DnD Class Tierlist

[@FrozzenK]

Ranger, Druid and Monk at the bottom. This is really nice. I didn't know DnD was this based. Nature lovers and tree huggers are always the lamest stuff around in any fantasy.

[@HangwitsArchive]

Kinda depends on the type for me. If someone plays a lorax type character that's pretty cool to me. But how it's written in the PHB for those classes just isn't for me

[@raylf3141]

stunning strike is so underrated unless you've played with a good monk who doesn't blow all of their Ki points on flurry of blows. Monk is a very tactical class. I've literally run through a group of enemies and stunned 5 of them (fighter multi woot) in one turn allowing our heavies to run past them to the bigger threat and engage it immediately. And in the big bad fights you only need one bad roll to either burn a legendary resistance or nail that stun and give everyone a round of free advantaged strikes. Bonus points if someone knocks the target prone (fighter multi woot) to give auto crit to the melee attackers. raspberries to the ranged attackers and their disadvantage (or even roll since stun, baby)

[@HangwitsArchive]

Reasons like these make me want to like monk but I just can't. They are definitely tactical and I like ki point as I mentioned in the video but I find that most classes can do what they can but better, monk feels a bit like a half caster to me without the utility. Stunning strike is very good when it lands, personally i've been burnt by missing it multiple time but that's just dice, but I find hold person to be a tad better just due to the range. However it seems like you multiclassed monk with fighter and that's a very powerful build, I think monk is a weak class on it's own but kinda insane when paired with other martial classes so i'm not surprised that your character was strong.

[@raylf3141]

@@HangwitsArchive Hold person is very good until you're trying to hold a shambling mound. Or beholder. or most of what you'll find in the bestiary for 5e. I have absolutely burned 3 ki points in one turn making the dm roll save after each hit and that only gets worse as you level and enemy saves start getting bonuses that almost equal your DC, BUT, that's why I said it only takes one bad roll and you're burning a legendary, making it more likely that wizard or sorc are gonna land their cc, or you're burning the boss in one round of unfettered whoopass.

[@raylf3141]

@@HangwitsArchive I'll give you another reason to want to play monk, especially for lighthearted one shot kind of deal. lvl 6 Shadow Monk with 2 common magic items, cloak of billowing and dread helm. You just got yourself a poor mans Batman but with actual powers, running and teleporting along the roofs at night keeping the town safe from bandits and political intrigue. The comedy writes itself.

[@HangwitsArchive]

Ok i'll concede on the one shot batman idea, you could get a level in barbarian for that too so that you can get rage. So i'm all in

[@Draelos]

Oof. Not sure about this list. You totally got the artificer wrong.

[@HangwitsArchive]

Everyone wants artificer to divide us, we will not allow that to happen

[@colbysparling8839]

Also, can I ask how long you have been playing dnd?

[@HangwitsArchive]

I started playing in 2016 so around 8 years now, which makes me feel very old

[@colbysparling8839]

@@HangwitsArchive That’s awesome! I bet you have had some crazy fun over those years!

[@ehd.f4269]

I endorse the making of dnd content, but I definitely disagree with a lot of your takes.

[@HangwitsArchive]

You know what that's completely cool I knew some of these takes would be controversial but that's fine, I hope you at least enjoyed video.

[@chrislad24]

monk can have a + 10 to hit and +7 damage on it at level 5 with 3 items that are all uncommon and only 1 is attunement, can make 4 attacks or really 5 if your a mercy monk, D is just wrong at this point monk is a A, if you don't know your a dps disruptor then your playing him wrong. Druid not being an S is also just dumb, im sorry but it is busted. and on flavour, monks flavour chances a HUGE amount from subclass to subclass, you go from being a master of the shadows, to master of weapons, having dragon like ability's to being a plague doctor or obsessed with death itself, or even just a drunk. if we are going to talk about lack of flavour we have to talk about paladin. paladin is a busted class with no flavour anymore I have never seen somebody play paladin actually stick to their oath. people always forget it exists and dm's rarely punish players for not sticking to there oath and even if they do you just become oath breaker.

