Congratulations on 6K subscribers and thanks for posting these videos, which are one of my daily highlight. I'm not really sure how I'll be able to fill the void once you exhaust the classes, but I'm sure you'll think of something!
I find slayers to be the best non-spell casting class in the game. They get full BAB progression, good hit points, decent proficiencies, and high bonus damage. They can also use their bonus feats to grab archery and two weapon fighting talents without needing to qualify for any of the prereqs. You can build a dual wielding Slayer without needing to have any dexterity. A strength-based dual-wielding slayer can kill virtually anything with a full attack action by the mid game. By the end game you could see three or four hundred damage per round.
@@jacobbronsky464 I didn't even consider pets. Anything with a pet is going to be better than a Slayer up until level seven or eight or so. But like you said, Slayers scale very well into the mid and late game. Their full BAB, and the bonus to attack from studied target makes them highly accurate. and then you throw in precision damage with a high strength score and some good weapons; it's really strong
@@typarkin2413 Just build him like any other slayer. Dex build or strenght build. (If you go for Dex build since it's more feat intensive I will advice to pick human). And pick utility and buff spells. The Inquisitor spells are not meant to do dmg, but to buff and give utility. For example Glitter dust is a great utility spell that will be usuefull all the game since the reveal part of the spell can't be resisted.
@@Mounthuapleb5890 they all have free/swift action abilities that i'm god awful at managing in combat. I've never been very good at real-time anyways though, so ymmv
@@Mounthuapleb5890 in WOTR? Not that i know of. They'll probably add a respec like in kingmaker, but you won't be able to fully rebuild your character from scratch.
Forgot to ask - do you know if the different classes' level 20 coup de grace feats have exclusive cooldown timers? For example, if I have a level 20 slayer and a ranger in my party attacking the same enemy and the enemy gets hit and passes the first fortitude check to die instantly, do they make another one when the other class hits them too or are they immune to all similar effects for the next 24h?
I really don't like Slayers. I just don't see the reason for them to exist. Designing hybrid classes is difficult and in this case I feel that they don't bring anything unique in terms of both flavour and mechanics. Bloodrager works because rage and spellcasting usually don't mix and it subverts this rule. Skald is fun for similiar reasons, although it could also reasonably be done as a bard archetype with some changes. But Slayer? Slayers don't do anything that hasn't been done before and while yes, they do have their special little mechanic with Studied Target, but it just feels... lame. Almost every ability Slayers get pumps up their damage. And damage is one of those things that you CAN have too much of. In PnP it just causes your DM to give monsters more hp, in video games it makes a character strictly better than less-optimized characters.
In my experience my issue with slayer is its TOO good, it often overshadows the Ranger by being able to do basically everything the ranger does but better. I love playing it but its a class that probably shouldnt exist
I know this comment is more than a year old, but I just had to say how much I agree with it. Wanting your character to put out as much damage as possible may seem like a fun and obvious thing to do, but it is almost impossible for a DM to balance a combat encounter around it if they want them to last for more than a single turn. Yes, you could give all opponents more hp, but on one hand it seems unfair against the player to negate the one thing they wanted their character to be good at, on the other hand you're punishing the rest of the party if they didn't optimize their characters as much, since now they can't really contribute to the combat in a meaningfull way (unless with buffing and crowd controll) and basically become cheerleaders for the only character able to deal decent damage. I have a DM that decided to compensate by throwing stronger enemies against the party, which is even worse, since the ability to deal a lot of damage doesn't mean they can take a lot of damage, so the fights still only lasted one turn, except it all came down to who acted first, either the player character one-shot the boss or the boss one-shot the player character, while the rest of the party became even more useless, since the moment they came into melee range to the enemy they would be one-shot by an attack of opportunity. I'm also really not a fan of some of the later pathfinder 1e classes that made other classes completely redundant since they could do all the older classes could, except better/actually functional. The ranger always had a hard time, since the class had nothing to offer that either a fighter, a rogue or a druid couldn't do better, but now we also have hunter and slayer to overshadow him. Is there even a reason to take more than 3-5 levels of rogue if the vivisectionist gets almost everything you want from that class in addition to a powerfull buff that stacks with everything and lasts forever, as well as access to some of the best buff spells in the game? The bloodrager may get less ragepowers than the barbarian, but the ability to cast mirror image as a swift action more than makes up for that. And to a lesser degree, if someone unfamiliar with the spells in the game would want to play an arcane caster, I'd probably recommend them arcanist over wizard or sorcerer.
@@muckaseggele4320 Bloodrages might be stronger than Barbarians (haven't played either) but at least their concept is rather unique. Arcanists might be boring thematically, but their mechanics are also enaging enough to provide alternatives (and definitely aren't stronger than other arcane casters). Slayers, however? Thematically, a slayer is... someone who slays? A specialist in killing? That's not really a new niche and overlaps a lot with rangers and rogues. Mechanically the class is also quite boring. It has high damage numbers and that's pretty much it. I simply see na value in its existance, unlike with bloodragers or arcanists. As for hunters, yeah... I also don't really get why they exist when rangers do as well. But I haven't seen one in play (unlike the slayer) so I won't comment on them
Congratulations on 6K subscribers and thanks for posting these videos, which are one of my daily highlight. I'm not really sure how I'll be able to fill the void once you exhaust the classes, but I'm sure you'll think of something!
Current plan is Pillars of Eternity lore
I find slayers to be the best non-spell casting class in the game.
They get full BAB progression, good hit points, decent proficiencies, and high bonus damage. They can also use their bonus feats to grab archery and two weapon fighting talents without needing to qualify for any of the prereqs.
You can build a dual wielding Slayer without needing to have any dexterity. A strength-based dual-wielding slayer can kill virtually anything with a full attack action by the mid game. By the end game you could see three or four hundred damage per round.
