If I remember correctly this series is leading up to a replacement for the warlock baseline, and that got me thinking. The way I see it a baseline needs to be a simple strategy that's reliable and reasonably effective, and above all simple to calculate for all levels. The warlock baseline is of course too low now, but so far in the series there hasn't really been a candidate that fulfills all requirements. Either they deal low damage (warlock, bard), or they're hard to calculate (anything with advantage from weapon masteries). So my suggestion would be to not make a new baseline, but keep the old warlock one and raise the standard. For example, 1.5x baseline is okay damage and 2x baseline is good damage.
I think if we use one of the builds that maintains or is near B/C tier we'll be okay. The fighter longsword uses a less efficient weapon (1H) and still does decent damage. Additionally, the fighter is mostly a 'do this all day' build. The only real change is when Action Surge comes into play. At 2nd or 3rd tier it might change (we'll need to adjust when the other vids come out), but for now, the Fighter Longsword is where baseline looks pretty viable. Below LS? You shouldn't be a damage focused build - be support, control, etc. Above LS? You're a damage dealer primarily but may have other roles.
@@joshuasmith9061 Rogue does seem the best out of all of them, with only the one attack that just gets a bunch of d6's with it. Still has the irregular advantage problem, but if I had one I'd probably pick rogue
@@_mosscatIt doesn't have to be irregular. Rogues get steady aim. That's a solid baseline IMO:' a rogue that does steady aim and an attack with a light crossbow every turn. No muss, no fuss, just solid consistent damage round after round.
Good focused recap but I was really hoping these tier reviews would bring back the graphed results and be zoomed right in to show those differences. The graph was the best idea you had in this series and I think you could have kept it going for these.
One thousand more let's go!!! By th way I have a question: do comments on preview videos from patreons help with the algorithm or are they "useless"? Do tell us please
@@hazard8395unless the algorithm sees that there’s hundreds of comments even though it has only been out for a couple hours, so it thinks the video must be really good and pushes it even more
It has fluctuated over time and I believe it's part of the side of the metrics which RUclips likes to keep secret because it's more easily exploitable by those who want to fake views.
I feel like making a stars druid would really add to its ability on a list like this, constant guiding bolts(with free uses and spell slots) and the archer bonus action shot on all 4 rounds of every combat
@TreantmonksTemple i totally understand, just sad seeing my favorite full caster get last place when I'm playing a stars druid right now and I have some of the best single target damage in my party
@@rellicproductionMy numbers & calculations surely aren’t as good as his, but here’s the calculations I had for a ranged stars Druid. Stars Druid DPR True strike heavy cross bow. Short version: Attempted to base this off your calculations. I was more liberal with including advantage by using fairie fire instead of flaming sphere. I’m not confident in this at all but I thought I’d share. I used your calculations for conjure animals & fey. Summon spells might do more single target damage but I’m uncertain & lack the math skills to find out lol. Looking at the results I’d save a lot of time just adding 10 to your base Druid numbers lol. Overall it seemed comparable to the sorcerer. A melee build using true strike & a great sword then TS & Shillelagh would do even better. Lvl 1: 3.8 Lvl 2: 3.8 Lvl 3: 11.1 Lvl 4: 11.1 Lvl 5: 14 Lvl 6: 14 Lvl 7: 19.4 Lvl 8: 19.4 Lvl 9: 25.1 Lvl 10: 28.8 Lvl 11: 33.7 Lvl 12: 33.7 Lvl 13: 40 Lvl 14: 40 Lvl 15: 43.3 Lvl 16: 43.3 Lvl 17: 58.7 Lvl 18: 58.7 Lvl 19: 66.4 Lvl 20: 71.5 Avg= 32 dpr. Ice knife until lvl 3. Summon spells or conjure spells for concentration as they don’t require a BA Fairie fire instead of flaming sphere to make advantage calculations easier. Lvl 1: 3.8 (base Druid 3.2, difference TS) Lvl 2: 3.8 (no change) Lvl 3 stars druid, gain free uses of guiding bolt & BA 1d8 archer shot from starry form. For ease of math we will assume advantage for both attacks from guiding bolt & help from find familiar & fairie fire. So .84 instead of .64. I’ll ignore crits. Also didn’t include flaming sphere as we will be using faerie fire instead. Lvl 3: 11.1 = Ba 16x 3.78 (60.5) + 4 GBs (47) , 2lvl GBs (29.4) + TS 5.5x 8 (40)= 177. 177/16= 11.1 dpr. Lvl 4: 11.1 wisdom mod plus 4. Lvl 5, 7 guiding bolts of 1st lvl, guiding bolt 2nd, conjure animals 3rd. True strike adds 3.5 damage on average for 7 attacks. 1d8(4.5) 16 times from BA starry form. Lvl 5: (BA 60.5,6GBS 70.6 2x2ndGB 29.4, 7TS 52.9)/16 + 3rdCA 2.5 = 14. Lvl 6: 14 (note not using flaming sphere at all instead fairie fire). Lvl 7, add elemental fury (4.5). Note TS now deals more damage than guiding bolt, but does not grant advantage. Potent spell casting (with a wisdom mod of 5) would add .5 damage with Starry whisp over TS & elemental fury per attack. Add 4th CA Lvl 7: (BA 60.5, 6lvl 1 GBs 70.6, 2 2nd GBs 29.4, 5TS 56.7)/16 + 5.8 CA= 19.4 Lvl 8 wisdom plus 5. Lvl 8: 19.4 Lvl 9: 25.1 (CA at 5th, more CA at 3rd) Lvl 10: BA changes to 2d8. (BA 121 + 60.4 + 25 + 56.7)/16 + 12.9 CA = 28.8 Lvl 11 ts adds 2d6, however advantage from guiding bolt still provides more damage slightly. Very comparable & would be swayed by how you calculate advantage. Lvl 11: (BA 121, 3 lvl 1 GBs 35.28, 2x 2nd GB 29.4, 3GBS 45.36, 5TS 71.4) /16 + 6.6 + 8.2 (CA 4th & 5th)= 33.7 Lvl 12: 33.7 Lvl 13 CA 4th, 5thx2, 6th. Upcast guiding bolt 2x lvl 4 2x at lvl 3, 2x at lvl 2 Lvl 13: ( BA 121 + GB(121) 20.2 + 25.2 + 30.24 + 45.4 + TS 71.4)/16 + CA 20.4= 40. Lvl 14: 40 Lvl 15: CA 5th 2x CF 7th & 8th (22.4). Improved elemental fury changes TS to 93.1. (20.9) = 43.3 Lvl 16: 43.3 Lvl 17: Future sight, TS now deals an additional 3d6, 9th lvl spells. On average TS with heavy CB= 25, add to hit chance= 21. For Guiding bolt to out damage TS, it needs to be upcast to 5th lvl or higher… oof. Thanks to Future Sight, GB is officially dead (probably could have been dropped sooner for negligible loss in damage). 27 (BA & TS) + 28.7 (from C spells) = 58.7 Lvl 18: 58.7 Lvl 19: Boon of combat prowess too much math, I died X_x BA & TS = 29.4+ 37 (CF) = 66.4 Lvl 20: 71.5 (increase from another CF 7th lvl.).
I am playing a Ranger right now and feel like the optimal way to play it is until level 5 and then go crazy with different classes. I am planning 2-4 fighter levels, 2 druid levels, X rogue levels. It's a dagger thrower as well.
I have also thought a lot about dipping 1 level of ranger (maybe 2 some time after monk 5 for a weapon mastery/expetise) into a monk build for spells and the dagger / quarterstaff masteries, then staying monk till the monk weapons damage maxes out and you have 3x flurry of blows. The last few levels to 20 after that dipping fighter, rouge, and druid all have upsides, but I mostly DM, and I don't think I've ever actually played in tier 4 as a player.
You've hit it right on the head, there is very little reason to play a Ranger past level 5. Now if they were given an additional bonus action around 9 to11th level or something like that to beef up their later levels perhaps, but as of now there is not enough there.
Gloomstalker may be an exception because of how good the level 7 feature is. They get _Iron Mind_ at that level, granting Wisdom saving throw proficiency. Along the way, you get _Roving_ at level 6 for +10 to all forms of movement - which makes a big difference to get you to melee range. Hard to quantify the effect on damage, since it's indirect, but in my recent personal experience, it's been _core._ Finally, level 8 gets you to a feat level. The Level 11 subclass feature is _quite good_ for damage, as well, but I haven't run the numbers, and I personally exited Gloomstalker at level 8 and have continued in Trickery Cleric to level 13. Party MVP build. Anyway, level 8 is my recommended exit point for Gloomstalkers. Those WIS saves come online right around the time you really start to need them and remain golden to the end of the game.
worth looking into a monk dip for a level after lvl 5, monk gives you a bonus action attack unarmored, which is also an ac bump of +1, assuming no magic armor. two more lvls gets you shadow arts with shadow monk, also very thematically appropriate as a gloom stalker giving advantage on all ur attacks
@@da1oot20 Monk definitely looks like the best route after level 5. Just wish they could make a Ranger class that makes you want to stay in it to the end.
