The BEST Dungeons and Dragons Class Tier List 

Paladins and Clerics can literally and figuratively put the fear of God into a DM

A party with a cleric and a paladin is a party playing on Easy Mode.

Offbeat: calls artificer a support class. My friends atificer: casually tanks a meteor swarm and 5 attacks from a tiamat avater level boss that was meant to kill us for plot reasons at level 14.

I think the Artificer is really cool. It’s got support, it’s got combat. It’s honestly a really neat generalist class. You can do pretty much anything with it, gaining more specialization with subclasses. It’s definitely not the best nor the worst, but it can cover so much ground. You can have a whole team of them and they can all be different. Bard, arguably, does that better. What hurts the artificer the most is the fact that it’s a half caster. Bard covers several of the support and damage options that Artificer has, but is also a full caster. But that doesn’t change how useful an artificer can be. Not to mention the fact that almost all artificers have a way to attack with Intelligence resource-free. So you can really mainline that.

To give Artificer some credit: A Bag of Holding very early on in an adventure is very nice to have. Not to mention how high AC can get with it. Armorer is also quite useful for the Thunder Gauntlets, making it so a successful attack means enemies have to target a high ac target or roll on disadvantage on your teammates. I'm currently playing a Kobold Armorer. Thunder Gauntlets + Grovel, cower and beg is hilarious sometimes with how dumb it can be. Granted, lets be honest though, every class has their strength and weaknesses, and what matters is how you have fun with any class

Most ranger subclasses can benefit a lot from Fighter multiclass, but fighter can also benefit from Gloomstalker subclass(unless the game gets to lvl 20).

I enjoy your tier lists, thank you for making me feel good for choosing a Paladin for my first character lol. I'd love to see videos of subclass tier lists from you in the future.

Sorcerer angry rage comment incoming brace yourself: Point 1: Worst spell list in the game By what metric? Worse then the wizard? Certainly, which would be pertinent, except the wizard has the best spell list in the game so litterally every other full caster is worse by default. Worse then bard? Maybe if we include magic secrets which come online at 10th level, a point where most campaigns have already concluded. The sorcerer, in fact has the second best spell list in the game. Second ONLY to wizard. The divine casters cannot compare with arcane in terms of spell, and Sorcs even have access to that via Favoured Soul. And I hope the position that warlocks somehow have a better list because of the like, two decent exclusives they have isnt being taken when they lack even basic staples like polymorph and web. Hell Abberant Mind and Clockwork soul even have access to most of the Warlock standouts. So no, to say the sorcerer spell list is bad, is simply incorrect. Worse then wizard, yes. Bad? No. Point 2: Metamagic and Metamagic Adept Metamagic does scale, here are a few examples. Twinned spell doubles the power of the spell being cast. Functionally then a twinned spell used to double a polymorph is much more powerful than a twinned spell used to double a chromatic orb. Conclusivley, this option becomes more powerful as you gain more spells. Hightened spell allows you to impose disadvantage on the saving throw a creature makes. Spells like hypnotic pattern or Banishment are far more debilitating then spells like thunderwave or burning hands. Quickened spell works best when paired with spells that persist and repeat their effects using an actions, such as eyebite most notably. Quickened spell works better with eyebite then it does with witchbolt. Empowerd spell lets you re roll a number of damage dice that turn out poor, higher level blast spells typically have more damage dice, ergo the option scales. I feel my point is sufficiently made. Metamagic absolutley scales, it becomes more powerful as you gain more powerful spells. Almost universally, the metamagic options become better as you gain level and unlock better spells.I challange you to name anything any caster can do in the game at level 7-10 that its more potent then a twinned polymorph on your martials. This also neatly rebukes the notion that metamagic adept is somehow comparable to having the actual metamagic feature. You gain 2 sorcery points, meaning youre limited to one quicken, 1 twin of a second level spell, 2 subtle spells, and 2 empowered spells per day roughly, and cant even access hightened due to its cost. And you only get two actual options to choose from. Metamagic adept, if anything, is best used with sorcerers, not instead of them, as more sorc points and meta options are always valuable. Point 3: Weak subclasses Abberant Mind and Clockwork soul are arguably 2 of the best subclasses in the game, at least in contention for sure. Shadow and Favoured soul are perfectly reasonable, they have fewer spells but access to powerfull features like favoured of the gods and hound of ill omen. Overall thoughts: Your entire postulation that sorcerer is weak is predicated upon the idea that wizard is better. Wizard is better than everything. Why play fighter when you can play bladesinger, why play druid when you can play chronurgy/conjuring etc. Sorcerer doesnt need to be as good or even better then wizard to be usefull. It only needs to be better then the classes which were placed above it. And to say that a barbarian brings more to a group then a sorcerer is something that I just cannot agree with. Tl;dr I think sorcerer was done dirty mainly due to a lack of understanding and being the only full caster to be arbitrarily compared to the best class in the game, then called useless when it comes up short. My disappointment is immeasurable, and my day is ruined. On a real note sorry for the long post but I really think that a salient discussion is to be had regarding sorcerers and where they stand post Tasha's. Thanks for coming to my TED talk. EDIT: Just noticed someone else made more or less the same points I made and you found them wanting. Thats fair enough, its just a game after all. I personally feel Sorceres are an A tier class, possibly S tier contender with Abberant Mind and Clockwork soul. Thanks for the vid and keep doing what you do.

