There are some SLIGHT differences here from what I did in the class videos 1. Control was split between Control and Mobility, Control is buffing and debuffing while mobility is boosts to speed, teleporting, disengaging, etc. 2. Ranger damage includes hail of thorns, and mobility/control were fixed slightly too. 3. Fighter and Barbarian use the same weapon for Damage and Control now, just like all the other classes do.
So I don't know how to put this in. But ranger was the only ranged build. That has to be significant points to either durability (getting hit less) or mobility (no opportunity attacks) From what Ive seem melee is about 20 percent higher dpr than ranged. So a ranged build maybe should have 20 percent higher defense?
So this is actually a really good point and thanks for taking the time to ask. The reason I didn't include it is based on the definition of durability. It is if you stood there taking hits, not trying to escape. I've thought about this a lot, and perhaps I could give a boost to durability because of that, but what about skirmishers? If rogue can get in and out without provoking OAs, do I do the same for them? Do they need a certain amount of movement before they are far enough away to be considered "out of range"? It ends up getting pretty messy quickly. It might not be a perfect solution because, as you said, you end up getting less attacks and have more freedom to move with range. But keeping durability defined the way it is shows how much you need to stay away in order to survive, which is perhaps more helpful when playing or building a ranger to keep in mind. Kind of the same reason for mobility.
@@DndUnoptimizedOne could argue that defense can often be obtained through mobility. Whether it's step of the wind or cunning action to disengage the for skirmishers, they are obtaining defense through mobility. So yes, I would absolutely add defensive points for those skirmishing classes if their builds are doing it. Thing about rogues and monks though is are there bonus actions taken? Or are they available to use for skirmishing features? If available then that is absolutely extra. Defensive points. It just seems so weird to me that The ranger ranged build that doesn't sacrifice any action economy to stay at ranged gets no added defensive benefit whereas skirmishers have to sacrifice damage to use their bonus action to skrimish To further this point, if there was never any defensive value to being range, then surely the wizard and sorcerer would mind a little melee action.....
The problem with considering "staying at range" as a good ability to have is... that for the party overall it just isn't. (I'm assuming that melee is a thing in your fantasy gaming; if you play D&D like a modern sniper game where you always kite foes - good for you, but I consider that playing style atypical) All you're accomplishing by staying away from monsters is helping them focus fire on your allies, and you're also not offering up perhaps the most powerful ability of any character: your warm body (=your hit points). tl;dr: Fans of super sneaky ranged lone assassin builds forget they're not playing a solo videogame. All that their antics accomplish is getting their party murdered faster, even though they themselves might get away clean. All this to say I believe it is the right decision to not factor in range. It shouldn't be rewarded since it isn't a net positive for the party overall.
@@DndUnoptimized You could also argue that ranged should add damage to the graph, because there will be rounds that melee characters will do nothing while the ranged characters still get to attack
@@user-wm3hu7lo1gI mean if you want to look at it from that glass then why not have your wizard and sorcerer in melee. They can cast shield and soak up DMG. This would be more beneficial no? Nobody does that because it's insane and they have weak hp and want to protect concentration. This has additional defensive value by staying in the back. Maybe the ranged rangers doesn't have as much HP issues, maybe their typical build should be melee. But certainly protecting their concentration by hanging in the back adds decent value.
I like the graph and overall it is pretty accurate, except for ranger. I think comparing meele VS ranged builds is a bit unfair, in 2024. Unless you gave some durability/mobility bonus to the ranger as a factor for attacking in a safe position and because mobility is less important if you attack at 100+ fts.
Thanks for coming and watching! True that ranged vs martial is somewhat unfair. I don't take range into account at all in these, which might sound crazy, but no I don't boost durability or mobility from being at range. I could, but then it changes what durability really means. Knowing you are less durable means you know you have to stay at range while being more durable means you can afford to dive into melee more often. It can also get kind of tricky to add in additional durability for ranged. How far is range? It's 15' knife throwing range enough to prevent melee attacks? Obviously shooting from 100' behind cover is fantastic, but is it just as good as shooting from 10'? Or skirmishers if they have to run in and out and end up 10' away, is that ranged? The more assumptions I make, the more diluted the number becomes and less useful. My strategy ends up being that you still need to understand the build and what it means. The numbers here aren't everything, just like DPR isn't everything. Hope that makes sense
Yeah, you conviced me for durability makes little sense. @@DndUnoptimized But maybe add some into 'mobility' category perhaps? If having +10 feet Bonus Movement Speed= 3 Points on the mobility 'point system' Maybe for range something like this: Short range (10~30 feet) = 2 points. Medium Range (40~90 feet) = 3 points Long Range (100+ feets) = 4 points I would only consider the minimum range into account for ranged weapons for this. So it would even take into account Reach Weapons/features for melees. After all it is kind of having a longer 'move' in your arm for reach, and for ranged weapons is like having longer mobility into your ammo 🤣
@@DndUnoptimized If you find a way to factor in the fact that most of the monster manual only does melee attacks and few do ranged/spell casting, it shows how strong range/control is. Spike growth and plant growth shut down such a high percentage. Ranged PCs can kite and take cover resulting in zero damage taken. The community spends sooo much attention to damage that they never factor in the cost of that damage (running into melee taxes resources both your HP/hit and spell and item healing). Unless there is a narrative reason why you need to kill something right now (ie: bomb going off in 4 rounds) there's zero reason to do this. The most optimized approach is to look at builds which factor in damage RATIO- damage taken vs damage delivered! As Bilbron would say "if I can hurt the enemy and the enemy can't hurt me, I win". It doesn't matter if it's 10 dpr or 100 as long as the ratio is maintained. This is why control is the most valuable aspect of the fight.