Hi Chris, for warlocks at the very lowest levels by far their best damage is summon imp with pact of the chain and use the imps sting attack. On a hit this does an average of 13 against enemies that take poison damage. Furthermore, since the attack uses the familiar's reaction it is often possible to set up advantage with the imp using its action to go invisible on its turn. Exact dpr calculations requires assumptions on how often this can be set up, but at levels 1 and 2 it comfortably out damages other classes in the tables I've played at. It drops off very fast but given invocation flexibility, it can be swapped out for build damage dealing of choice once higher levels are reached. I think including this as the default warlock damage at low levels would help it a lot in this tier, and potentially some in the overall rankings depending on how the levels are weighted.
Given that nothing in innate sorcery prevents it from applying True Strike, a sorcerer could take true strike and use a light crossbow and deal objectively more damage than firebolt in tier 1 and (for the base sorcerer) tier 2. At tier 3 it deals identical damage assuming for the base sorcerer, and only at tier 4 does it get beat out by it. This would easily increase the sorcerer’s damage by 1-2 dpr which would make a big difference in these rankings.
To be honest just taking scorching ray with innate sorcery and having empowered spell will give you way more damage at level 3. Its like eldritch blast on crack for sorcerers right now with empowered spell being 1 sorcery point and innate sorcery giving combat long advantage.
The dagger thrower rogue would be improved if it was 1 hand crossbow and 1 thrown dagger, would add a vex weapon to make your second attack at advantage.
Oh, I absolutely felt those results to be true while playtesting. All my regular tables are in hiatus for the end of the year, so I started a solo play to test PHB24 through Hoard of the Dragon Queen. My party runs two semi optimized characters (polearm master barbarian, true strike thief rogue) and two "fun concepts" characters (dance bard fey warlock; and shillelagh focused beast master). Between nick, two weapon fighting and beast strike as bonus action, the ranger had a huge output of damage in tier 1. The bard was never on top, and from level 5 onward the thief and the world tree barbarian absolutely dominate. I'm excited to try these build with the new statblocks, though.
Eldrich blast really suffering, warlocks get limited spellcasting, so in theory their base attacks should be decent, losing to sorcerer in the thing they should be the best among casters really hurts their niche.
Sorc was considered a diminished class, as their class feature in 3e was given to all casting classes in 5e. They tried to give *something* back in 5.24, but chose something the Sorc doesn't actually need. Now, it's just more damage due to that.
Lucky feat, pact of the tome to get a familiar, should have advantage every round unlike sorcerer who has two or of 4 encounters with advantage. EB, sorcerous burst, should all do better than sorcerer
I was hoping it'd come up somewhere, and I didn't see it mentioned... Beastmaster would give a consistent BA attack that does damage on par w a greataxe, but using WIS. I expected to see a Shillelagh Beastmaster, and never even heard it mentioned.
I’ve ran some number for the Summoner focused Wis Beastmaster. It’s good, but it, often takes a round or 2 to ramp up. Funnily enough you still want to two weapon fight, assuming a 14 Dex, until level 5 regardless. But it scales way better.
I feel like merely using the average damage across all levels that are being analyzed unnecessarily biases toward later levels when the average damage is higher. It seems as though if a class is 5% stronger than average at lower levels then that will be outweighed if they are 5% weaker than average at later levels even though the relative strength difference is the same.
Agreed, this has always bothered me as well. Once we have an established baseline I would love to see characters ranked based on calculating percentage over baseline at each individual level and then taking an average of those values. As it is, the current metric assigns more weight to the highest levels where few of us are actually playing.
Ik youve already done these vids but I think it would be interesting to have a Ranger build focused on doing dmg, at least taking 1 offensive weapon feat like TWF. Also using spells like conjure animals even tho they are technically aoe, or Conjure Woodland and not just Rugbying for the graph. Just casual I cast CWB and walk into the Big Bads Range. I think they did the math on Ranger just differently. Glad Treantmonk gave them credit in tier 1 resources are crazy. ESPECIALLY compared to 2014 Ranger
Looking these numbers make me super happy. Finally martials doing well in the 1 thing where they supposed to be good at. And their solo dmg keep up to later levels some more than orher. Also happy for ranger at least low level plays he is very revelent
Fun thought experiment, but I'm pretty sure the best *level one* PC build is a pact of the chain warlock with a sphinx of wonder who takes a lot of starting gold into the game. Sphinx of wonder is *powerful* at levels 1 and 2. The starting gold lets you re-summon as an action many-many times too!
So....when you run numbers for Ranger I see you include Hunters Mark built into the damage. Any reason why Hex is not factored into Warlock numbers? Hex and Hunters Mark have a very similar function, and its always gone hand in hand with Eldritch Blast. Seems a little unbalanced to not include it?
Great job, Chris! Thank you!!! Looking forward to the T2. What do you think about the self-service monk - monk/druid multiclass? Spike growth + Grappler. CME + many attacks. Plus Tawern brawler. May be monk 5 / rest druid
A warlock with Pact of the Chain that uses an Imp would rock in tier 1. Open with Wicthbolt on turn one. Then, on the rest of the turns, take the attack action, replacing your attack with the imps attack (3d6+3), and bonus action from WB.
Great video, interesting to see the ranger near the top for tier 1 in a lot of different builds, I guess it wouldn't be sustainable and why the numbers aren't here but an optimised two handed ranger or a one handed ranger would be above fighters in tier 1 as well and comparable to the barbarian and paladin!
"martials get a lot of other stuff that valor bards just dont get!" this type of sentence would never have even been said before the new rules came out. Man I love martials now
I figured Ranger would be the best in Tier 1. Hunter's Mark is a pretty good 1st level spell in a Tier where people are casting a lot of 1st level spells. It's the crazy idea that people want to concentrate on 1st level spells at higher Tiers of play is where it really breaks down. At higher Tiers, I'm only casting 1st level spells without upcasting if it's a reaction spell (shield, absorb elements, feather fall) or a divination spell, ritually if possible.
I think it you wanted to make a T1 optimised build, based on these stats, a Hand Crossbow + Dagger Hunter Ranger would push that from a 15 to a 16 or 17. Early Peak tho.
You should check out the Nature domain cleric for shillelah damage. It hits hard with potent spellcasting. Idk if it hits the hardest, but it's worth checking out.
Just to compare figures (I use 18 rounds of combat broken into six 3-round combats, and include AoEs hitting 2 targets, with 2/3 resource usage for those that can be used for noncombat), here's my internal Average per Turn (personally I use total per Long Rest, but conversion is just division) for the Base classes only (to keep this comment short). The obvious discrepancy is Chris is using strictly single target, while I include AoE options and splash damage (we calculate numbers for different purposes. Barbarian (2h-Cleave): 14.6 Fighter (2h-Graze): 9.8 Fighter (SW-Vex): 8.1 Fighter (2W-V/N): 12 Fighter (RW-Vex4): 7.8 Monk (Qs): 11 Paladin (2h-Graze): 9.8 Ranger (2h-Graze): 11 Ranger (2W-V/N): 13.7 Ranger (RW-Vex4): 8.5 Rogue (2W-V/N): 14 Rogue (RW-Vex4): 12
Will there be an explanation for the rankings/points of the original video? I imagine Chris is weighing the tier 2 & 3 numbers to be more important than the Tier 1 & 4 numbers, but it would be nice knowing the exact details?
I'm genuinely curious about a warlock TWF build, dip fighter 1 and take shillelagh with origin feat (with a club) and pact of the blade scimitar to get nick and then cast hex. Shouldnt it be similar to the ranger twf with hunters mark? I know it needs one more bonus action to activate shillelagh that the ranger doesn't need but you'd be dealing d8 force damage with the club that the ranger doesn't get. I don't have the brain power to do your math but im guessing it would at least end up closer to the TWF ranger
I know probably not as relevant but in tier 1 warden spec shellelagh sea druid is for sure highest damage out of all of these, without even spending any spellslots, just simple 3-4 d6 bonus action damage is already insane, not to mention actual competent spells for tier 1, and even without booming blade proc it very substantional damage
I think that ranger is going to be the new one level dip. 1 level for masteries and prof. Free hunter's mark. Calculate damage where you do mastery in daggers one level ranger, 19 monk. Monsterous
Since you used Hunter’s Mark with the Ranger, did you also use it when accounting for the Vengeance Paladin builds? If not, would that change much over the four rounds?
