmenting. 1DnD will push martials up. Casters are powerful but that is because most campaigns are run in a manner where casters "know how to build" to the game and martials use less resources. Also (in my short 5 years of experience with 5e). And just a note to fighters are basic: it's a Role playing game not a roll playing game. So you get out what you put in. I Love your content.

I'm happy to see discussion on this issue rather than the usual assertion that casters are exponentially superior just because everyone says so. I still think that casters come out on top due to flexibility and greater space for optimization, but I agree that martials provide damage that is quite difficult for casters to rival. Arguments to the contrary often rely on conjure animals as a counter point, using the most overtuned spell and making a number of assumptions that overlook the spell's downsides. Conjure animal dpr numbers assume creature choice, that the creatures won't be hit with aoe, and that the creatures will be able to reach the target (both of the last points are more likely to be issues when you follow the spell's text on initiative and don't let creatures take their turn after the summoner). When these caveats are factored in, despite conjure animals still being a fantastic spell, the advantages of a martial pumping out consistent ranged damage turn after turn become apparent.

You said that martials do damamge for no resource cost. This is not true, being in martials do damage at the cost of health and positioning. If you do the economics and turn everythng into the fundamental currency of hp (which can be done) then the cost martials take is wuit substantial.

In every game I have ever played since the first in the 1970s, fighters have been more powerful, dealt more damage, and been able to take more damage, than mages. Fighters are better in every way except when wizards fet Wish, and DMs nerf wish so bad its dangerous to even try it other than to cast a spell you already could do anyway. People don't take into account magic weapons and armor that fighters always get. Wizard magic items don't usually do anything but give them more spells that they could cast anyway. Spells in 5e flatten out around level 3 with fireball and lightning bolt, and higher level spells don't do much more damage than they do. Fighters get more attacks, hit points, AC, as they level up. Our current party the paladin has a Holy Avenger, other magic weapons and armor, and the other paladin has flame tongue swords. They are doing 1.5 to double the damage of the mages per round and where mages run out of spell slots, fighters weapons can run forever. I don't know what the heck people are talking about when they say there is a power disparity in favor of mages because unless your DM never lets the party get magic weapons, the favor is to the fighters every time.

Funny I missed this. Way late. No pretty well known even back in the day that casters are stronger. You are making the augument that martials can be powerful. They can be. A martial fighter with a Vorperal blade can cut a wizards head off - but give that Wizard a couple of minutes to dry off and they can thank the fighter for a nice fight with the clone they had stashed in the back. That ancient dragon can decline to be a pin cushion from the 9 attacks that fighter may put on them in a fight but the Wizard could help him rethink his life choices with a force cage. And not talking about wishes here. But that is the point. It is not about martials sucking but they are less powerful and versatile. This was recognized back in AD&D when I started - Fighters unashamedly got 18/% so they had a much greater impact to stay up with Magic Users. And still, knowing that was the powerful option and having survived the Tomb I still loved and played Rangers and Thieves and the like. Don’t get me wrong I did sometimes enjoy a Cleric or Wizard but it was a different flavor of fun. The fighter/Barbarian will go right up to the BBEG Demon nose to nose and be the hero but it is a lot less heroic when you can end the fight by just making the bad guy make a save or be banished back home. That and leaving comments months after the fact with massive amounts of Necro 😂

Given the latest one dnd UA releases the argument that the inherent instinctual direction of WotC is a further nerfing of martials. If there wasn't already a disparity between martials and casters, WotC is doing their darndest to make sure there is one. Rangers were made into casters essentially to rectify their imbalanced power and rogues were utterly left behind and left dying by the roadside in a Jeremy Crawford drive-by.

How did 3 passings through a prismatic wall do nothing 😶

FYI: the sound is horrible. New mic?

Please make some martials. Saw echo knight but that's cheese.

I sorta find the whole casters being stronger than martials or vise versa thing kind of contrived since dnd is the kind of game it is the difference between which one is stronger is entirely gm and game dependent

Also, martials are enjoying a significant power creep, with some subclasses like echo knight and gloomstalker being able to do things that even casters can't. I really like the drakewarden ranger for example. Levels 3-6 its pet is like a no-concentration summon beast, and at 7 it becomes the most reliable mount in the game + a no-concentration floating resistance to the ranger

Threre's definitely a disparity Bilbron. Pack Tactics has talked about it and shared this other youtuber "A Hero" who has a good vid illustrating how casters beat martials in every category in 5e. might be something you want to check out. I echo his stance as well. i think you blew past the second time around because you had optimized martials with you. this doesn't mean that martials are better than casters. this means optimized builds, in this case a martial, are better than unoptimized casters. if you go a 3rd time around, try to go through it with a party full of optimized controllers and watch how easy it becomes. inspiration doesn't help them out because any optimized martial will have an advantage generator already like reckless attack. they aren't gaining anything. while crit-fisher or auto-crit builds which are some of the best optimized martial setups will just disappear. one dnd is a nerf to martials. even grapple/shove is worse now as you have to attack AC which is high for monsters instead of targeting their athletics which is typically low.

I don't see a disparity, just casters being more versatile in more situations.

The plural of anecdote is not data. You can tell nice stories. Do some real analysis.