You forgot to mention how Paladins can literally become basically God's for a short time with their capstone

I love my Monk, but you make all valid points. There's a ton of creatures that are immune to stun. You can't do 100+ points of damage in a round without specific subclasses or magic items. And the weapon and armor restrictions mean you get to watch everyone else upgrade their gear doing more damage while you are punching things with your magic unarmed strikes. So yes, monk is arguably the worst class in combat. It is still a lot of fun though. (I could make similar arguments for my artificer.)

Wizard can't heal, unless they use UA to make potions, or use Wish which they have to wait for level 17 to cast Wish to do so, and depending on how you wish for that, you have a chance to lose Wish.

I think what has been done with the Aberrant Mind, and Clockwork Soul Sorcerer really helped the class shine. Not only doubling the spells known, but also giving it access to other classes spells that it wouldn’t have naturally. Sadly this is two subclasses, and while some support has come out to help it, I can accept its placement.

Good old easy Tier List. Should be fun for Outlaw's opinions to be referenced in comments from now on.

Love sorcerers for roleplaying, but aside from that I mainly chose it for wild magic (best subclass ever lol). Even then I had to multiclass into bard + warlock to have some fun with my character.

As much as I love Sorcerer I definitely agree on them. Until we get PHB 2 and the rest of the subclasses get updated to be on par with Clockwork and Aberrant Mind. Those two subclasses feel like a whole different class to the rest of Sorcerer.

"most of you have acces to wish" only sorcerer and wizard get it, and bard can use its bardic magic secrets to get it. druid, cleric and non genie warlock: am I a joke to you? Druid, which he literally was talking about when mentioning wish: stop harassing me.

Consider: The sorcerer is the best spell engine in the game. As a caster you effectively get more spells by changing out spells and sorcery points. Spell lists don't matter with Tasha's in the picture as we can choose from 3 spell lists. Not to mention the divine soul that's been here the entire time.

So the sorcerer has arguably the second best spell list in the game. It has the strongest spellcasting feature (aside from divine intervention which is very unreliable) Metamagic adept is the strongest on sorcerers and very mediocre on every other class. And it gets con saves as the only spellcaster. The only thing that hinders sorcerers is the spells known mechanic. All in all it is less powerful than the wizard, but the wizard is the strongest class in game. The sorcerer (at least for me) is in a tier and is definitely stronger than the barbarian, ranger and artificer

"Metamegic doesn't scale" me laughing in Wish spell as bonus action...

Hey Offbeat I was wondering if you could like, I don’t know, make a time stopping vampire build thats been alive since the 1800’s? We could name it Dione

The Warlock invocations which allow you to cast leveled spells at will are often overlooked which is a shame because at will detect magic, disguise self, and levitate are BONKERS for utility. Warlocks being able to use spells which are designed to be tied to a resource without having to expend any resources other than an invocation slot is crazy.

Clerics are definitely powerful. Had a 4th Ed Campaign that we converted to 5th Ed in the 4th Ed Paragon Tier because the players were getting fed up with how long combat was taking in 4th at that stage and 5th had just come out. One character had an evil undead clone villain of himself and he converted to Cleric class in the Edition shift. The Evil version of him had all of his abilities; and a side thing that was originally going to be challenging but not too challenging to them in 4th resulted in the entire party getting wiped with the Party Cleric getting sent to another Plane, and all the other party members dying except for one who ran away when he realized he couldn't win. There was another spell caster that had charmed children to attack them that the party was trying to save which was causing them some issues, but it was how powerful the Cleric spells were that were the major deciding factor, especially when the Party Cleric got sent to another Plane.