Yes, melee damage from monsters is definitely the majority. I don't want to add it into the durability side, but I can add it to the mobility number, indicating that they can reach the enemy and not get hit back. Spike growth and plant growth can be total game changers, no doubt about that! Control and mobility can be devastating. I love the bilbron quote. I really enjoy his stuff.
not a fan of the smooth movement of the graphs, it's too hard to actually look at the differences at a level and the interpolated values are meaningless
@@DndUnoptimized Maybe make the graphs move like they do now but they stop for a second or 2 on every level so that the graph stays still so we can properly compare
I'd have guessed that Rangers would have a good control score once they get access to 2nd Lv spells, with spike growth and pass without trace for example, why is that not the case?
Definitely true that they would have greater control if they used different spells, but less damage (unless you end up with a cheese grater party) I have to make some call on how the characters will act and try to keep it in line with the build. For longbow rangers, I assume they want to do as much damage as possible, so prioritized that and use only Hail of thorns, which is the highest damage boosting spell we can use while concentrating on Hunters Mark. I did say a few times that ranger can shift their play style and what they focus on and do good control.
Did Paladin get to use their Lay On Hands on themselves for the Durability analysis? An extra 5 HP per level goes a long ways. Provided the paladin survives the first round of combat, they should be able to use it, and since it’s a bonus action, it doesn’t really interfere with sword + board action economy.
@@DndUnoptimized Doesn't 2024 paladin use the bonus actions to cast smite now? I don't think they have bonus actions to spare if they want to cast smite
@@Panurome You don't really need to cast them every turn. Best smites work for long time - so you cast it at first turn, and you don't really need to use LOH at first round.
Ranged attack has less potential to do a lot of damage than melee, but it give almost free choice to select your target. To account for this you could give the Ranger some extra point in mobility. They don't movie a lot themself, but they can get to any target they want and if the choose the Beast Master subclass they ability to target anyone on in the battle get even better.
While Monk looks really strong and maybe even overtuned, we have to keep in mind that the core concept of Monk conflicts with D&D's magic-centric settings. A monk needs to be strong because they can't use a lot of magical equipment that would normally boost other classes. Do you think it would be fair to add a metric that determines how well a class can be boosted by magic items? I think it comes down to proficiencies and restrictions, such as heavy armor and martial weapons access. You also see attunement requirements such as being a spellcaster or even a specific class like Paladin.
You've definitely got some truth there. I think monks have a lot more magic weapon options now than before, but yes, definitely not nearly as many as the fighter can use. I would hesitate to add in a magic affinity dimension because of a few reasons. 1. most DMs will usually find a way to give out magic items to all the party equally regardless of what's in the book. 2. Most class analysis completely ignore magic items 3. It doesn't quite feel like it quite fits in to me.
But really they now have access to wraps of unarmed power +1 to +3 so they aren't left in the cold to magic weapon scaling. There is the potion of pugilism which adds 1d6 force damage to every unarmed attack for 10 minutes. Magic items not reprinted are fair game so the eldritch claw tattoo would also stack with the other two and it is the only one that requires attunement. I mean even with the uncommon +1 wraps, the tattoo and the potion, you are doing +1d6+2 on every unarmed strike, and if you use the tattoo feature you get an additional 1d6 on every strike for 1 min. But honestly outside of armor, spell-caster specific items (wands, scrolls, etc) and some weapons, what magic items are they not able to use exactly?
@khultak You listed 3 items specifically tailored for Monks, then said "outside of armor, spell-caster specific items, and some weapons" as if that doesn't cut out the vast majority of magic items. There's no variety with Monks. Unless you multiclass, you don't get Weapon Masteries, so outside of optimization circles, Monks are most likely going to stick with unarmed fighting. My point is that if you play a Monk and you want power scaling from magic items, you're going to see the same handful of items since there's so few they can use, unlike a fighter or barbarian.
@@Putoaduh Weapon Mastery is either a feat that you can get dex with or you can dip 1 level fighter. And the payoff is quite big, because double dagger nick build will give you 6 attacks per round at 10th level, or a short sword dagger can give you advantage and still net you the nick attack on your main attack action. So weapons are easily available to any monk that wants to go that route. Rings, bracers, cloaks, capes, boots, gauntlets, gloves, a number of weapons including swords with which you will end up doing more damage with than any other class in the game because monk weapon damage scales with unarmed damage. So again what are you really missing out on as a monk? I'm looking at the lists right now, and comparing what monks can't use vs what a fighter can use off the same table generally boils down to 3 things: shield, armor, and very specific weapon types. Belt of Giant Strength, hell yes, because none of your attacks are required to use dex, it very specifically says you can. I mean what I'm left with is you saying that the DM will want to give the other players magic armor and not give the monk bracers or armor or a cloak/ring of protection because they are a monk? Or every weapon found will be of a type that monks won't want to use because?