[@HangwitsArchive]

I had a feeling my monk take would be controversial which is obviously completely fine. I 100% agree with you that monk is good up until level 7 is good, items can make monk a lot better but for the sake of this tier list I didn't make it with items in mind because there are far too many and talking about them would make the video hours long. My problem with monk is that they really feel like they phase out power wise after they get evasion and get some weird abilities as I mentioned in the video, as their unarmed strike and ki points (in my opinion) don't scale as well when compared to smites, eldritch blast, sorcery points and other core class abilities. Also the flavour part is 100% subjective so when I look at the monk subclasses to me they dont feel that varied, like a clockwork sorcerer feels like an entirely different class to a wild magic sorcerer. The only one that feels like it stands far out is drunken master as I stated. Druid had a section cut out due to my mic being dodgy but basically I said they feel about half way for me in power, pretty good at everything but I don't feel like they excel so I would rank them like A or B or power but they ended up in C because the tier list was a mix of fun, flavour and power and 2 out of 3 are subjective which is why they were C For me I think paladin has so much flavour and from what you said feels like a table reason as my tables always go in quite hard on the oaths and breaking oaths have been major story arches in some of my favourite campaigns, which is why I love them. But after all this I 100% get what you're saying and this tier list wasn't made to say never play the classes that I believe are bottom tier. I genuinely all the classes in the game are fun and think they deserve to be there, So i'm glad there are monk lovers to go against the monk dislikers like me.

[@marks2807]

Would Tasha’s make rangers B tier? Being you can replace all the bad abilities with better abilities.

[@HangwitsArchive]

You make an incredibly good point with that, If I am right tashas replaces hide in plain sight which I called out. Truthfully I had an incredibly hard time with rangers as there is almost 3 types of ranger, PHB, after xanathers and after tashas which make them hard to place because they have so many new additions. I think I should have placed them high C and should have mentioned tashas (I wanted to keep the sections brief and ranger was already getting long but I still think its a mistake). The only reason why I would say they should stay C is because of how much concentration based spells they have (which is around 50% of their spells) and how much a ranger can do with their bonus action which can make them feel like a gattling gun as when you get off the hunters mark,favoured foe and slayers prey (monster slayer subclass) you do so much damage but it's at least 3 turns of prep. However I think rangers could heavily be considered for B and I think this is one of those classes where if I were to make the video again in a years time there's a decent chance I would place them in B. My next character is going to be another ranger so I can test this more

[@marks2807]

@@HangwitsArchive I personally had a lot of fun with the Drakewarden ranger using Tasha options. It was basically training a dragon that became a part of our party as the game went on. To the point other player characters where interacting with my Drake. That said I can understand the bonus action/concentration concerns.

[@HangwitsArchive]

That sounds awesome! I've never played drakewarden before so i'm definitely going to have to give it a try.

[@GlawiousAldredMarci]

For monk you don't need that good of a stuff at lvl 10 and 15 as they are powerful af... We had open hand monks carry so many fights with their abilities and stun. Just so powerful in a combat and outside of the combat it has high dex for a lot of useful stuff, along with great movement abilities. There is something 100 ft away we have to catch? Ask the monk. Somethink on top of the building? Ask the monk! Someone wants to end the sorcerer in the back of the party? You guessed it! Monk is in the back from the very front to save them. lol

[@HangwitsArchive]

I think for me I generally find other classes better at what a monk does in an all round party. Paladins and fighters can do the damage while having more HP to play with, sorcerers and wizards too but they are ranged so their hp is less of a concern. The main part though is the drop off in power later on as a monk while these classes get stronger. If this tier list was from lvl 1 to lvl 10 power wise I would rate them higher (they won't go that high because I don't like their flavour and I don't think they are fun but that's a me thing) but then also ranger would be high up because they are really good in the early game too. Also stunning strike is incredible early on but later doesn't feel that good as the DC sits around 15 (sometimes less sometimes more) and forces a con save which higher cr monsters tend to have very high con. I will say though monk is unrivalled in terms of movement, it is kinda insane. So that's why I rated them low but this isn't to say you should never play monk, DnD is a really well made game where the classes all feel good and can all be powerful in their own way. The best part about these classes is that if you want to play a certain character there is a class to suit that character. Also this tier is mainly subjective due to 2 out of the 3 rating systems I used were completely up to my opinions (flavour and fun). So yeah those are my basic reasons but I think you're fair to like them but monk just isn't for me.