Found out recently this combo Polymorph + power word kill= instant death( it kills not dealing damage)

Heavily disagree with sorcerer being so lol. Metamagic and the new subclasses add incredible power to the class and natural access to wish. A teir easily

I’m currently playing an Eloquence Bard/Hexblade Warlock multiclass. When we’re talking jack of all trades, I’m literally a healing, buff/debuff, and damaging spell caster who can do single-target or control, I’m also partially a martial character and have good out of combat interaction skills with Silver Tongue

I've debated with people before about how much sorcerers suck and man was it nice to see you bring up the biggest reasons I think they need a rework

I tend to find bard lacking because, while on paper it has everything, when it comes down to it it’s spells are a bit lacking. By my assessment, most of its good spells that aren’t heals are concentration. For non-concentration it’s pretty lacking, while other spellcasters have plenty of other things to do. Sure there’s Magical secrets, but you don’t get those till after quite a while.

Ok hear me out monk in tashas cauldron has way of astral self is really good early game way of mercy has healing it has all things that other classes can do but it has more options then most classes it’s a customization based class they might suck but they are fun as all hell

The best use of an artificer is as an NPC played by the DM that lives in the party base. It is the source of some of the items that could otherwise be found in encounters, though not all of them. You can also provide it ingredients to craft poisons, acids, flammables, etc.

party will love you if you are barbarian that is until you run into 1v20 encounter shouting about blood of your ancestors /j

I really enjoyed this video! Another great one ftw!

Yesss offbeat outlaw, you rock my man!!

Haven’t watched the video yet. I already know the monk is going to get dunked on. Get us more ki points, Wizards!

Can’t tell you how many time my ass was saved by an artificer’s flash of genius. Also Sorc is on the up and up imo. Abberant mind and clockwork are both amazing. Mind sliver + new spells in Fizban’s + knowing more spells now has really opened up the class.

Artificer is my favorite class for literally anybody at the table but me to play. They're great to have around for things like enhancing the equipment of other party members and supplying staple general-use magic items (Bag of Holding) early/if your DM is stingy. Buuuuut that means they're using a whole lot of their class features to give things to everybody else, not leaving much for themselves, and that can feel kinda bad to play. That, or you *do* hoard it all for yourself, don't end up using it as well as others would, and still probably end up having them beg you to use it on them throughout the campaign. Just kind of a pain and doesn't do a *whole* lot on their own.

I know Monks aren't the best, but I like them because I find it funny that in a world of monsters and magic there's people running around literally punching things to death

Would love to see an updated version of this tier list since its over a year old, but with sorcerer being my favorite class, I think you overlooked A LOT. It should be top of A tier or bottom of S tier. First off, I think you compared it too much to the wizard which plays a similar but different role. Nothing compares to the raw spell output & action economy breaking features that sorcerers can do. The reason metamagic doesnt "scale" is cuz its a really strong resource that fundamentally lets you break the rules of spellcasting. Twinned Spell is more than 'pretty good', its a defining feature of metamagic/sorcerer over the wizard. Twin Polymorph, Haste, Greater Invisibility, and many other spells that are literally impossible to pull off even for a wizard with action surge. Some subclasses take this to another level and give absurd value like twin healing word, Hideous laughter, dissonant whispers, HEAL, and my favorite - Guiding Bolt. 8d6 and advantage on 2 different targets at lvl 3 for 1 spell slots and 1 metamagic point... Heres a list of every 'twinnable' spell for sorcerer www.reddit.com/r/dndnext/comments/ltjhy4/updated_sorcerer_twinned_spell_spell_list/ Quicken Spell is the best 'gish' feature in the game for multiclassing. Action to attack and still be able to use a full action spell as a bonus action. Nothing else can do that and other 'gish' subclasses usually restrict you to a cantrip & attack the same turn. Even if you aren't multiclassing, casting Mind Sliver (if they fail) + Quicken *insert save or suck cc spell* isnt terrible either. This is more of a gish/multiclass metamagic, straight sorcerer doesnt get much from it. Subtle Spell has a lot of hidden utility. Mostly the fact that you can't be counterspelled, can still cast spells inside of a 'Silenced' area or while bound & gagged, cast spells in social situations that would get you caught otherwise (suggestion, detect thoughts, major illusion, etc). Who needs warcaster when you can still cast spells while your hands are full using spells that require no material components. (shield, mirror image, misty step, counterspell, greater invis, dimension door, animate objects and many more dont require material components) Extended Spell has some uses... mostly to have spells last through a long rest and into the next day for a bit. Spells like mage armor, suggestion, seeming all have 8 hour duration which increases to 16 hours. It gets better with Divine Soul which lets you extended spell aid, death ward and guardian of faith all to 16 hours. Distant Spell is niche. I have never taken it but I would personally use it to play around counterspell. Lots of spells have a range of 60ft and if an enemy counterspeller is within that range it can be tough, just distant spell so you are beyond 60ft from them. Funnily enough, you can distant spell your counterspell at 120ft and the enemy can't do it back since you arent within 60ft. The other metamagic options are even more niche though Heightened Spell can be good at higher levels when you have better save or suck spells and more sorcerer points. Please reconsider the sorcerer and make an updated list! lol