I don't know if it would do more damage or not. The extra attack of soulknife uses your bonus action, meaning no steady aim. Getting vex might make up for that, but I haven't done the math.
@@TreantmonksTemple Vex math is a bit of a pain, but it is important to note that soulknife offhand doesn't use light weapon rules, so it does get your dex modifier. I think it pushes it past a dagger thrower, but I'm struggling to calculate vex vs. steady aim.
Hello Chris, what's your opinion on Thrown weapons Paladin.. I have a sick build for devo using Maul, taking fey touched, mounted combatant, GWM. Landing at 18str 18cha at lvl 12. It's gonna be a blast and Devo is the better subclass for melee, because ADV is easy to get. Topple and Mounted combatant make VoEnmity redundant. But despite me loving to dunk on Vengeace subclass, for being overrated and overplayed, at throwing it might be the King. Advantage in melee is gonna be easy, but thrower vengeace paladin might be the best midrange build in game. You have two masteries. You pick shortsword(your magic weapon for melee) and Daggers. And you use Dagger for throwing and Shortsword and dagger for melee. I was looking at TWF FS, Light property, nick mastery, Divine Favor and Radiant strikes and everything but smites should work on thrown melee weapon. That makes Vengeace Paladin excelent Thrower which can go into melee. Did i miss something with the ruling ???
@TreantmonksTemple thanks for reply, shame on me, i didn't double check wording on smites. I was looking at pala6 lock5 for smiting with pala smites +eldrich smites and throwing pact+hexblade weapons seemed like a stupid idea, so i gaslighted myself into smites= melee. So it all works? If yes then throwing+vengeace is really solid. Lets get the 100k! I hope there will be some amazing one shot collab as celebration.
Interesting that you go for 4 rounds of combat, that would be a very easy encounter at our table where most are close to 10 and there are def fights that are longer. Something we noted is that paladins tend to run dry very quick and atleast in 2014 almost everything they have is longrest.
I'm curious about why single-target damage seems to be weighted so heavily in these rankings. I understand that it's easier to quantify, but I wonder if it's really the most important factor to consider when ranking builds or characters. Love your videos!
It is. Simplified math here, but if you do 100 damage to one enemy in one turn, and kill it, that enemy is gone and cannot kill you or your friends. Now say you do 200 damage, but it's split among 4 enemies. You don't kill any of them, and now they all turn around and smack you and your buddies. Basically, it all comes down to action economy - it's much, much better to kill enemies one at a time and remove them from the combat. Not that there isn't a place for AoE damage, such as wiping out hordes of lesser enemies.
a lot. I’ve built one. I don’t get why we’re not looking at TWF builds, ESPECIALLY for this tier, when that nick attack, which gets you more stat mod damage, makes a massive difference. In tier 1 a gwf with a greatsword does 2d6+str, +2 if you do GWM at level 4, and maybe you get that BA attack. A TWF EK has a choice: do 3 attacks at level 4 with dual wielder, for 3d6+3dex/str max possible damage, with 2/3 attacks at advantage thanks to vex and a familiar’s help action, or 4d6+2dex if you go with Fey touched (Hex/HM), with both attacks at advantage thanks to vex plus familiar if you can get the chain of hitting going. This has to be at least as potent as the greatsword wielders. Graze gets you consistency with a GS, but at low levels advantage is significant, and Vex gets you that.
@@alejandrogomezdelmoralguer3502because he's comparing the builds that he did for 20lv progression, not specific tier 1 builds, and taking 20lv progression into account, EK doesn't perform better than the other fighter builds he did, he made a whole other video for fighter to show this...
I’ve done the math for both a Base TWF Fighter and for a TWF Eldritch Knight using Chris’ methods. Both deliver the same damage in tier 1 at 10.5 DPR. This build jumps significantly at level 5 and level 11, of course. EK starts to separate from the base at level 13 and has double-digit higher DPR at 17 and higher. Note that with Chris’s methods, this is just with the 2024 PHB spells, so no blade cantrips, no Shadow Blade, and no Spirit Shroud. The biggest impact spell for EK damage (prior to Firebolt hitting 4d10 cantrip damage at level 17) is Magic Weapon. It’s worth giving up a Dual Wielder bonus action attack in the first round of combat to cast it right at the beginning, assuming a 4 round combat.
Does Valour Bard Greatsword use faerie fire in its calculation? Im asking because the Shadow Monk's high DPR across all tiers in based on permanent adv
This might be a nitpick, but if the assassin with heavy crossbow had a 1 level fighter dip, wouldn't it be fair to give college of valor bard a 1 level fighter dip?
Not two sneak attacks. Two chances at sneak attack. Compare vs. using a bow, where you only get one attack--if you miss you lose out on sneak attack for the round. Dagger thrower misses first attack, throw again, solid chance of still landing sneak attack.
You probably have already considered this, but it seems like Rogue would be a good new baseline, judging from your graph showing damage to the different classes.
I love this Tier breakdown. The T4 (and most of T3) is meaningless because magic items completely break all the math. By that time a DM is helping out all the stranglers, and you can almost count on half your damage coming from magic items.
True strike with a heavy crossbow or long bow might help the ranged Druid numbers some. Still not great. Stars Druid would let you add an extra d8 at least.
I love Rangers but I think the stark shift from being the best damage dealer to merely average in some ways ruins the power fantasy. I like party roles to stay consistent through most levels of play
Everything I have seen about Ranger dmg in PHB 2024 (The best in Tier I, fantastic in Tier II, weak in Tier III, terrible in Tier IV) always forces me to think, that they were supposed to keep the last playtest HM version (scaling at lvls 9 and 17, working only once per turn) scaling with lvl 1 feature uses automatically and some idiot just changed to spell back (or forgot to update it) without telling anyone. With this change, Rangers would do similar dmg as Barbarians in Tier I, average dmg at lvls 5-8, good at lvls 9+ and they would scale again at lvl 17. This change would also help subclasses like Hunter or Beastmaster with their lvl 11 feature (which is terrible now in case of Hunter IMO) and it would not force Rangers to use 2WF that much, which is fantastic IMO. And last but not least, it would make Ranger better archer, now it falls flat when compared to Rogue.
This comment might be completely wrong ... is there anything to the Ranger having a niche for low level play? I don't really believe that, just thinking out loud.
I wish Rangers were a bit more like the main character from Neva with their spirit animal. As far as what the class needs, I want to have 3 weapon masteries (so vex/nick/longbow), Channel Nature: Where you have a choice of options, including Wild Shape and Hunter's Mark, hunter's mark is a bit better, but maybe less of them, and then make the 3 skill option 2 parts and slightly weaker/same, and have a new capstone. I wish the Beast Companion was a spell similar to Summon Steed, however I wish the Beast Master was a much better version of this (it is so action starved), and then... I guess fuck Gloom, since 5th ed parties almost always has a gloom (me included), so I can go without the old gloom and doom. I like Fey, I just wish it felt better than Archfey, but I guess it is the early game version of Archfey Gishlock and then Gishlock is better later on. I imagine Ranger's might benefit from a 0 multiclass campaign. I also wish Ranger's had better level 5 spells. Also, more half dmg on miss spells would be great. However, I imagine most of the casting is going to be Hunter's Mark, some sort of terrain thing, or pass without trace, so perhaps the spells are fine and just low damage (outside of Hunter's Mark not ending and lots of TWF action). I like the rangers spells from 2-4, 1 is ok, and then 5 seems... awkward/unappealing. I suppose, you should just Multiclass similar to in 5th though, so perhaps the big spells don't matter so much after 9 levels of Ranger. (but probably only 5 levels of ranger)
This is going to sound bad.. but 1 lvl of Ranger and 2 lvls of monk means you are doing 6d6 .. the average is like 33 damage per turn if all hit, 25 damage with 2 hits, and 11 on 1 hit.