[@GlawiousAldredMarci]

@@HangwitsArchive It's weird you see them fall off on late game as with a little bit of HP investment the open hand monk had more damage than me with a fighter battlemaster built on damage with greatswords. Mostly because you can attack as many times with a monk as a fighter with actionsurge more than 2x using ki and you can also stack a bunch of other stuff on these attacks, while fighters can barely do anything other than swinging around. Also stunning strike is still great at high level, what else can try to stun an enemy 4-5 times in a turn at high level? There is literally no better skill at any level than that for a big enemy. Even if they have high stats, rolling 5 times will have them fail, even more so if you boost the save to 16 or 17. It really depends on if you can find items that can buff your character, but it's the same with all the classes. Over 10th level all the classes seemed to be underwhelming tbh and I have played 2 campaigns over 10-20th level. The class was either already broken by lvl 10 or it did not really get anything that made it so much more stronger.

[@HangwitsArchive]

I find that the damage per turn is really good for fighter due to their survivability so they can survive a lot more rounds of combat than a monk can (I am saying this on assumption that there no healer in the party and the character is only healing themselves else this becomes more about team comp than the individual class) however you are completely right that in 1 or 2 turns that a monk can deal more damage but in that point there are so many resources burnt to fulfil that damage output, whereas a paladin can have high damage over many turns. Another commenter said stunning strike is good at burning legendary resistance and I agree with that as when i played as a monk from levels 5 - 15 (drunken master) I found that after level 10 the stunning strike was just buring a resistance and it would take around 3 tries for the creature to fail the save anyway. which made me feel like my role was to try to burn resources of the monster and then back up else i would get bodied. The post level 10 statement is really interesting as I entirely disagree as I think that wizard and sorcerer feel like they skyrocket at that point which I like, I think other classes too which I briefly mention in the video, but I like every level up ability to feel like I am growing which is why past lvl 10 I kinda hate monks lvling system. Out of pure curiosity what classes would you put monk above/ what tier would you put them in? Because your points are very thought out and valid, i personally disagree on aspects. I think this is the tough part of discussing dnd as there are so many sub classes, types of campaigns, types of monsters that in 1 campaign a class can be nuts and in the next it's awful. Tierlists are always biased for DnD as I've only ever played in tables with me and my friends which means we generally prefer the same style of game. I just made this one because I really enjoy discussing DnD and seeing how others experience the game.

[@GlawiousAldredMarci]

@@HangwitsArchive I would definitelly put it up with a B along with the fighter. Just as monk, fighter doesn't get almost any skills over lvl 10, you get feats/ability scores, but if you already have the feats taking ability scores instead of a good skill at higher levels feels like a waste and just makes you fall behind soo much. Literally the warlock outdamaged me around lvl 14 as they got really good abilities, while as fighter I get 2 more points into constitution... Yeay! XD Getting an attack and action surge is nice, but action surge is used up fast, while more attacks don't always help as much as some skills, so many times I had to give up attacks as there was no one next to me, meanwhile as a battlemaster I could forgo an attack to get one of my allies to attack. (there was once a time I made our wizard slap someone as there was nothing else to do and she actually killed the enemy, it was funny af XD )

[@HangwitsArchive]

I think B isn't a bad place makes a lot of sense, obviously you know why I put monk in D outside of combat reasons. Fighter for me was the pure baseline, the true definition of middle of the road. Wizard slaps are deadly, they train for years to be perfectly petty

[@danielson1463]

while sometimes its bad to compare bg3 to dnd 5e i think its really interesting how ranger and monk thrive so much better in a video game setting, ig it has to do with bg3 mechanics ofc but also items? i feel like most dms don't give their players enough items early on. Also the way multiclassing effects how "good" a class is (objectively ofc). Cool vid :)

[@HangwitsArchive]

I think you're completely right and it's so strange. Magic items 100% help push both monk and ranger in BG3 and I think monk is better because of how easy it is to short rest, as when I played monk in DnD after every combat I had spent literally all of my ki points meaning if there was another combat I was screwed. Ranger I think is really slept on, it is so strong up to around level 7 then starts to feel a lot weaker, also BG3 helps this as it allows 2 level spells in a turn if one is a BA so it means hunters mark can always be cast. I want to make a video about multiclassing because it's so interesting. Multiclassing with warlocks I think is generally very powerful.

[@colbysparling8839]

I agree on the wizard take! My first serious character was a wizard and I sucked! But it was still fun lol!

[@HangwitsArchive]

A true dive into the deep end

[@colbysparling8839]

@@HangwitsArchive It really was!