This vid was awsome I didn’t know wizards were that op and thank offbeat because you were the one who got me into dnd for that I will be forever thankful

I disagree with your placement of sorcerer on this chart. Here is my reasoning. 1: Metamagic adept doesn't subtract from the sorcerer, it adds to it. Getting 4 metamagic options and 6 sorcery points at level 4 makes you way better 2: Metamagic scales with the spells you use it on. Twinned spell dominate monster is WAY stronger than twinned spell ray of sickness 3: The Sorcerer has lacklustre subclasses? Tasha's couldron of everything added two subclasses that are exceptionally strong. They completely solve the Sorcerer's lack of spells known and their lacklustre spell list in one go. I also wouldn't be surprised if the other subclasses eventually get the same treatment with additional spell lists (though that's speculation and shouldn't be taken into consideration.

Last night you had 99.9k subscribers. Now you have 100k. Congratulations.

You don't use Barbarians out of combat though... the lack of proficiencies really mean that you're literally wanting for non-combat options compared to all other classes

I'd like to see them re-work the older Sorcerer subclasses now that Tasha's has improved things with the most recent ones. Giving them an expanded spell list that can be changed to any spell of a certain type was a nice addition. Maybe fixing meta magic to be more effective would also be nice (maybe effects that scale with level). I wonder how you would consider "fixing" it to give it that "wow factor". Also, well... Monks. How would you improve the monk class as a whole to make it more viable as a class, maybe just on it's base abilities? Maybe more things to use ki for? Finally, I have to say... Artificer? It can be a pretty good class. One thing I like about it is that it can slot in very well to any party and be effective. Need a healer? Alchemist. Need a blaster? Artillerist. A tank? Armourer's got you covered. Even Battle Smith steps on the Beastmaster Ranger with it's companion ability. Also, they're proficient with tinkerer's tools and/or thieves tools, meaning they can do a little rogue work if needed.

Fighter I honestly agree with. Although I would place it at god tier personally simply for its pure damage. Even if it doesn’t have that much versatility it’s pure power makes it one of the strongest classes in the game. I’ve seen fighters kill gods with ranged weapons.

It's kinda funny, without realizing it, I've been working my way up the tier list from the bottom over the past few years. Having played Artificer, Sorcerer, Monk, and Warlock, and now playing a 1 Rogue/X Ranger. It's been a blast the whole way up. ^^

Fighters start strong...I feel like Paladins take a long time to become a great class. If you are playing a long campaign with slow progress, I'd say Fighters have a lot of advantages over Paladins. Sorcerers can be horribly built even by somewhat experienced players. But Tasha's sorcerers can stay competitive with wizards until higher levels with less effort.

As a Druid main, I can definitely take A-tier. I definitely feel it can be God-tier, but only if you can play it right. Some of the best circles (Spores, Stars and Shepard) are often very complex and need a lot of knowledge and skill/spell/stat management to be fully realized. Circle of the Moon and Wildfire are also really great circles, and are more beginner friendly, but I think the other three circles can be big game changers. For example, I am playing a Tortle Druid from the Simic guild in my current campaign. He is from the Corcle of the Shepard, so at level 9, he could summon 8 wolves with +4 hp, all attacks were magical and being Simic with high reputation, the wolves had 2 adaptations to every summon, like acid skin and advanced perception. All that with just one 3rd lvl spell. Not to mention the healing support he can do with the unicorn totem. And personally, being a Tortle, his AC was natural 19, so he could tank a lot of damage. It’s all about management with Druid and being able to think outside the box.