Forgot to mention you get daggers Nick and Short Sword vex. This with Monks ability to do a bonus action for a unarmed strike equals three attacks in one turn. My apologies
Valor bard already gets extra attack. For war domain cleric it would be impactful since they get limited bonus action attacks too so they'd have 3 attacks and the free spiritual weapon. So they'd probably do well in tier 2 when that all comes online but then it would peter out after that
He talked about it in the last video, but basically the cleric and wizard have no spells that will distinguish them from classes we’ve already reviewed (there are no single-target options the wizard has that the sorcerer doesn’t, and the cleric’s won’t beat the druid’s), so we wouldn’t see anything new or surprising from reviewing them. Also view numbers for this series have been steadily dropping, so…
Best level 5 damage i can think about at level 5 is probably warlock level 5 subclass doesn't matter species abyssal tiefling pact of the blade thirsting blade Eldridge smite and hold person 4d6+8+3d8 doubled edit you can deal a additional 3d6 +6 that also gets doubled 3d6 from branding smite and 6 From hex blades curse so 4d6+8+6+3d6+3d6 and all of that gets doubled from hold person
For one turn and only if hold person lands and stays until your next turn. It might not even have a legitimate target. Chris considers multiple rounds, multiple combats and tries not to make a lot of assumptions like would someone make a saving throw. I would argue pact of the chain can significantly boost warlock’s damage on lvl 5.
@sharmelfattakhov5041 part of the chain doesn't make you do more damage unless you have investment of the chain master and probably the best option for that is imp that deals 1d6+3 piercing damage and 2d6 poison damage and you could guarantee that the saving throw for hold person if you had a Divination wizard help you out or you could increase the chance of them failing the saving throw by taking the fey touched feet And taking silvery barbs and yea most of the damage would be dealt and the turn after you casted hold person for free but at that level nova damage like that is crazy warlocks smites are better than paladins in the new version of DND
@ still for one turn, against one enemy, one specifically humanoid enemy, and you can’t even do that alone. Very far from good or reliable damage if you ask me.
@@sharmelfattakhov5041 yea I understand that but if a humanoid creature was like a boss or something they are definitely getting killed because You deal crazy in nova damage on the second turn and your whole party would benefit if they failed the hold person spell and I really wasn't thinking about reliable damage I was more thinking of Nova damage like at level 5 no single creature would survive that at that CR rating of 5 like if you wanted constant reliable damage. You could go the Great old one warlock and take the repellent blast and devil site and cast Hunger of hadar And just keep on pushing one or two enemies back into it every turn
@@sharmelfattakhov5041 it would take 2 turns but when the person's paralysed they wouldn't be able to attack you at all and then at the start of your next turn you could eviscerate them
Why did you use Two Handed for Valor Bard??? Do a level 1 Fighter dip for Masteries and Two Weapons Nick/Vex. You dipped for other builds. Valor Bard alone is not good damage with great weapons, clearly. Also, lets reduce use of Shillelagh in builds please. Not everyone wants to weild a club ;)
Rangers are the best class period. They do the best in tiers 1-4. Hunters mark is objectively broken and I’m banning it and gloomstalker from my games. Anyone who dislikes ranger is, frankly, bad at dnd. (this is an intentionally inflammatory remark to boost engagement 🤭 let’s get that 100k!!!)
This class seems pretty cool! I hope no massive d&d creator makes a video with hundreds of thousands of views about how concentration free hunter's mark is overpowered, causing their giant audience to respond to playtest surveys parroting that opinion and kneecapping the final class when the official book comes out! Nobody would ever do that though, right? Definitely not someone whose channel rhymes with D&D Blorts.
This video could be summed up in a couple graphs and charts. I've been disappointed with the amount of filler in many of your recent videos. I'd prefer to see more interesting mechanics videos and unique builds that create fun rewarding gameplay that doesn't create problems for the table like Conjure Minor Elementals.
I dont understand how you're min maxing some of these builds. Warlock lvl 4 Charisma 18 Invocations (3) Pact of the Blade Agonizing blast (True strike) Pact of the chain (Imp Familiar) Feat- any that adds plus one charisma Imp is invisible and provides the help action. Advantage on our one attack per round 2d6 + 4 +4 ( true strike) W/ Advantage. How in the world is this only 8 DPR Average. This isn't even considering B. Action Hex on any targets
@DukeTrout i know it's 4 rds of combat, 4 times times a day. The damage woulsnt change no matter how many combats at this lvl. But, i must have missed its the average of lvls 1-4. Even if it was i would still think if optimized properly it would be higher.
@ Point buy also means 17 starting CHA. So your modifier is +3 until level 4. I’m not sure I’d give you that Agonizing Blast applies to True Strike until level 5 - AB adds the CHA modifier to “cantrips that deal damage.” TS doesn’t deal damage until level 5. So your damage is (7+3)*.84=8.4 DPR for levels 1-3 then (7+4)*.84=9.2 DPR for 4th level.
@DukeTrout completely disagree about truestrike. its a spell dealing the weapons damage by causing you to swing. You're also not adding Hex in there or the fact you have advantage from lvl2 onward which also adds much higher crit chance
@ Before level 5, how much damage does true strike do? Please give us a number. Oh, it does zero damage. I was already counting advantage, which is a stretch even for an invisible imp. Critical hit at advantage only adds 0.6 DPR. You only have one spell slot at level 1 and 2 spell slots at level 2-4, so that’s where the 4 combats per day kicks in. So it contributes 0.7 regular damage and less than 0.1 DPR critical damage at level 1 for a whopping total of 0.8 additional DPR per day. At level 2-4 it adds 1.5 DPR regular damage and 0.2 critical damage for an additional 1.7 DPR per day. So that’s 9.2 DPR at 1st, 10.1 DPR 2-3, and 10.9 DPR at 4th level. Sorry, that’s still not great and that’s assuming 100% advantage, which is a stretch.
No graph, and no ordered list of the highest performing builds, disappointing. Otherwise good stuff. But yeah graphs and listing the very best options against each other is appreciated.
you cant take that even serious because chris takes one shape and slaps it on all ignoring strengths and weaknesses completely. like giving barb/fighter/PLD a greatsword instead of actually sitting down and thinking about masteries and dpr enhancing combinations. so yeah completely invalid math and rankings
If I remember correctly this series is leading up to a replacement for the warlock baseline, and that got me thinking. The way I see it a baseline needs to be a simple strategy that's reliable and reasonably effective, and above all simple to calculate for all levels. The warlock baseline is of course too low now, but so far in the series there hasn't really been a candidate that fulfills all requirements. Either they deal low damage (warlock, bard), or they're hard to calculate (anything with advantage from weapon masteries). So my suggestion would be to not make a new baseline, but keep the old warlock one and raise the standard. For example, 1.5x baseline is okay damage and 2x baseline is good damage.
Based on his previous video there was one class that was very center, I just can't remember if it was the monk or rogue...
I think if we use one of the builds that maintains or is near B/C tier we'll be okay. The fighter longsword uses a less efficient weapon (1H) and still does decent damage. Additionally, the fighter is mostly a 'do this all day' build. The only real change is when Action Surge comes into play.
At 2nd or 3rd tier it might change (we'll need to adjust when the other vids come out), but for now, the Fighter Longsword is where baseline looks pretty viable.
Below LS? You shouldn't be a damage focused build - be support, control, etc. Above LS? You're a damage dealer primarily but may have other roles.
@@joshuasmith9061 Rogue does seem the best out of all of them, with only the one attack that just gets a bunch of d6's with it. Still has the irregular advantage problem, but if I had one I'd probably pick rogue
@@_mosscatIt doesn't have to be irregular. Rogues get steady aim.
That's a solid baseline IMO:' a rogue that does steady aim and an attack with a light crossbow every turn. No muss, no fuss, just solid consistent damage round after round.
@ That does make sense. I guess we'll have to see what Chris comes up with
Good focused recap but I was really hoping these tier reviews would bring back the graphed results and be zoomed right in to show those differences. The graph was the best idea you had in this series and I think you could have kept it going for these.
I agree, these tier videos really don't do as good
You can see them graphed right here: colab.research.google.com/drive/1gLxzzaSGdeiQw03mTxr898XrBUm2mvXy?usp=sharing
One thousand more let's go!!! By th way I have a question: do comments on preview videos from patreons help with the algorithm or are they "useless"? Do tell us please
Great question
Pretty sure that it does nothing when it's unlisted but takes effect when it's public
@@hazard8395unless the algorithm sees that there’s hundreds of comments even though it has only been out for a couple hours, so it thinks the video must be really good and pushes it even more
I honestly don't know
It has fluctuated over time and I believe it's part of the side of the metrics which RUclips likes to keep secret because it's more easily exploitable by those who want to fake views.
I feel like making a stars druid would really add to its ability on a list like this, constant guiding bolts(with free uses and spell slots) and the archer bonus action shot on all 4 rounds of every combat
I think it would do really well in T1 as well. I did a lot of builds, but there are even more I didn't do.