Agreed. I'd argue that pet classes like Mad Dogs are up there too, but they probably won't scale as mightily.
@@jacobbronsky464 I didn't even consider pets. Anything with a pet is going to be better than a Slayer up until level seven or eight or so. But like you said, Slayers scale very well into the mid and late game. Their full BAB, and the bonus to attack from studied target makes them highly accurate. and then you throw in precision damage with a high strength score and some good weapons; it's really strong
These videos are great keep it up man.
Thanks for all the overviews!
In my opinion the best slayer is actually the Inquisitor archetype Sanctified Slayer.
Not sure about being the "best" slayer but my first character is going to be a Sanctified Slayer.
@@Hitazo I have used it on table top and it's mostly a slayer with buff spells and utility spells. Which is awesome.
how would you build one, i want to play one but i’m struggling to plan it out
@@typarkin2413 Just build him like any other slayer. Dex build or strenght build. (If you go for Dex build since it's more feat intensive I will advice to pick human).
And pick utility and buff spells. The Inquisitor spells are not meant to do dmg, but to buff and give utility.
For example Glitter dust is a great utility spell that will be usuefull all the game since the reveal part of the spell can't be resisted.
This is, imo, one of the classes that really benefits from turn-based combat. Keep it up👍
This and magus/warpriest almost require it to be fun at all imo
@@Mounthuapleb5890 they all have free/swift action abilities that i'm god awful at managing in combat. I've never been very good at real-time anyways though, so ymmv
@@Mounthuapleb5890 in WOTR? Not that i know of. They'll probably add a respec like in kingmaker, but you won't be able to fully rebuild your character from scratch.
Like the bard
Spawn Slayer => Dwarf => Mohawk hairstyle => make it orange
And a Prayer to Grimnir.
Arcane Enforcer sounds really cool. Its the perfect class if you want to make Geralt without having to multiclass.
Stygian slayer fits Wenduag pretty well
Studied Target goes brrrr, it's kind of mindless but it's free real estate.
Forgot to ask - do you know if the different classes' level 20 coup de grace feats have exclusive cooldown timers? For example, if I have a level 20 slayer and a ranger in my party attacking the same enemy and the enemy gets hit and passes the first fortitude check to die instantly, do they make another one when the other class hits them too or are they immune to all similar effects for the next 24h?
I believe it's a separate timer for each ability that doesn't have the same name
Would it make sense to have one level of alchemist (the subclass with sneak)?
I really don't like Slayers. I just don't see the reason for them to exist. Designing hybrid classes is difficult and in this case I feel that they don't bring anything unique in terms of both flavour and mechanics. Bloodrager works because rage and spellcasting usually don't mix and it subverts this rule. Skald is fun for similiar reasons, although it could also reasonably be done as a bard archetype with some changes. But Slayer? Slayers don't do anything that hasn't been done before and while yes, they do have their special little mechanic with Studied Target, but it just feels... lame. Almost every ability Slayers get pumps up their damage. And damage is one of those things that you CAN have too much of. In PnP it just causes your DM to give monsters more hp, in video games it makes a character strictly better than less-optimized characters.
In my experience my issue with slayer is its TOO good, it often overshadows the Ranger by being able to do basically everything the ranger does but better. I love playing it but its a class that probably shouldnt exist
My favorite class for exactly those reasons. 😂
I know this comment is more than a year old, but I just had to say how much I agree with it. Wanting your character to put out as much damage as possible may seem like a fun and obvious thing to do, but it is almost impossible for a DM to balance a combat encounter around it if they want them to last for more than a single turn. Yes, you could give all opponents more hp, but on one hand it seems unfair against the player to negate the one thing they wanted their character to be good at, on the other hand you're punishing the rest of the party if they didn't optimize their characters as much, since now they can't really contribute to the combat in a meaningfull way (unless with buffing and crowd controll) and basically become cheerleaders for the only character able to deal decent damage. I have a DM that decided to compensate by throwing stronger enemies against the party, which is even worse, since the ability to deal a lot of damage doesn't mean they can take a lot of damage, so the fights still only lasted one turn, except it all came down to who acted first, either the player character one-shot the boss or the boss one-shot the player character, while the rest of the party became even more useless, since the moment they came into melee range to the enemy they would be one-shot by an attack of opportunity.
I'm also really not a fan of some of the later pathfinder 1e classes that made other classes completely redundant since they could do all the older classes could, except better/actually functional. The ranger always had a hard time, since the class had nothing to offer that either a fighter, a rogue or a druid couldn't do better, but now we also have hunter and slayer to overshadow him. Is there even a reason to take more than 3-5 levels of rogue if the vivisectionist gets almost everything you want from that class in addition to a powerfull buff that stacks with everything and lasts forever, as well as access to some of the best buff spells in the game? The bloodrager may get less ragepowers than the barbarian, but the ability to cast mirror image as a swift action more than makes up for that. And to a lesser degree, if someone unfamiliar with the spells in the game would want to play an arcane caster, I'd probably recommend them arcanist over wizard or sorcerer.
@@muckaseggele4320 Bloodrages might be stronger than Barbarians (haven't played either) but at least their concept is rather unique.
Arcanists might be boring thematically, but their mechanics are also enaging enough to provide alternatives (and definitely aren't stronger than other arcane casters).
Slayers, however? Thematically, a slayer is... someone who slays? A specialist in killing? That's not really a new niche and overlaps a lot with rangers and rogues. Mechanically the class is also quite boring. It has high damage numbers and that's pretty much it.
I simply see na value in its existance, unlike with bloodragers or arcanists.
As for hunters, yeah... I also don't really get why they exist when rangers do as well. But I haven't seen one in play (unlike the slayer) so I won't comment on them