I'm fairly new to DnD. For my first ever low level module I decided to play *the Monk*. Because martial arts cool. Obviously. Well, at level 5 the hit points of this monk turned out to be a single point higher than hit points of another player's sorcerer. This was meant to be a melee character but it ended up with HP of a full caster. Depending on the monster, this character could be two or three shot quite easily, which sometimes meant falling unconscious after a single turn. Because of this, the moment I got Dedicated Weapon, my monk picked up a light crossbow and used that as the main weapon. So. That meant bonus action attacks, flurry of blows, step of the wind and extra mobility from unarmored movement + tabaxi combo all became pretty much obsolete. This character was bringing nothing to the table, so to rectify that I went Way of Mercy. I was preserving Ki Points a lot anyway because of the crossbow, so might as well keep them for emergency healing for other party members. The character had its moments but I can't help but notice that what I played was essentially a very shitty Ranger. Suffice it to say, by the time we all hit level 5 and went into part two of the campaign I've had enough and made a Bear Totem Barbarian.

i love martial classes, but fighter (my favorite) always kinda feels like it's missing something. idk I think it's just that monks get the same or more attacks (ignoring action surge) and their fists become magical whereas a fighter could hypothetically go an entire game without getting a magic weapon.

Running a Warforged Armorer 4/Wizard 1 multiclass right now. been sitting at 20 AC since level 2, about to get full plate to bring that to 22, and I just picked up shield so I can get 27 AC on a reaction at level 5. Also just picked up gift of Alacrity and gonna take Chronurgy next level, so I will always go first in Initiative to drop a control or buff spell. You are still going to get the item drops but you might not need them as much so you can spread them around to the rest of the party. Also, you are really good at making items tailored to the party, and tool checks are actually pretty useful with Xanathar's.

Congrats on 100k! Keep on going my man

My only thing to bring to the table is that Blade Warlock gets access to eldritch smite, which is arguably better than the paladin's because its force damage and is automatically 5th level. That being said I don't nessisarily know if I think its better than A tier. I just think on certain builds it becomes a better paladin than actual paladins

I would like to say that a Sorcerer would beat a Wizard 8 out of 10. Btw: It's weird that everybody feels like MoonDruid is the best one by far. Personally, as a Main Druid player, I really don't think he is that strong on most levels. Only on 2~5 and then again on lvl 20 he is better than the others.

Have you ever considered what a good fix to sorcerers could be? They are my favorite class but I have to agree they aren’t that great compared to other casters

A bunch of monk's benefits weirdly don't come into play very much in a typical campaign which really dampens its effectiveness. I've played two monks. On the one spectrum was a shadow monk in a campaign with a new GM who handed out magic items like candy but only ever hooked me up with a useless +STR item, randomly decided stunning strike shouldn't work after I already spent the ki, and chucked long rests at us whenever the spellcasters blew through their spells prematurely. On the other end of the spectrum is an open palm monk in a dark sun based setting where magic items are ridiculously rare, armor is hot and uncomfortable, equipment is shoddy and liable to break, being thrown into a gladiator pit unarmed is expected to happen with regularity, openly spellcasting can get you lynched, and being able to eventually just chill in the desert without food and water forever is insanely helpful- short of breaking his arms and legs, the monk can just keep going in a setting like that. The former is the worst character I've ever played and the latter is easily the best. Unfortunately monk almost seems to be balanced to thrive in times of scarcity, but how often does that ever come up in a typical campaign? A gm might deliberately throw the monk a bone every once in a while, but most campaigns aren't going to showcase that strength because in order to do that you have to intentionally ensure that the rest of the party cannot fulfill their roles and that's not especially fun for everyone else.

Weird idea would be ranking the modules/adventures WotC has published.

Monks are amazing. I reject your analysis. I am a sorcerer main. And I am utterly floored.

artificer with 6 attunement slots is kinda nutty with the right items

You forgot Warlock’s Eldritch Master, which allows them to regain all their spell slots for 1 minute of prayer

15:29 as a member of the scout regiment I can say that drakewarden is op

hey, do you think that you'd make multi-class videos like the fighter muti class tier list for the other classes? My personal favorite would be to see a Druid Multi-class Tier list, as I am a druid main :D

I think that Tasha's fixed the sorcerer for those two subclasses but they haven't gone back and fixed the class as a whole. At the least you need additional spells for each of the other subclasses. Your point on metamagic not scaling is really interesting I hadn't really thought of it that way before. But I think their main problem is they look too much like a wizard. If wizards weren't in the game though how would you rank sorcerers? I think they'd be in A tier.