This is just amazing, I was looking for this kind of content for weeks, very good video and good insights for each class, if something was missing is understandable since there is a lot of classes and small details. My nerdy heart is warm and happy
Regarding the build options, it's kind of like comparing apples to oranges and not taking into account subclasses "washes out" a lot of the nuance (especially in a class like fighter or in cases like world tree Barbarian, one of the best battlefield controllers in 2024)... also, Rangers not having good control and mobility options is nuts Spike Growth alone makes them a huge threat in that regard and they have longstrider, jump, a climb speed, a swim speed and a natural speed boost too. Even back in 5e, with Tasha's, they were great battlefield controllers, especially if you were playing Swarm Keeper Monks are maybe one of the best grapplers in the game rn thanks to their in built changes and also tavern brawler, grappler feat and 4 elements monk, not to mention their boost to step of the wind when they can bring an ally with them (and also being by far the fastest martial and able to run up walls and on water or fly all the time if you are 4 elements OR teleporting all over the place if you are a shadow monk) I think you are onto something here, for sure, but I think you might need to look at things more as a whole and, maybe, be a bit more methodical in comparisons because you clearly understand the game so it's not at all a matter of not knowing enough
Perhaps I need to use more of the features instead of focusing on damage. That's what people most often care about, so I prioritize damage usually (while staying true to the theme of the build), then move to other things. So monks were using Flurry of blows 100% of the time. If I did it 75% of the time and did step of the wind then mobility would jump a ton, but damage would suffer. Maybe I need to give up that damage and use step of the wind and lay on Hands and second wind and whatever else. Probably people will complain about. No subclasses helps understand the class better in my opinion, then you can tack on whatever you want to boost these numbers. But to each their own.
@@DndUnoptimized My 2 cents is people will prioritize what feels impactful. most often it is damage, but when you have a juicy plant growth that would greatly impact an encounter then yeah you want to trivialize that encounter.
Wooow. Crazy high quality of the Video! I hope you get 100‘000 members like treanmonk aswell💪🏻 may ask them to do a video together i saw you the first time after 1 year of watching dnd videos from time to time
Great video as always! I really appreciate how you look at classes and compare them in a more realistic sense besides simple damage per round. The control section seems a bit off. I understand that you are doing basic classic builds, however, if you are just comparing one base class to another, it is unfair to look at the fighter and barbarian, who both get more weapon masteries than other classes, and not take into account that they will be using different weapons to do different control effects. Surely the fight are getting six masteries and the barbarian getting four when everyone else gets a maximum of two should be taken into account. The ranger in the control section got some points off the bat for just having the slow mastery. If that's the case, the barbarian and fighter should get push & topple assumed, at least, since those masteries are present on normal and heavy weapons, and possibly sap and slow as well. The barbarian in particular also gets to combine their weapon masteries with brutal strike for enhanced pushes, enhanced slows, or combinations of other control. I wonder if it would be easier to just assign weapon masteries a base level of control (since any martial can take them) and then then add additional points for each weapon mastery a class is able to take (so fighters get the most points in this category, for example). ALSO, it was such a good move to add a dedicated mobility section. That was sorely needed I think, and helps put both rogue and barbarian into perspective. It helps monks too, but monks really didn't need that help 😂
That's definitely fair criticism of the system. I'm just not really sure of a reasonable way to do it. Do I make a build using every weapon then average then out their damage and control with them? That is potentially possible for pure martials with a LOT of work, but almost impossible if you get any spells. Or maybe I could do two builds, one damage focused and one control focused and show two different graphs? Maybe that's the easier way to do it, then average out the two builds. I think unfortunately, if you do either of these techniques it makes understanding the numbers much more difficult and less digestible. If I state the build and why I think it's archetypical, but it has a lot of potential in XYZ direction then at least people can see what the numbers mean and where they might differ based on build. That's the reasoning behind why I went with what I did (and also... This analysis is already a freaking ton of work, so I don't think I can fit much more in without it taking weeks) Thanks for watching and for the feedback! Always appreciate it
There is one point I disagree that impacts mostly the ranger and monk (but also the fighter). You are just judging one course of action for each build (Cast hunters mark and attack) while not considering other options you might have to boost when you need that specific power, monks can sacrifice their bonus action to have a burst of mobility for example. If I was doing this analysis I’d change it in one of two ways: first would be to judge based on how much that class can achieve without changing the build, only the decisions in play. The second option would be to add a 6th parameter of variability, exactly judging how much you can change what you deliver on a turn by turn basis. Great video, thanks for the work
That's an interesting metric. I do agree that some classes can excel in certain areas that they aren't here because of the choices to focus on damage and maybe that needs to be displayed somehow
Loved the video, just wanted to ask, if we're including cleave damage into the dpr, shouldn't we include a second target for hail or thorns damage? I mean especially with the freedom to target anyone that range provides it makes sense to me, but I might be missing something.
Great question. No I didn't, because it is so rarely seen that it is more utility in my mind. I should probably come up with a mobility number for those though.
@DndUnoptimized I think you can probably safely ignore swim speeds, but a small bonus for climb speeds and a big bonus for fly speeds would be a good idea imo. Although an option I personally prefer would be to replace mobility with effective range. Effective range would be the amount you can move in a turn + weapon range with a penalty for lack of verticality proportional with the amount of foes with flight/spider climb. I think showing the benefits of mobility and range in 1 number would be appropriate and helpful.
I agree with you on the move speeds. I think I'll probably have some really small number for swim speed, bigger one for climb but still small, and then a big one for flying. Probably the same as a full movement Effective range is probably not an interesting dimension to have because you can intrinsically understand without any analysis
I do agree with Monk durability, but I would never put them ahead of Barbarians in this category. Evasion and the reaction reduce damage is strong as heck, don't get me wrong. But their hit die should have been something to consider in this category. Having a D8 hit die means they aren't as tanky as the other martial classes. And being unable to wear armor, the max they could get is 20 but that would require maxing out Dex and Wis, which using point by, you won't get until 16th level. And with that, that means your Con stays at 14, which isn't bad but isnt high either. So sure, they can dodve and evade attacks, even reduce usinga reaction, but if hard focused by a heavy hitting enemy, they will have a hard time whereas Barbarians rage will reduce the most common damage type, and this isn't taking subclass into consideration. I do believe this new 2024 mink is impressive and is standing up there with the other classes, but not above Barbarian imo
Great video as always! I think it’s a good move to assume a single build & weapon, and have the understanding that there is wiggle room to give up damage for control, or some other benefit, but that this is based off of a given build that is considered the “standard” and deviations can modify it. If you use a different build to determine each aspect it gets not only way harder on your part, but understanding it would be really hard because you are seeing unrealistic values for each aspect. I also like the addition of Mobility!