@TreantmonksTemple i totally understand, just sad seeing my favorite full caster get last place when I'm playing a stars druid right now and I have some of the best single target damage in my party
@@rellicproductionMy numbers & calculations surely aren’t as good as his, but here’s the calculations I had for a ranged stars Druid.
Stars Druid DPR
True strike heavy cross bow.
Short version: Attempted to base this off your calculations. I was more liberal with including advantage by using fairie fire instead of flaming sphere. I’m not confident in this at all but I thought I’d share. I used your calculations for conjure animals & fey. Summon spells might do more single target damage but I’m uncertain & lack the math skills to find out lol.
Looking at the results I’d save a lot of time just adding 10 to your base Druid numbers lol.
Overall it seemed comparable to the sorcerer. A melee build using true strike & a great sword then TS & Shillelagh would do even better.
Lvl 1: 3.8
Lvl 2: 3.8
Lvl 3: 11.1
Lvl 4: 11.1
Lvl 5: 14
Lvl 6: 14
Lvl 7: 19.4
Lvl 8: 19.4
Lvl 9: 25.1
Lvl 10: 28.8
Lvl 11: 33.7
Lvl 12: 33.7
Lvl 13: 40
Lvl 14: 40
Lvl 15: 43.3
Lvl 16: 43.3
Lvl 17: 58.7
Lvl 18: 58.7
Lvl 19: 66.4
Lvl 20: 71.5
Avg= 32 dpr.
Ice knife until lvl 3.
Summon spells or conjure spells for concentration as they don’t require a BA
Fairie fire instead of flaming sphere to make advantage calculations easier.
Lvl 1: 3.8 (base Druid 3.2, difference TS)
Lvl 2: 3.8 (no change)
Lvl 3 stars druid, gain free uses of guiding bolt & BA 1d8 archer shot from starry form. For ease of math we will assume advantage for both attacks from guiding bolt & help from find familiar & fairie fire. So .84 instead of .64. I’ll ignore crits. Also didn’t include flaming sphere as we will be using faerie fire instead.
Lvl 3: 11.1 = Ba 16x 3.78 (60.5) + 4 GBs (47) , 2lvl GBs (29.4) + TS 5.5x 8 (40)= 177. 177/16= 11.1 dpr.
Lvl 4: 11.1 wisdom mod plus 4.
Lvl 5, 7 guiding bolts of 1st lvl, guiding bolt 2nd, conjure animals 3rd. True strike adds 3.5 damage on average for 7 attacks. 1d8(4.5) 16 times from BA starry form.
Lvl 5: (BA 60.5,6GBS 70.6 2x2ndGB 29.4, 7TS 52.9)/16 + 3rdCA 2.5 = 14.
Lvl 6: 14 (note not using flaming sphere at all instead fairie fire).
Lvl 7, add elemental fury (4.5). Note TS now deals more damage than guiding bolt, but does not grant advantage. Potent spell casting (with a wisdom mod of 5) would add .5 damage with Starry whisp over TS & elemental fury per attack. Add 4th CA
Lvl 7: (BA 60.5, 6lvl 1 GBs 70.6, 2 2nd GBs 29.4, 5TS 56.7)/16 + 5.8 CA= 19.4
Lvl 8 wisdom plus 5.
Lvl 8: 19.4
Lvl 9: 25.1 (CA at 5th, more CA at 3rd)
Lvl 10: BA changes to 2d8. (BA 121 + 60.4 + 25 + 56.7)/16 + 12.9 CA = 28.8
Lvl 11 ts adds 2d6, however advantage from guiding bolt still provides more damage slightly. Very comparable & would be swayed by how you calculate advantage.
Lvl 11: (BA 121, 3 lvl 1 GBs 35.28, 2x 2nd GB 29.4, 3GBS 45.36, 5TS 71.4) /16 + 6.6 + 8.2 (CA 4th & 5th)= 33.7
Lvl 12: 33.7
Lvl 13 CA 4th, 5thx2, 6th. Upcast guiding bolt 2x lvl 4 2x at lvl 3, 2x at lvl 2
Lvl 13: ( BA 121 + GB(121) 20.2 + 25.2 + 30.24 + 45.4 + TS 71.4)/16 + CA 20.4= 40.
Lvl 14: 40
Lvl 15: CA 5th 2x CF 7th & 8th (22.4). Improved elemental fury changes TS to 93.1. (20.9) = 43.3
Lvl 16: 43.3
Lvl 17: Future sight, TS now deals an additional 3d6, 9th lvl spells. On average TS with heavy CB= 25, add to hit chance= 21.
For Guiding bolt to out damage TS, it needs to be upcast to 5th lvl or higher… oof. Thanks to Future Sight, GB is officially dead (probably could have been dropped sooner for negligible loss in damage).
27 (BA & TS) + 28.7 (from C spells) = 58.7
Lvl 18: 58.7
Lvl 19: Boon of combat prowess too much math, I died X_x
BA & TS = 29.4+ 37 (CF) = 66.4
Lvl 20: 71.5 (increase from another CF 7th lvl.).
@@TreantmonksTempleBy my math they’re comparable to the sorcerer you did.
Get this channel to 100k!! So close for end of year
If I could subscribe more than once I would. I love the in-depth content. You're so close to 100k!!
I just want to say thanks for doing tier breakdowns. It feels so rare to play 1-20.
I am playing a Ranger right now and feel like the optimal way to play it is until level 5 and then go crazy with different classes. I am planning 2-4 fighter levels, 2 druid levels, X rogue levels. It's a dagger thrower as well.
I have also thought a lot about dipping 1 level of ranger (maybe 2 some time after monk 5 for a weapon mastery/expetise) into a monk build for spells and the dagger / quarterstaff masteries, then staying monk till the monk weapons damage maxes out and you have 3x flurry of blows. The last few levels to 20 after that dipping fighter, rouge, and druid all have upsides, but I mostly DM, and I don't think I've ever actually played in tier 4 as a player.
You've hit it right on the head, there is very little reason to play a Ranger past level 5. Now if they were given an additional bonus action around 9 to11th level or something like that to beef up their later levels perhaps, but as of now there is not enough there.
Gloomstalker may be an exception because of how good the level 7 feature is.
They get _Iron Mind_ at that level, granting Wisdom saving throw proficiency.
Along the way, you get _Roving_ at level 6 for +10 to all forms of movement - which makes a big difference to get you to melee range. Hard to quantify the effect on damage, since it's indirect, but in my recent personal experience, it's been _core._
Finally, level 8 gets you to a feat level.
The Level 11 subclass feature is _quite good_ for damage, as well, but I haven't run the numbers, and I personally exited Gloomstalker at level 8 and have continued in Trickery Cleric to level 13. Party MVP build.
Anyway, level 8 is my recommended exit point for Gloomstalkers. Those WIS saves come online right around the time you really start to need them and remain golden to the end of the game.
worth looking into a monk dip for a level after lvl 5, monk gives you a bonus action attack unarmored, which is also an ac bump of +1, assuming no magic armor. two more lvls gets you shadow arts with shadow monk, also very thematically appropriate as a gloom stalker giving advantage on all ur attacks
@@da1oot20 Monk definitely looks like the best route after level 5. Just wish they could make a Ranger class that makes you want to stay in it to the end.
Hi Chris, for warlocks at the very lowest levels by far their best damage is summon imp with pact of the chain and use the imps sting attack. On a hit this does an average of 13 against enemies that take poison damage. Furthermore, since the attack uses the familiar's reaction it is often possible to set up advantage with the imp using its action to go invisible on its turn. Exact dpr calculations requires assumptions on how often this can be set up, but at levels 1 and 2 it comfortably out damages other classes in the tables I've played at. It drops off very fast but given invocation flexibility, it can be swapped out for build damage dealing of choice once higher levels are reached. I think including this as the default warlock damage at low levels would help it a lot in this tier, and potentially some in the overall rankings depending on how the levels are weighted.
600 more let's go!
Given that nothing in innate sorcery prevents it from applying True Strike, a sorcerer could take true strike and use a light crossbow and deal objectively more damage than firebolt in tier 1 and (for the base sorcerer) tier 2. At tier 3 it deals identical damage assuming for the base sorcerer, and only at tier 4 does it get beat out by it. This would easily increase the sorcerer’s damage by 1-2 dpr which would make a big difference in these rankings.
Came here to say that. With fewer combats per day, it's even better
@@williamleva3001 yup you're right. Light Xbow is great!
To be honest just taking scorching ray with innate sorcery and having empowered spell will give you way more damage at level 3. Its like eldritch blast on crack for sorcerers right now with empowered spell being 1 sorcery point and innate sorcery giving combat long advantage.