S tier - Wizard, Cleric, Bard A tier - Warlock, Sorcerer, Druid B tier - Ranger, Fighter, Paladin, Artificer C tier - Barbarian, Rogue F tier - Monk

I’m about to play a storm sorcerer with two starting levels in unarmed fighter, not for optimization but because eldritch knight doesn’t have the flavoring I want and punching shit and having access to action surge with spells sounds fun

I think the funny bit about druid is that it gets beat up by every other full caster until level 20, where its ability to not get counterspelled and also counterspell will murder every other fullcaster.

The mercy monk is really fun, it gives them healing, dmg poison and even the ability to revive without diamonds at late levels

So...... why does one class have to be better than the others? I watched a video explaining why people don't like rangers and in it I found a VERY good point Sometimes your not going to be the best at what you want to do hell MOST of the time you will not be the best at what you want to do but you CAN support others and help get the job done much more easily For example a rouge might benefit from having a ranger to watch their back (while having high enough stealth as to not be a burden to the rouge). A palidin might benefit from having a monk around because while the palidin can do a lot, you can only do so much in one turn. (For example if the palidin needs to heal a party member the monk should be agile enough to take over tanking while the palidin heals) Dungeons and dragons isn't about who is the best or playing favorites with the classes. Its about a group of misfits who are thrown together by fate and have to rely on and support each other to save the world, find a lost artifact, retake a stolen kingdom, etc. Don't make fun of someone just because they decided to play a certain class

The thing about monks is the 3rd eye is a wormhole that is made with chi and 4 of them entrance of Wormhole is exit of Wormhole happening twice in two different directions at the same point multiplys stuff like bonus actions infinately with exess move blowoff like inverted poison healing rates, accuracy stat boost , like a copy rare candy level effect &revivers

As a Sorcerer player, I can confirm: it is for flavor and nothing else.

“Monk is the worst class in 5e” Ranger: Am I a joke to you?

Power Word Kill is not supposed to be used alone, it has to be paired with polimorph, polimorphing an enemy as a dolphin (so they cannot move on land) and "forcing it" (as a divination/chronurgy wizard) and THEN power word killing them has no price, with peace for the DM.

OFFBEAT!!! 100k subs I’m so happy for you man!

you wouldnt add your monk moddification cause this full vanilla dnd 5e video right?

I agree with monk, the only time i find the class interesting is being a lizardfolk, bite everything that moves (flair mostly but still)

24:10 to be fair the warlock only gets 4, 5th level spell but the mystic arcanum that ands 4 more spells so a total of 8 but only gets 4 back on the short rest

Many good points on the monk. Two counterpoints. 1. Stunning strike is amazing especially when combined with other classes. First off it takes an enemy out of action economy for a round which is invaluable in 5e. Second it grants advantage to allies on attack rolls until you start your next turn. This does depend on fellow party members but so does some of the best things you can do in DnD. Stunning strike is only not amazing when you can’t stun things which usually means your DM realized and threw a high con, legendary resistance, or 2. The monk’s proficiency on all saving throws extends to death saving throws which makes it very hard for them to bleed out with death saving throws. A DM can still target you when you’re down to finish the job. Also because I’m spicy this evening: Rangers we’re definitely salvaged by Xanathar’s and Tasha’s but it still is not better than monk by far and is certainly not above sorcerers and definitely not on par with artificers and rogues. Rangers suffer from having too many things that use your bonus action without any bonus action options that get you some bang. That being said rangers have come a long way after Tasha’s was released. Sorcerers meta magic allows for lots of options that are not always foreseeable which helps the sorcerer out a lot. They truly don’t have the wizards spell list, but their spells are focused on blaster casting which they can typically do better than a wizard until you get to the stupid high levels above 14 where wizards just rocket off into being just wild. I personally like any caster better than a sorcerer but a sorcerer has its uses when it comes to sheer damage output and is certainly better than a ranger. For those who want to know my biases: All that said artificers and Paladins are tied for my favorite classes and while you were a bit vague on the artificer you were fair with both it and the Paladin. I will say armorer artificers can be wildly strong if you build them right but a subclass doesn’t define an entire class (eyes moon Druid). Druids are my favorite full caster and you were fair there. Fighters are my favorite martial. I think fighters and Barbarians can both give each other a run for their money at being a good martial but I can respect the take on them. As a Percy Jackson fan I love a good cleric even if I like druids more but they are wildly broken at every stage.