Excluding the issues that have been discussed by me and countless others. I do love the methodology here. One thing I think is important for our analysis is observing how these features extend other benefits through our play. For example a the multi attack weapon classes get more from magic weapons. Those who rely on armor like the fighter are going to have more options than the rogue for defense etc.
I will end up adjusting Combat Space when new MM comes out and use the new encounter difficulty rules. They are going to be tricky though since there is now a MUCH higher range of encounter difficulty, especially since multiple monsters don't have a multiplier, and more monsters = more HP. Previously, that balance was somewhat kept in check due to the multiplier. I'll have to take a look at what is reasonable, but I will be collaborating with other creators on combat space this time around.
The graph shows how long you'd last in this white box deadly encounter if everyone was focused on you. So it definitely isn't what you'd see at a table. Everyone will hopefully last longer than 2 rounds. Yes, I'm taking BPS resistance into account, but as you increase in level, the amount of BPS damage goes down as a percentage. So at level 5, based on the monster stats, around 60% of all damage monsters deal is BPS, then at level 17 it's something like 35% because a lot of monsters deal other damage types at that point. So the resistance doesn't scale. It is also table dependant because you might face more or less monsters that do BPS. Or you might have less or more Dex/Con Saves than what I assume. So yes it's never going to map on 100%, but it does take resistance into account and monster damage types across the levels. You can check out the Barbarian by the numbers video for details on that if you'd like.
@DndUnoptimized oh! I forgot that you calculate durability as if everyone was focused on you. And since that rarely happens, then yes a Character is going to feel more durable than represented here. Gotcha.
Really well done, next video should go over which is ranked what in each tier. bc some games only go to Lv5, or Lv10 & it would be useful to know which melee straight class could be more useful in which areas :). again 10/10 i like this kinda stuff - ima sub now
i had absolutely no idea fighters got so me talky resilient at higher levels i guess thats a natural evolution of mkst games never getting to high level, and fighter usually being given as a class to the lewst enthusiastic players, but its still a whole side of the class I'd never even considered
This is really interesting, do you think you’ll ever go back and rank the subclasses? While I think the classes would largely stay in similar positions there would be some variance that could be interesting to see. In particular I think Vengeance vs Devotion Paladins would be cool since they both get a sizable damage bonus from their respective uses of Channel Divinity. Another fun comparison would be Battle Master vs Eldritch Knight for control. I’m also curious how the Beast Master’s companion would fit into the rankings here, damage is easy to factor in but do they get a durability bonus since their companion can absorb some attacks?
I hope to get there, but given how long it's taking me to generate all this content, I might end up skipping it so I can actually do other video content. I'll have to see how it feels after finishing casters though. I do want to have a complete ranking... that would be really cool. Thanks for always watching Jinx!
As another idea for a value you could add, i think an interesting point is combat stamina, how many combats you can get through while still having access to your key features. I could see barbarian, monk, ranger, and paladin falling behind here, with fighter and rogue pulling ahead.
With a Fighter using a Polearm, and a Barbarian using a Greataxe, they both have a free hand and the Strength to pull off a Grapple, increasing their control. They wouldn't be able to attack their target afterwards unless they end their grapple.
I think the bias toward damage is not so much a matter of over/undervaluing other dimensions so much as it’s more a matter of the other dimensions being less quantifiable without coming up with an elaborate system. To your credit, I believe that your system is fair, though I would like to see more “class potential” values rather than 1 specific build representing the entire class since each class has so many different playstyles and options available.
Good video mate, i like the format! I have some considerations though. If we put aside the stats we need to consider how martial classes fare in every scenario. Barbs have massive issues against flying enemies and casters, rogues are virtually useless if left alone against someone who can cast a simple blur or have a disadvantage spell/effect and rangers still have sub par damage and spell save DC ( they have tons of spells with saves). Unless I'm missing something fighter, monk and paladin are far stronger and more reliable than the former two, but i'd like to hear your considerations on the matter
Definitely fair points, especially about rogue. Barbarians can do pretty well with thrown weapons now, so they shouldn't be totally useless against flying anymore, but with a low resistance, yea they are pretty weak against spell casters. I'd say out of any of the classes, monks will be worst vs flying. But you definitely raise a good point that these values and rankings can shift pretty easily under certain circumstances.
@DndUnoptimized thank you man👍 I forgot about barbarians throwing stuff, that could at least do something. Most monks will struggle vs flying, the elemental monk might be able to do something though. I didn't mean to complain cause I like every class but yeah, I was hoping for some balance this time around. I love rogues and rangers, but my poor archers are not doing well
why the rogue is more mobile than monk? monk can run as an bonus action too (without expending ki) and has a plus mobility as well. I assume you are considering the monk will always use flurry of blows or his unarmed strike, but the rogue could easily just use his other attack with bonus action too (knowing that is really weak) or hide to obtain advantage, thing that is necesary to obtain sneak attack. Im just curious in any case, good video bro.
You've got it dead on. Rogue uses Cunning Action every turn since level 2 and can afford to use it because most of the damage comes from sneak attack, and with Nick and vex we already have a pretty decent chance of getting it off anyway. For monks, they use flurry of blows every round because it's a huge part of their damage. Monks CAN have a lot more mobility, but they lose out on a lot of damage from that whereas rogues don't miss out of much at all to get their mobility. And monk's movement bonus increases slowly over time.