The dagger thrower rogue would be improved if it was 1 hand crossbow and 1 thrown dagger, would add a vex weapon to make your second attack at advantage.
The rogue dagger thrower wasn't originally intended to be compared at all, it was a build just to show how to calculate DPR
Oh, I absolutely felt those results to be true while playtesting.
All my regular tables are in hiatus for the end of the year, so I started a solo play to test PHB24 through Hoard of the Dragon Queen. My party runs two semi optimized characters (polearm master barbarian, true strike thief rogue) and two "fun concepts" characters (dance bard fey warlock; and shillelagh focused beast master). Between nick, two weapon fighting and beast strike as bonus action, the ranger had a huge output of damage in tier 1. The bard was never on top, and from level 5 onward the thief and the world tree barbarian absolutely dominate. I'm excited to try these build with the new statblocks, though.
Thank you for sharing! i have been enjoying this series so far.
Eldrich blast really suffering, warlocks get limited spellcasting, so in theory their base attacks should be decent, losing to sorcerer in the thing they should be the best among casters really hurts their niche.
Sorc was considered a diminished class, as their class feature in 3e was given to all casting classes in 5e.
They tried to give *something* back in 5.24, but chose something the Sorc doesn't actually need. Now, it's just more damage due to that.
Lucky feat, pact of the tome to get a familiar, should have advantage every round unlike sorcerer who has two or of 4 encounters with advantage. EB, sorcerous burst, should all do better than sorcerer
I was hoping it'd come up somewhere, and I didn't see it mentioned...
Beastmaster would give a consistent BA attack that does damage on par w a greataxe, but using WIS. I expected to see a Shillelagh Beastmaster, and never even heard it mentioned.
I’ve ran some number for the Summoner focused Wis Beastmaster.
It’s good, but it, often takes a round or 2 to ramp up.
Funnily enough you still want to two weapon fight, assuming a 14 Dex, until level 5 regardless. But it scales way better.
I did a lot of builds, but there are even more I didn't do.
Great start, great ideas. I feel like I needed even more of these items. Part 2?
I feel like merely using the average damage across all levels that are being analyzed unnecessarily biases toward later levels when the average damage is higher. It seems as though if a class is 5% stronger than average at lower levels then that will be outweighed if they are 5% weaker than average at later levels even though the relative strength difference is the same.
Agreed, this has always bothered me as well. Once we have an established baseline I would love to see characters ranked based on calculating percentage over baseline at each individual level and then taking an average of those values. As it is, the current metric assigns more weight to the highest levels where few of us are actually playing.
Ik youve already done these vids but I think it would be interesting to have a Ranger build focused on doing dmg, at least taking 1 offensive weapon feat like TWF. Also using spells like conjure animals even tho they are technically aoe, or Conjure Woodland and not just Rugbying for the graph. Just casual I cast CWB and walk into the Big Bads Range. I think they did the math on Ranger just differently. Glad Treantmonk gave them credit in tier 1 resources are crazy. ESPECIALLY compared to 2014 Ranger
Looking these numbers make me super happy. Finally martials doing well in the 1 thing where they supposed to be good at. And their solo dmg keep up to later levels some more than orher. Also happy for ranger at least low level plays he is very revelent
Fun thought experiment, but I'm pretty sure the best *level one* PC build is a pact of the chain warlock with a sphinx of wonder who takes a lot of starting gold into the game. Sphinx of wonder is *powerful* at levels 1 and 2. The starting gold lets you re-summon as an action many-many times too!
So....when you run numbers for Ranger I see you include Hunters Mark built into the damage. Any reason why Hex is not factored into Warlock numbers? Hex and Hunters Mark have a very similar function, and its always gone hand in hand with Eldritch Blast. Seems a little unbalanced to not include it?
I’m super interested in Tier 2, I still think Ranger TWF Nick Hunters Mark will still dominate the DPR calcs followed closely by Berserkers
Great job, Chris!
Thank you!!! Looking forward to the T2.
What do you think about the self-service monk - monk/druid multiclass?
Spike growth + Grappler.
CME + many attacks. Plus Tawern brawler.
May be monk 5 / rest druid
A warlock with Pact of the Chain that uses an Imp would rock in tier 1. Open with Wicthbolt on turn one. Then, on the rest of the turns, take the attack action, replacing your attack with the imps attack (3d6+3), and bonus action from WB.
Great video, interesting to see the ranger near the top for tier 1 in a lot of different builds, I guess it wouldn't be sustainable and why the numbers aren't here but an optimised two handed ranger or a one handed ranger would be above fighters in tier 1 as well and comparable to the barbarian and paladin!
"martials get a lot of other stuff that valor bards just dont get!" this type of sentence would never have even been said before the new rules came out. Man I love martials now
I figured Ranger would be the best in Tier 1. Hunter's Mark is a pretty good 1st level spell in a Tier where people are casting a lot of 1st level spells. It's the crazy idea that people want to concentrate on 1st level spells at higher Tiers of play is where it really breaks down. At higher Tiers, I'm only casting 1st level spells without upcasting if it's a reaction spell (shield, absorb elements, feather fall) or a divination spell, ritually if possible.
I think it you wanted to make a T1 optimised build, based on these stats, a Hand Crossbow + Dagger Hunter Ranger would push that from a 15 to a 16 or 17. Early Peak tho.
I think it would do really well in T1 as well. I did a lot of builds, but there are even more I didn't do.
Woo Hoo! Bard is not a the bottom!!!! I'm so happy.😅
Id like to see beastmaster ranger math. I think it looks really good with summon fey.
You should check out the Nature domain cleric for shillelah damage. It hits hard with potent spellcasting. Idk if it hits the hardest, but it's worth checking out.
Just to compare figures (I use 18 rounds of combat broken into six 3-round combats, and include AoEs hitting 2 targets, with 2/3 resource usage for those that can be used for noncombat), here's my internal Average per Turn (personally I use total per Long Rest, but conversion is just division) for the Base classes only (to keep this comment short). The obvious discrepancy is Chris is using strictly single target, while I include AoE options and splash damage (we calculate numbers for different purposes.
Barbarian (2h-Cleave): 14.6
Fighter (2h-Graze): 9.8
Fighter (SW-Vex): 8.1
Fighter (2W-V/N): 12
Fighter (RW-Vex4): 7.8
Monk (Qs): 11
Paladin (2h-Graze): 9.8
Ranger (2h-Graze): 11
Ranger (2W-V/N): 13.7
Ranger (RW-Vex4): 8.5
Rogue (2W-V/N): 14
Rogue (RW-Vex4): 12
i’ve played a tier 1 and tier 2 one shot each with a ranger and they do GREAT damage… just wish they would have given them that tier 3 and 4 support
would like to see high wisdom shillelagh beastmaster be tested
Will there be an explanation for the rankings/points of the original video?
I imagine Chris is weighing the tier 2 & 3 numbers to be more important than the Tier 1 & 4 numbers, but it would be nice knowing the exact details?
Are you going to do an illrigger builds video? Or at least a class review?
I'm genuinely curious about a warlock TWF build, dip fighter 1 and take shillelagh with origin feat (with a club) and pact of the blade scimitar to get nick and then cast hex. Shouldnt it be similar to the ranger twf with hunters mark? I know it needs one more bonus action to activate shillelagh that the ranger doesn't need but you'd be dealing d8 force damage with the club that the ranger doesn't get. I don't have the brain power to do your math but im guessing it would at least end up closer to the TWF ranger
I know probably not as relevant but in tier 1 warden spec shellelagh sea druid is for sure highest damage out of all of these, without even spending any spellslots, just simple 3-4 d6 bonus action damage is already insane, not to mention actual competent spells for tier 1, and even without booming blade proc it very substantional damage
Unfortunately that nice damage relies on them failing a con save.
Magic Initiate: Wizard can help out full casters in tier 1. Witch Bolt + cantrip will put them in the "OK" range.
I think that ranger is going to be the new one level dip. 1 level for masteries and prof. Free hunter's mark. Calculate damage where you do mastery in daggers one level ranger, 19 monk. Monsterous
Since you used Hunter’s Mark with the Ranger, did you also use it when accounting for the Vengeance Paladin builds? If not, would that change much over the four rounds?
Wouldn't a Soulknife Rogue be a straight and simple upgrade to the dagger throwing rogue for ranged damage?
I don't know if it would do more damage or not. The extra attack of soulknife uses your bonus action, meaning no steady aim. Getting vex might make up for that, but I haven't done the math.