"Wizards can do any job in the game" *Healers snickering on the corner*

Necromancer subclass for wizard. Meat shields.

Give us a Sauron/evil overlord build. I want minions and subjugation

Twinned spell is good enough to make sorcerer worth it you do have to multiclass to make it really good but twinned spell alone makes it B tier (the list of spells that can be used with twinned spell are spells people don’t think of like healing spells and polymorph)

Arcane Trickster Rogue is one of my favorite Shenanigans classes

The Metamagic adept feat only gives you 2 Metamagic points, so you cannot do much above level 2 spells. It's better to give it to a sorcerer for extra options on top of their existing pool, freeing up 2 of their standard points for spell trading during short rests. Sorcerer doesn't scale at high levels. Fully agreed. But the second you get Polymorph at low to mid levels, twinning it is OP. Two giant apes. Adding 314 hit points to the teams pool. Can be cast at a distance on any two low health allies. Short and long range attacks with +9 to hit. The long range attack does more average damage on a single target than fireball and you can do it every turn. If they die and turn back, you can do it once more if you trade spell slots and Metamagic points during your subsequent turns. Give another class that can add 628 hit points to a party mid combat for 2 actions at level 7. Twinning only gets weaker above level 12 which most campaigns don't get to. Other OP spells at low to mid level to twin, Haste, greater invisibility. Great on success or suck spells on two strong opponents. Double the chance of it working. That's better than advantage with a spell because if you're lucky, you may get both. Gain flight at higher levels.

Paladin: trade off your character's personality depth for great numbers

I'm curious what you would change in the monk to be better. Like if you could give it the ranger treatment, what would you do? IMO, they're not bad even though they definitely stray behind the other classes; they can do awesome shit...but all of it is passive. So they don't /do/ better than any other class, they just resist whatever the DM throws at players better than any class. If I could, I'd change their Ki system; let all the 1-ki abilities be free BA like the rogue, and give them either spell slots to use like a paladin smite, or give them ability dice to use like a bard or battlemaster. Then making their multiclass dex OR wis. Very valid criticism of the sorcerer. The metamagic is definitely its defining class feature....but yeah there are 3 good ones and the rest. And their spell list isn't terrible...but the fact that they get so few spell selection is; they can chose to be good or flavorful, but not both. The newer subclasses are better; giving an extra spell list on top of other cool abilities...but even those don't let the sorcerer really scale in the later levels. Like, sure you can twin or quicken or subtle the higher level spells, but you only get one spell of each spell level 6-9. Only one, so lord help you if you can't use metamagic on it in every situation. And yeah. Wizards are definitely the most powerful class. Paladins are better at non-control combat, and Bards are better at support and social situations...but sacrifice heavily in other areas to make up for it in a way that a well-rounded wizard simply doesn't need to. A wizard can't heal particularly well, but there are so many ways to get around that.

You should clear up beforehand what assumptions you are making for this list. What level/tier are you playing at? What is your resting distribution like? How often and at what rarity are you getting magic items? How heavily combat-focused is the campaign? Gladiator arena? Social intrigue and mystery?

the artificer being middle is ok, I can have a cannon, thats enough for me

Great rankings and of course its personal preference. My only slight issue is I feel like he focuses a bit too much on what happens at level 20 for some classes where the vast majority of people will never reach level 20 with a character. I'd like to see an evaluation based on metrics like how the class is from levels 1-12 representing say 60% of your vote with only 40% of your vote represented in the last 13-20 levels (or even less, 70% first 12 and 30% last 7 levels) considering the majority of people play their characters in the ranges of level 1 to 12, they don't care much about how OP characters get at level 20 i'd think. So yes while still good to know, not as important in my opinion. Just a thought.

hold up, Sorcerers may just be bad wizards, but I'd argue even a bad wizard is better than any rogue. Maybe I just find the rogue a fundamentally boring class to play. You do the same thing levels 1-20 just with bigger numbers. Mostly I just see it as a useful multi-class for expertise and cunning action, much like sorcerer. But if we take out multi-classing, I'd rather play a lackluster spell caster over a brain dead sneak attack bot every day of the week.