I think there are other areas where both Paladins and Rangers have the edge. Healing: Both Paladins and Rangers have good options for healing. With healing spells doubled in potency, these two classes are pretty good. Thete is also Lesser Restoration which is a bonus action. Paladin has Lay on Hands which is also a bonus action. Rangers and Paladins are pretty lack luster as casters until those higher levels. Once they get those third level spells, it is time to switch gears. Ranger can summon allies and use crowd control effects. Paladins have buffs and protection spells. When you factor in spell casting, both of these classes are all rounders. Not exactly excelling at anything but have a lot of flexibility. Think of them as Battlemages.
It's true that at level 13-16 ranger it is much more beneficial to cast summon fey as opposed to hunters Mark. At other levels HM is a pretty competitive spell. Their spell casting definitely adds versatility other martials don't have, and both can do decent healing, especially Paladins.
I have a series for all the martials and this one is a summary, next I'm going through all the casters base classes them I'll do another summary and if people are still into it, I'll do subclasses after that
This was excellent. I agreed with the comment that maybe the Ranger should have gotten some survivability type bonus for staying out of the action. I actually think Paladin should have gotten something on mobility for Find Steed, even if it was just a little bit. I'm not sure it would have mattered TOO much, but I think it is something to think about. I also thought it was fine that the rogue got Defensive Duelist. The others could have taken it as well. They just didn't because it didn't make sense with their weapon choices.
Love the concept of this video, but the conclusions seem very far from my experiences. I would really like to see the actual builds you used, as I have concerns about the choices made that are detrimental to accurate comparisons.
Yup, I have a playlist with all the classes so far and all the analysis and a spreadsheet on each class. (It's also the last 6 videos I've made if you can't find them)
That's mostly true except for PAM because Paladin is BA heavy. But yes, I do take smites into account. This Paladin is sword and board so it does less damage, but smites definitely help. If you went more damage instead of defense, you can go great sword Paladin and do a lot of damage.
I would assume that paladin would have the highest durability, because lay on hands and low level buff spells such as shield of faith, sanctuary and heroism
Yes, that can definitely boost them, but we aren't using them here. Just slots for smite. I should have used lay on hands up until we are smiting every turn with our BA, but these calculations don't include that. It's assuming using lay on hands out of combat
Interesting info, I do.think that for some classes , a sub class has more of an effect than for others. Like fighters getting psychic dies or superiority dies. And especially for eldritch knight gaining casting. Where as barbarians and monks get a bit more or the same keeping them a bit more linear ( but still good... don't hate me lol)
Definitely true! Some increase ones damage or durability or control, or a combination. It would be interesting to see! I was planning on doing subclasses eventually, but starting with base classes for now. Lol And don't worry no hate here. Just irritation if you come in with a ton of anger and have no good points (neither of which are true here).
The problem with your ranking at the end is that the categories are not equal and the differences between the placements are not equal. What I mean is that in some categories, 1st is miles above 2nd, but it others. 1st and 2nd are nearly identical
Love how much better you are getting with the quality of the video. I may not really accept your metrics but they are well thought out and I can understand where you are coming from. But.. Paladins having “0” mobility still does not work for me. I got to point out that paladins get a free find steed and you can rest cast it. If also heals on your spells,. Aid and Barding are a thing. And one mount has 60 teleports. You can even cast it with any form you like so make a Millipede that can go up stairs as easily as a horse. I just don’t buy the idea that they have no mobility. I understand what you are saying just don’t see it as valid. Yea just me I guess.
It's definitely not a "end all be all" analysis, but hopefully a more holistic view based in real stuff as opposed to just vibes. At the end of the day, this white box analysis will never match up to real play, but hopefully it gives some idea. As for Paladin mobility, yea, if you give it a steed it shoots way up for sure. Maybe I should have added it.
@@DndUnoptimized problem is, when you don't pin down what sets the metric the moment you have paladin with 0 mobility while having find steed, your analysis is just vibes pretending not to be. The approach you have is interesting, the style is interesting especially as you're trying to measure more than DPR, but if you want to be more rigid about your data you have to put in the extra work. You need to define the condition of why X is more mobility than Y. An easy example of this is +movement speed, any character with +movement speed can engage a target further than 30ft. 60ft is a breakpoint that allows you to engage 30ft in difficult terrain. Find conditions and breakpoints and use those, without it, your approach is vibes with dishonest graphs
@ProjectPTSheep I have videos about all of this with spreadsheets documenting where it all comes from. Have you seen those? I am not sure how much more rigid you'd like. But yea nothing is really explained in this video to keep it short and on point, so I get why someone might think it. As for choosing to not mount Paladin, maybe its not the way you play, but this gives you an idea of all the other dimensions at least. Of course your choice of weapon might differ too, so you'll have to end up making extrapolations there too.
@@DndUnoptimized "but this gives you an idea of all the other dimensions at least" not really, non of these datapoints were useful or even accurate. I checked two of your other videos and there are too many criticisms to bother with. To demonstrate an obvious point; ignoring subclasses when accessing a class only works in a system where all subclasses are created equally. You have ranger control only the slow of the bow because you just assumed Hunter's Mark and not bother with anything else. This is a high quality of visual representation on what is pretending to be high quality data. But this is vibes, I would prefer vibes because bad data pretending not to be vibes is worse
For Durability the base Rogue at level 18 has Elusive no attack roll against you can have advantage against you. Lowering the chance of creatures damaging the Rogue.
Very true. I didn't actually add that into durability because the benefit could vary pretty wildly. And I don't assume advantage on any of the incoming attacks (except for Barbarian). But maybe I could have assumed 10% of attacks gave disadvantage or something.