@@TreantmonksTemple Oh, right, forgot that nick provides the off hand attack without using the bonus action, my mistake
@@TreantmonksTemple Vex math is a bit of a pain, but it is important to note that soulknife offhand doesn't use light weapon rules, so it does get your dex modifier. I think it pushes it past a dagger thrower, but I'm struggling to calculate vex vs. steady aim.
Hello Chris, what's your opinion on Thrown weapons Paladin..
I have a sick build for devo using Maul, taking fey touched, mounted combatant, GWM. Landing at 18str 18cha at lvl 12. It's gonna be a blast and Devo is the better subclass for melee, because ADV is easy to get. Topple and Mounted combatant make VoEnmity redundant.
But despite me loving to dunk on Vengeace subclass, for being overrated and overplayed, at throwing it might be the King.
Advantage in melee is gonna be easy, but thrower vengeace paladin might be the best midrange build in game. You have two masteries. You pick shortsword(your magic weapon for melee) and Daggers. And you use Dagger for throwing and Shortsword and dagger for melee.
I was looking at TWF FS, Light property, nick mastery, Divine Favor and Radiant strikes and everything but smites should work on thrown melee weapon.
That makes Vengeace Paladin excelent Thrower which can go into melee.
Did i miss something with the ruling ???
You CAN smite with a thrown melee weapon!
@TreantmonksTemple thanks for reply, shame on me, i didn't double check wording on smites. I was looking at pala6 lock5 for smiting with pala smites +eldrich smites and throwing pact+hexblade weapons seemed like a stupid idea, so i gaslighted myself into smites= melee.
So it all works? If yes then throwing+vengeace is really solid.
Lets get the 100k! I hope there will be some amazing one shot collab as celebration.
Interesting that you go for 4 rounds of combat, that would be a very easy encounter at our table where most are close to 10 and there are def fights that are longer.
Something we noted is that paladins tend to run dry very quick and atleast in 2014 almost everything they have is longrest.
What about a dagger throwing ranger build? Would that beat out the rogue?
Ist there a cleric?
I'm curious about why single-target damage seems to be weighted so heavily in these rankings. I understand that it's easier to quantify, but I wonder if it's really the most important factor to consider when ranking builds or characters.
Love your videos!
It is.
Simplified math here, but if you do 100 damage to one enemy in one turn, and kill it, that enemy is gone and cannot kill you or your friends. Now say you do 200 damage, but it's split among 4 enemies. You don't kill any of them, and now they all turn around and smack you and your buddies.
Basically, it all comes down to action economy - it's much, much better to kill enemies one at a time and remove them from the combat. Not that there isn't a place for AoE damage, such as wiping out hordes of lesser enemies.
He is ONLY looking at single target damage.
The rest isn’t involved in the rankings. This isn’t ranking them overall , just single target dpr.
pact of the chain can bump that warlock DPR up a bit, right?
hey TM, have you seen The_twigs's analysis on your builds?
Yeah, he plugs that video in one of his replies to another comment.
oh whoops! didnt see that, my b!
Where is cleric on this list? I’m sure they would be tied with druid for single target damage but not even a mention of them.
I didn't check the cleric or wizard. Mainly because I think you're right so it didn't seem worth the time investment to confirm.
I wander what a Eldritch Knight TWF build would do.
a lot. I’ve built one. I don’t get why we’re not looking at TWF builds, ESPECIALLY for this tier, when that nick attack, which gets you more stat mod damage, makes a massive difference. In tier 1 a gwf with a greatsword does 2d6+str, +2 if you do GWM at level 4, and maybe you get that BA attack. A TWF EK has a choice: do 3 attacks at level 4 with dual wielder, for 3d6+3dex/str max possible damage, with 2/3 attacks at advantage thanks to vex and a familiar’s help action, or 4d6+2dex if you go with Fey touched (Hex/HM), with both attacks at advantage thanks to vex plus familiar if you can get the chain of hitting going. This has to be at least as potent as the greatsword wielders. Graze gets you consistency with a GS, but at low levels advantage is significant, and Vex gets you that.
@@alejandrogomezdelmoralguer3502because he's comparing the builds that he did for 20lv progression, not specific tier 1 builds, and taking 20lv progression into account, EK doesn't perform better than the other fighter builds he did, he made a whole other video for fighter to show this...
I’ve done the math for both a Base TWF Fighter and for a TWF Eldritch Knight using Chris’ methods. Both deliver the same damage in tier 1 at 10.5 DPR. This build jumps significantly at level 5 and level 11, of course. EK starts to separate from the base at level 13 and has double-digit higher DPR at 17 and higher. Note that with Chris’s methods, this is just with the 2024 PHB spells, so no blade cantrips, no Shadow Blade, and no Spirit Shroud. The biggest impact spell for EK damage (prior to Firebolt hitting 4d10 cantrip damage at level 17) is Magic Weapon. It’s worth giving up a Dual Wielder bonus action attack in the first round of combat to cast it right at the beginning, assuming a 4 round combat.
Does Valour Bard Greatsword use faerie fire in its calculation? Im asking because the Shadow Monk's high DPR across all tiers in based on permanent adv
This might be a nitpick, but if the assassin with heavy crossbow had a 1 level fighter dip, wouldn't it be fair to give college of valor bard a 1 level fighter dip?
where is the wizard?
It's probably same as sorcerer
where did you lay out the rogue thrower build? how do you get two sneak attacks per round??
Not two sneak attacks. Two chances at sneak attack. Compare vs. using a bow, where you only get one attack--if you miss you lose out on sneak attack for the round. Dagger thrower misses first attack, throw again, solid chance of still landing sneak attack.
Where do Cleric and Wizard rank? Lower than Druid?
You probably have already considered this, but it seems like Rogue would be a good new baseline, judging from your graph showing damage to the different classes.
Seems like evocation wizard would be competitive with the other casters in this tier.
I'm pretty disappointed with the new Warlock... I feel like they don't deliver a lot of damage and they don't have the versatility of full casters
I love this Tier breakdown. The T4 (and most of T3) is meaningless because magic items completely break all the math. By that time a DM is helping out all the stranglers, and you can almost count on half your damage coming from magic items.
True strike with a heavy crossbow or long bow might help the ranged Druid numbers some. Still not great.
Stars Druid would let you add an extra d8 at least.
I think stars would do really well in T1
Plz take the cleric in your builds too (specialy the light cleric with spirit guardians😄😁)
I love Rangers but I think the stark shift from being the best damage dealer to merely average in some ways ruins the power fantasy. I like party roles to stay consistent through most levels of play
I agree with you but multiclassing is an option and 8-9 levels often are most levels of play
Chris is the best
Everything I have seen about Ranger dmg in PHB 2024 (The best in Tier I, fantastic in Tier II, weak in Tier III, terrible in Tier IV) always forces me to think, that they were supposed to keep the last playtest HM version (scaling at lvls 9 and 17, working only once per turn) scaling with lvl 1 feature uses automatically and some idiot just changed to spell back (or forgot to update it) without telling anyone.
With this change, Rangers would do similar dmg as Barbarians in Tier I, average dmg at lvls 5-8, good at lvls 9+ and they would scale again at lvl 17.
This change would also help subclasses like Hunter or Beastmaster with their lvl 11 feature (which is terrible now in case of Hunter IMO) and it would not force Rangers to use 2WF that much, which is fantastic IMO.
And last but not least, it would make Ranger better archer, now it falls flat when compared to Rogue.
This comment might be completely wrong ... is there anything to the Ranger having a niche for low level play? I don't really believe that, just thinking out loud.
Where's Wizard?
Is this video much quieter for anyone else?
I wish Rangers were a bit more like the main character from Neva with their spirit animal. As far as what the class needs, I want to have 3 weapon masteries (so vex/nick/longbow), Channel Nature: Where you have a choice of options, including Wild Shape and Hunter's Mark, hunter's mark is a bit better, but maybe less of them, and then make the 3 skill option 2 parts and slightly weaker/same, and have a new capstone. I wish the Beast Companion was a spell similar to Summon Steed, however I wish the Beast Master was a much better version of this (it is so action starved), and then... I guess fuck Gloom, since 5th ed parties almost always has a gloom (me included), so I can go without the old gloom and doom. I like Fey, I just wish it felt better than Archfey, but I guess it is the early game version of Archfey Gishlock and then Gishlock is better later on. I imagine Ranger's might benefit from a 0 multiclass campaign. I also wish Ranger's had better level 5 spells. Also, more half dmg on miss spells would be great. However, I imagine most of the casting is going to be Hunter's Mark, some sort of terrain thing, or pass without trace, so perhaps the spells are fine and just low damage (outside of Hunter's Mark not ending and lots of TWF action). I like the rangers spells from 2-4, 1 is ok, and then 5 seems... awkward/unappealing. I suppose, you should just Multiclass similar to in 5th though, so perhaps the big spells don't matter so much after 9 levels of Ranger. (but probably only 5 levels of ranger)
This is going to sound bad.. but 1 lvl of Ranger and 2 lvls of monk means you are doing 6d6 .. the average is like 33 damage per turn if all hit, 25 damage with 2 hits, and 11 on 1 hit.