Indeed, the bard CAN pull it off

I'm gonna have to agree that monk got shit on in 5e. It used to be a lot better, but the game makers decided they hated us monk mains

The strongest item for barbarian multiclasses would be one that lets you rage and cast spells. GWM, Smite, hexblade, booming blade, bladesong… so many options would be there

20th level fighter (with two action surges, and 4 attacks per action): are you challenging me? (it does 172 avg damage with a greataxe at max strength and great weapon master) my 8th level goliath (2 fighter, 5 paladin, 1 barbarian with a greataxe and great weapon master, also max strength): yes, I am (Fun fact, it does 231 damage on average if you land all 6 attacks in two turns and smite with all) (also that damage is against fiends and undead, otherwise its 204, which is still better)

Don't think I didn't notice that Zelda Spirit Tracks Soundtrack.

Bruh Monk is 1000x better than rangers, in my opinion, the monk is insanely good at controlling ranged enemies. their mere presence causes any ranged threat to be obsolete, and most subclasses have high mobility on top of the absurd speeds the monk travels at. Stunning strike is an insane ability, at level 5-15 it will reliably take a turn away from enemies, and if it lands just once on a big monster, you’ve essentially won the combat because of the action economy and how stuns take away reactions, actions, and bonus actions. this is on top of their insane survivability with evasion and diamond soul + their ki point dodges and disengages and their dex + wis armorclass. overall monk is strong and quite a bit stronger than ranger.

Maybe we can have a ranking of the top 20 or so subclasses of all classes?

To be honest, what spells is the sorcerer really missing out on compared to the wizard? Do you have less options? Yes. However, is not having those options that much of a detriment? Not necessarily. I'd argue that sorcerer doesn't really sacrifice much compared to the Wizard's spell lists when it comes to blasting and control. You still get your fireballs, you still get your hypnotic patterns, etc. The spells you do lose out on are some of the utility spells like find familiar and what have you. Is that still a point against it? Definitely. But I don't think this warrants knocking it down to martial level. You're still a caster and you can outdo all those pesky martials which are bound to practically only using attack rolls and just slapping things. Do you have less potential at a high level? Sure, you do get less and less spell choices as you level, however how many campaigns have you been in that have gone beyond level 11? Personally? Not many. Until you get to that level, the fighter, which you ranked A tier for some reason, is basically the same as every other martial, just with less versatility and no spells in most cases. Level 11 is the difference maker for that class, but barely anyone plays at that level to begin with. This also happens to be the same level where the difference between spell lists for Wizard and Sorcerer actually starts to matter. If you get there. I personally weigh early to mid-game options much more heavily when I rank stuff compared to features you get late game as those early features are the ones that will be helping you the entire way. If your intention was to compare the classes only at their peek, I feel like you should have elaborated on that.

I agree...... Until you got to wizard. I don't think it's better than a bard. What can a wizard do better than a bard? Bards can cast Wish also. Bards are better out of combat. Bards typically have more health and AC than a wizard in combat. Bards can cast spells or go toe to toe. Bards are just the best in the game.

Artificer + druid Sounds interesting

We just gonna ignore eldritch invocations? Also Wizard tanking with a d6 hit die? I don’t think so

20:10 hear me out Transmute the fire damage to thunder damage from a meteor swarm so you can use it really well against a tarassque

The sorcerer spell list definitely isn't a problem. Yes, it is a smaller version of the wizard spell list, but yhe wizard spell list blows all the other spell lists out of the water as well, and the sorcerer still jas the second biggest spell list in the game. I can definitely agree with metamagics not scaling at all, but I feel like the bigger problem is that you get so few (unless you take Metamagic Adept) and can barely use them unless you give up on casting a few spells. I also agree with having a few more potential spell slots isn't a big deal, especially since the Wizard can regain a roughly equal amount of spell slots on a short rest without giving anything up, unlike the sorcerer. One thing you didn't mention that is arguably their biggest problem is their lack of spells known. Learning one spell each level is painful, and even more painful at higher levels one you only get another spell when you gain a new spell level (meaning you don't get any past 17th level). I feel like the variant spell point rule from the DMG should have been what the sorcerera got from day 1, and could use spell points for their metamagic instead of sorcery points. It would have given them more versatility on how they cast their spells, which should be the sorcerers thing. They all also should have gotten origin spells lile the Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul did. This easily fixes up their lack of spells known (at least for levels 1-9).