@@DndUnoptimized I think a fairer to think of is that no creature can get advantage against the rogue. Meaning all their attacks are normal at best. Since not having advantage on an attack roll means it is harder to get over their ac.
To be honest I have zero idea why you'd build a non-grappling monk. As someone who has played a 2024 monk from 1-8 so far in a campaign that may go to 20, grappling is an absolutely vital part of the monk toolkit, and not taking grappler is just leaving damage, mobility, and control on the table for no conceivable purpose.
So that's definitely a good idea and I considered it but ended up with pure wisdom saves since that's the majority of them. But especially with new monster design that might change a bunch. Con saves Dex saves are used for durability to prevent damage since that's what it's mostly used for.
You had the ranger and rogue backwards, ranger should be the dual wielder with scimitar and short sword, and rogue should be the one using a bow, a light crossbow to be exact, with true strike.
If you want optimization then yea, maybe. True strike ranged rogue is a good build, but I don't think it's what people play when they make rogues. And same with rangers. But TWF ranger isn't very different than longbow, if you look at Damage its better in the first few levels, but actually worse later on. Treantmonk also did a build series comparing them you can check out for a second opinion.
I don't love the final calculation. It ranks them only by order with no consideration for magnitude. For example for Resistance you have a cluster of 3 near the top (paladin, monk, fighter) and then a big drop to rogue. That doesn't seem right that fighter and rogue are only 1 point apart but fighter and paladin are 2 points apart.
It's because Bludgeoning, Piercing, and slashing damage decreases as you level up, so they are resistant to less and less, but then everyone has advantage on attacks against them and they have low AC, so combining all of those, Barbarian isn't quite as tanky as people initially think
Monks have much higher mobility than Rogues with a combination of unarmored movement and a bonus action to dash using Step of the Wind without using any focus points.
That is very true that monks have better mobility. But for most of the monk career they are using Flurry of Blows instead of step of the wind in this build to focus on damage. I should have pointed out that monks have insane mobility if they want/need it in the video though.
Bonus Action Dash for monk also cost them half of their damage. Even more after 10th level. It is more versatile - but rogue can also use ranged weapons if they need it. So it evens out.
I dont get why monk is lower than rogue when it comes to mobility. At all. Monks are not only FAR faster than rogues through their movement speed, but they also get the ability to dash as a bonus action. PLUS, some of their higher level abilities give them the ability to run on water, or on walls I believe?
At max level, a monk can move (assuming they are dashing as both an action and a bonus action) 180 ft a turn. Spending a ki point means that movement is also not going to provoke an opportunity attack. Rogues, by contrast, will only be able to move a max of 90 ft per turn. That is HALF.
Great questions. It comes down to two points. It is averaged over your career, so getting super high movement at end of career isn't as impactful as an extra dash at LVL 2. Second is that our monk was using Flurry of blows every turn with their BA. So they COULD have a lot more mobility if they needed it, and that is fantastic, but not demonstrated here. All classes have areas they could do better in at the expense of other areas and this is an example of that.
@@DndUnoptimized understandable, but if the idea is that this is during combat, wouldn’t the rogue be using disengage far more than dash as a bonus action?
Seems like you are undercutting monk in control by removing grappling, which is an unarmed strike that favors monks because it is Dex based for them, and it has zero affect on their damage output except for the grapple attempt, assuming you don't talent grappler. I'm also curious about your movement calculations, monks start at 40' but by 10th level they are doing 50' per round, 10' less than a rogue using cunning action dash. However, if we look at level 10, a monk with flurry of blows has 5 attacks, but they could use a standard dash action and still have 3 flurry of blows attacks for an average of (3d8 + 15) 28.5 average damage and 100' of movement vs (1d8 + 5d6 +5) + (1d6) 27.5 average damage for a full damage sneak attack and off hand attack with the nick property using the cunning action for a dash to move 60'.
Grapple monk definitely has great control and it boosts damage too. Perhaps it wasn't fair to ignore grappling here. As for Mobility, monks can have good mobility but at the sacrifice of damage. Base class you have to lose 1/2 to 3/5 of your damage to dash/disengage but rogue doesn't really lose anything to do that. That's why they end up with higher mobility. Open hand monks get fleet step to FoB and step of the wind, but not base monk. I should have mentioned in the video that monks can have amazing mobility if you really need it, but you sacrifice a lot of damage.
@@DndUnoptimized I think you are making a mistake by assuming it is always the best option for a monk to dash using step of the wind instead of the dash action. At level 10, a monk that doesn't dual wield with access to nick specialization gets more attacks from their bonus action than from their attack action. So they would lose 2/5 of their damage in exchange for almost double the movement of a rogue, and they would still likely out damage the rogue, especially if the rogue is using cunning strike. Unless the rogue has the chance to use their reaction on an opportunity attack that they can sneak attack with.
Well if you are looking to maximize mobility then step of the wind is definitely the way to go. But yes, using action dash will give you better damage.
@@DndUnoptimized Does it? Even putting aside subclasses, they still have highest base speed and can run on walls or water. And while "step of the wind" does sacrifice damage it's still additional option on top of that. It also assumes Rouge is ranged build (reasonable assumption, but still...), if they were meele, cunning action would cut damage from two weapon fighting as well and even for ranged build they will likely impede their mobility themselves due "Steady Aim".
I do not understand how can paladins be so low. They pretty much still have an extra minimum (2d6) per round since level 1. Besides, they have abilities to boost their attack roll
What do you mean 2d6 per round? If you divine smite every round then yes, but you don't have that make spell slots until a very high level. This doesn't include subclasses.