Forgot to mention you get daggers Nick and Short Sword vex. This with Monks ability to do a bonus action for a unarmed strike equals three attacks in one turn. My apologies
I think you ignored gloomstalker
Shame there are no numbers for Ranger or Paladin 2WF throwers!
Handaxe + Dagger with HM or Divine Favour would be great in Tier I-II IMO.
If my DM grants Extra attack to War Domain Cleric & Valor Bard at 7th level how much does it impact these numbers?
Valor bard already gets extra attack. For war domain cleric it would be impactful since they get limited bonus action attacks too so they'd have 3 attacks and the free spiritual weapon. So they'd probably do well in tier 2 when that all comes online but then it would peter out after that
@davidfarnham5623 thanks I had thought I heard they took it away from valor Bard, but I don't have the book yet so I couldn't look for myself.
@@BLynn yeah they still have it. Obviously doesn't help in tier 1 though lol. War clerics still have their pseudo bonus action one too
Did i miss something, but why no cleric and wizard?
He talked about it in the last video, but basically the cleric and wizard have no spells that will distinguish them from classes we’ve already reviewed (there are no single-target options the wizard has that the sorcerer doesn’t, and the cleric’s won’t beat the druid’s), so we wouldn’t see anything new or surprising from reviewing them.
Also view numbers for this series have been steadily dropping, so…
@Adurnis thanks, I didn't see the last video
Optimized ranged stars Druid & war clerics get close to the optimized Sorcerer.
They might out damage depending how you do the calculations.
A comment for support.
Best level 5 damage i can think about at level 5 is probably warlock level 5 subclass doesn't matter species abyssal tiefling pact of the blade thirsting blade Eldridge smite and hold person 4d6+8+3d8 doubled edit you can deal a additional 3d6 +6 that also gets doubled 3d6 from branding smite and 6 From hex blades curse so 4d6+8+6+3d6+3d6 and all of that gets doubled from hold person
For one turn and only if hold person lands and stays until your next turn. It might not even have a legitimate target. Chris considers multiple rounds, multiple combats and tries not to make a lot of assumptions like would someone make a saving throw.
I would argue pact of the chain can significantly boost warlock’s damage on lvl 5.
@sharmelfattakhov5041 part of the chain doesn't make you do more damage unless you have investment of the chain master and probably the best option for that is imp that deals 1d6+3 piercing damage and 2d6 poison damage and you could guarantee that the saving throw for hold person if you had a Divination wizard help you out or you could increase the chance of them failing the saving throw by taking the fey touched feet And taking silvery barbs and yea most of the damage would be dealt and the turn after you casted hold person for free but at that level nova damage like that is crazy warlocks smites are better than paladins in the new version of DND
@ still for one turn, against one enemy, one specifically humanoid enemy, and you can’t even do that alone. Very far from good or reliable damage if you ask me.
@@sharmelfattakhov5041 yea I understand that but if a humanoid creature was like a boss or something they are definitely getting killed because You deal crazy in nova damage on the second turn and your whole party would benefit if they failed the hold person spell and I really wasn't thinking about reliable damage I was more thinking of Nova damage like at level 5 no single creature would survive that at that CR rating of 5 like if you wanted constant reliable damage. You could go the Great old one warlock and take the repellent blast and devil site and cast Hunger of hadar And just keep on pushing one or two enemies back into it every turn
@@sharmelfattakhov5041 it would take 2 turns but when the person's paralysed they wouldn't be able to attack you at all and then at the start of your next turn you could eviscerate them
Why did you use Two Handed for Valor Bard??? Do a level 1 Fighter dip for Masteries and Two Weapons Nick/Vex. You dipped for other builds. Valor Bard alone is not good damage with great weapons, clearly. Also, lets reduce use of Shillelagh in builds please. Not everyone wants to weild a club ;)
The Valor Bard build dipped Warlock for pact of the blade
I dipped for that build too, but I dipped warlock for blade pact.
Great, can u do these with subclasses now since they change like. Everything. For some classes.
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Greatsword continues to be a terrible choice for a barbarian.
I hate Tier 1 play...
No feats? its turn everything differente!
Rangers are the best class period. They do the best in tiers 1-4. Hunters mark is objectively broken and I’m banning it and gloomstalker from my games. Anyone who dislikes ranger is, frankly, bad at dnd.
(this is an intentionally inflammatory remark to boost engagement 🤭 let’s get that 100k!!!)
You had me in the first half.
Ahah. Tbf, they are overhated when it comes to tier 1 and tier 2 play
It's true. Rangers are pretty okay in T1, manageable in T2, then need taking out back and shooting in T3 onwards.
This class seems pretty cool! I hope no massive d&d creator makes a video with hundreds of thousands of views about how concentration free hunter's mark is overpowered, causing their giant audience to respond to playtest surveys parroting that opinion and kneecapping the final class when the official book comes out! Nobody would ever do that though, right? Definitely not someone whose channel rhymes with D&D Blorts.
Argg i m so angry
You don t know how to play dnd
This video could be summed up in a couple graphs and charts. I've been disappointed with the amount of filler in many of your recent videos. I'd prefer to see more interesting mechanics videos and unique builds that create fun rewarding gameplay that doesn't create problems for the table like Conjure Minor Elementals.
These aren't optimised for this tier, what's really important for one-shots. I don't see this data as valuable if it's not actually representative.
I dont understand how you're min maxing some of these builds.
Warlock lvl 4 Charisma 18
Invocations (3)
Pact of the Blade
Agonizing blast (True strike)
Pact of the chain (Imp Familiar)
Feat- any that adds plus one charisma
Imp is invisible and provides the help action.
Advantage on our one attack per round
2d6 + 4 +4 ( true strike) W/ Advantage.
How in the world is this only 8 DPR Average. This isn't even considering B. Action Hex on any targets
It’s not level 4 damage, it’s the average DPR for levels 1-4. Chris also assumes 4 combats a day, 4 rounds per combat, with one short rest per day.
@DukeTrout i know it's 4 rds of combat, 4 times times a day. The damage woulsnt change no matter how many combats at this lvl. But, i must have missed its the average of lvls 1-4. Even if it was i would still think if optimized properly it would be higher.
@ Point buy also means 17 starting CHA. So your modifier is +3 until level 4. I’m not sure I’d give you that Agonizing Blast applies to True Strike until level 5 - AB adds the CHA modifier to “cantrips that deal damage.” TS doesn’t deal damage until level 5. So your damage is (7+3)*.84=8.4 DPR for levels 1-3 then (7+4)*.84=9.2 DPR for 4th level.
@DukeTrout completely disagree about truestrike. its a spell dealing the weapons damage by causing you to swing. You're also not adding Hex in there or the fact you have advantage from lvl2 onward which also adds much higher crit chance
@ Before level 5, how much damage does true strike do? Please give us a number. Oh, it does zero damage.
I was already counting advantage, which is a stretch even for an invisible imp. Critical hit at advantage only adds 0.6 DPR. You only have one spell slot at level 1 and 2 spell slots at level 2-4, so that’s where the 4 combats per day kicks in. So it contributes 0.7 regular damage and less than 0.1 DPR critical damage at level 1 for a whopping total of 0.8 additional DPR per day.
At level 2-4 it adds 1.5 DPR regular damage and 0.2 critical damage for an additional 1.7 DPR per day.
So that’s 9.2 DPR at 1st, 10.1 DPR 2-3, and 10.9 DPR at 4th level. Sorry, that’s still not great and that’s assuming 100% advantage, which is a stretch.
do you know your videos are very quiet?
No graph, and no ordered list of the highest performing builds, disappointing. Otherwise good stuff. But yeah graphs and listing the very best options against each other is appreciated.
You can see a graph here: colab.research.google.com/drive/1gLxzzaSGdeiQw03mTxr898XrBUm2mvXy?usp=sharing
Why fight an enemy in D&D when you can persuade your enemy by playing an elliquence bard? Elliquence bard is the best subclass in the history of D&D .
you cant take that even serious because chris takes one shape and slaps it on all ignoring strengths and weaknesses completely. like giving barb/fighter/PLD a greatsword instead of actually sitting down and thinking about masteries and dpr enhancing combinations. so yeah completely invalid math and rankings
First! Woot!