@GabrielLyra-q5f everything will be divided among 4 encounters per day though, so that's not even one smite per encounter. But I round up and do it once until we have 5 slots then I do it twice, etc.
@@DndUnoptimized what type of campaign has 4 encounters per day? I mean, if you are putting up small encounters with like goblins and stuff then this damage count for every class is pretty much irrelevant, since they have limited abilities (barbarian has 2 rages, fighter 1 attack surge, monk limited ki points...)
Being mind controlled is not fun. You can wind up torching a village killing everyone because the game master chose to control your character. Heck you can wind up having no control of your character for an entire campaign. Don't ignore mental resistance. Some game masters might have fun exploiting this.
So, let me get this straight with your calculations. Some classes, if they do their proper DPR, are responsible for doing 50% of the damage necessary to take out a DEADLY encounter? In a game that you play with 4 people? WHAT THE FUCK? Is that good game design?
Correct, but that is assuming quite a few things. 1. They always have a target to hit 2. They never overkill (doing 25 damage when they have 1 HP) 3. They always attack, so no action dash, action to break someone out of an effect, or even BA potion 4. Never debuffed or controlled in any way 5. It's a 4 round encounter. So if everyone deals this damage, it could just end up being a 2 round encounter instead, which isn't so bad. So this ends up being brought down much lower at actual tables. BUT... This doesn't include subclasses either. So yes, definitely some subclasses can take out 50% of a deadly encounter no problem. Martials got big buffs at low levels due to weapon mastery, so I hope low level monsters got a boost to their defenses too.
@@DndUnoptimized I mean, when playing 5e14 my problems NEVER were "players are too weak and do too little damage" or "the combat is too fast because players have too few options". I guess making every character stronger and then throwing a "we can fix it with the new monster manual" (which honestly I don't see it coming, given the monsters that we saw in the PhB and the ones released until now. The changes seem pretty random, with some monsters getting slightly stronger while other got slightly weaker). But that solution feels like "fixing" wizards by giving them more spells that don't require saves, like wall of force! And then, maybe, we can release some monsters that are immune to that. Ahhh, wait, what? People were complaining that wall of force was too weak? What?
@@DndUnoptimized Yeah feel about the same there. I think the subclasses for fighter are just still better. The rogue has a better base, so it'll always get that bit extra ahead in areas besides fighting. Fighter isn't going to be single killing an army in their sleep too easily. Rogue dips have always been strong because of it, esp since action surge with magic is off the table.
This analysis seems highly biased imo, due to the equipment choice being so spread out for different classes. A good comparison should have the builds as close as possible in terms of options, including masteries provided by equipment. Also, you lost me when you chose to simply ignore a good mobility feature from the fighter and give it zero mobility, sorry
Well, with the build he used and the metrics he measured it is, it's important to keep in mind that this is an interesting look at things but not exactly the full picture.
Yea, it's unfortunate. I know they can be good in certain areas, but you have to sacrifice a lot of resources to deal good damage. It has a lot of internal clashing of features in my opinion. I guess that's the price of flexibility?
I'm having a really hard time actually finding this analysis objective when it's comparing a sword and board Paladin to Fighters and Barbarians using Great Weapon Mastery. Sword and Shield isn't bad, but its contribution is so different from a two-handed weapon, and so easily available to all three, that comparing Paladin with it to Barbarians and Fighters with a two-handed weapon is inaccurate and deeply misleading. You're comparing weapon choices more than classes at that point. I don't find using Cleave on the Barbarian and not the Fighter to be a very good decision either, that's no longer apples to apples and really easy to change (halberds are right there, after all...why not go with the most similar option?). A ranged build for Ranger is more defensible (though I'm not thrilled) since that actually is the stereotypical build, but saying that Paladins are more stereotypically shield-users than Fighters are is not a good take and leads to some deep inaccuracies understating Paladin damage by a lot, and overstating their control and defenses somewhat. Or, from another perspective, overstating Fighter damage but understating their control, defense, and mobility if you made them the shield user. Rogues and Monks actually necessitate different weapon choices, and it can be argued Rangers at least encourage it, but there's no actual reason you can't compare a Barbarian, a Fighter, and a Paladin, all using similar weapons. And that being the case, that's what you should do. Ignoring spells for things like control and utility is also not great at all. Rangers have Jump and Longstrider for mobility, for instance, and that's a huge mobility boost that's easily available and ignored completely. Neither are Concentration spells and both are 1st level so they're pretty available even while using spells for damage.
I do agree with you for some of this, but are you essentially saying you disagree with the stereotypical builds I chose? That's totally fine. You can use this as a springboard to compare with other weapon choices. GWM Paladin will obviously do more damage and have lower durability. I did run numbers for GWM Paladin focused on damage only and it ends up really good. (See the Paladin video for that). I don't think all weapon types work with all martials equally though. Paladin is BA heavy, so obviously PAM isn't going to work, but fighters have BAs free while barbarians need it once to rage then it's free. So I chose the weapons that kind of fit their class and narrative best. I definitely see your point though that if everyone used GWM then it would be a cleaner comparison for damage. Hopefully people will have an idea of how a weapon change might change these numbers up. But just remember that the weapon choices will take from one area to add to another.
I think this video is poorly organized for people looking to pick classes. This only takes into account class abilities but not any of their other attributes. For instance im the durability category Barbarians are definitely the most durable of the martial classes. There is no universe where rogues should be number three. Their constitution is a low priority score and they will almost never have as much maximum hp as a barbarian in any circumstance. Same goes with the monk. While they may have abilities that negate damage these are often circumstantial or chance based. Also damage is extremely hard to measure in this way and most abilities are corcumstantial and cant be properly represented with a flat number. Like rogues, who have extremely low damage in most situations but he fails to mention that they mostly do damage in massive bursts in stealth attacks and mostly focus on things out of combat. Regardless. Don't use this video to make decisions on what class to play if you want something that plays a certain way. Just read the book. I think your videos could be helpful if you instead focused on other topics because DND classes are have most of their abilities situationalized and s single number will always be inaccruate. Perhaps focus on a single class per video and discuss their playstyle?
You mean those videos on every one of these classes I did? This is a summary to give the consolidated info. I'll be going through the casters one at a time next.
@DndUnoptimized Yes something like that although I didn't know you already made videos like that. The point of my comment was to point out that this video and the information you give are completely useless because they don't consider all attributes of the classes and take into consideration that many of these abilities are situational. Consolidating and summarizing them doesn't do anything because especially when you do it inaccurately. That this style of video cannot accurately represent a topic this complex in this way.
@MrMcMedium nothing can accurately sum it up everything because there are too many variables, but if you go take a look at the other videos you can see a lot of details and there is a spreadsheet with the build including attributes for each of these. But for sure you aren't totally wrong. A ranking of classes is never going to be final and completely accurate
Can'understand how a vengeance Paladin should do less dmg of a Ranger. I mean pure damage. On melee he could put : divine favor (no concentration) Hunter's mark, adv on hit with channel div. At liv 3. At liv 11 he add 1 d8 on any atk free. How a melee ranger close that gap? Am i miss something?🤔
So you could use Divine favor, but it ends up adding about as much damage as a divine smite, but if you can get it off before the encounter then why not. You can check out the paladin specific video if you'd like to see all of the spells compared.
Your really undervaluing the control of monks here, they can grapple very effectively from level 1, and at third level once you get the subclass, they can grapple from 15 feet away, stopping most enemies they grapple from even being able to attack back. Also there is NO WAY rogues have more mobility than monks. Monks not only have much higher movement speed, they can also dash and disengage as bonus action, and unlike rogues, even do both at the same time if they want, and nearly every subclass gets even more mobility on top of that, picking from your choice of teleportation, flying, or free dash/disengage in addition to whatever else you do with your bonus action.
You are correct on all points here. But considering when monks dash they lose 1/2 to 3/5 of their damage for the turn it's very detrimental to their damage output to be doing that. Rogues get most of their damage through sneak attack, so using their BA to dash/disengage isn't a problem. So yes, monks CAN have better mobility for sure, but in the end they sacrifice a lot of damage for it. I should have mentioned that in the video though. Also, this monk didn't grapple, but if it had, it would do much better control too. So yes, even though monk ended up in first place, it has additional potential that this analysis doesn't reach. This is base classes only, so no subclasses
WHAT TRASH! This analysis has as much to do with your opinion of what weapon is welded by your personal "stereotypical build" than the actual reality of the class.
It's a complete joke. I too would have preferred that they built every conceivable version of every class from levels 1 through 20 before they even considered something like this. Simply giving us the context and information behind how all the numbers were derived feels woefully lackluster in comparison. I came here for answers, not to extrapolate.
Your final calculation seems a bit wonky. Your decision to award 1st place with 6 points and last place with 1 point feels super arbitrary and sands down a lot of your methodology into nothing. (Whether a class beats out another class by a little or a lot gets completely lost by this crude method) Why not instead calculate the area of each radar diagram? (You already color these areas) The class with the largest area is a much more nuanced metric as to "which class is best" since you're no longer throwing away all the numerical results you've so carefully collected and calculated.
Very true. Let me explain why it would be kind of arbitrary regardless. First, mathematically, I don't think area works out and you'll get different areas depending on where the dimensions are located. Maybe this isn't true for 5 dimensions, but it definitely is for 4. If you have super high values for opposite sides with nothing in the other areas, you could end up with an area of 0. But if you put those dimensions next to each other then you get a big triangle. The other option is to sum up all the dimensions for each character and see the total, but every dimension has a different maximum. So adding 40 damage + 30 control + 2 durability... Means some are inherently less valuable UNLESS I do an arbitrary mapping to multiply durability by 20 or something. Then depending on what mapping I choose it skews the results. (This same problem applies to the area solution as well) So yea, you are correct that it takes a lot of the nuance out, but I couldn't think of a better way. Let me know if you have another idea and perhaps I can use that for next time
@@DndUnoptimized If you shuffle the order of dimensions for each class, calculate the area for each permutation, and then pick the largest area, you've removed the "opposites cancel each other out" effect. (Obvs assuming you've got a computer program to do that for you) As for comparing 40 damage to 2 durability, you'd normalize each dimension to a fractional value from 0..1 (assuming you value each dimension equally). In layman's terms, use the percentage of the value of the best class (so the winner of each dimension gets 100 points regardless of whether it won through 40 or 2 points) The areas are already normalized in this way, since the diagram gives each dimension the same length.
@user-wm3hu7lo1g good ideas. But what do I normalize them all to? Combat Space should be out of 100? Should durability be min 1 and Max 4? There isn't really a logical maximum to any of the dimensions and choosing a max is arbitrary.
@@DndUnoptimized You should choose the best score in each dimension as the max. Again, assuming you value each dimension equally. The main point is to not lose the actual data (that you so carefully measured). Example: For mobility, you ended up with 14 points for the rogue. Giving it 6 points while the Monk and Barbarian getting 4 or 5 is super crude, not to mention the fighter and paladin getting 1 or 2 despite having no mobility points at all. It just throws away all the scientificness or objectiveness of your measurements... If you instead give the Rogue's Mobility 100 points, the Monk and Barbarian would get 50 each, and the fighter and paladin would get zero. This is much more representative of the data you've collected, as opposed to the arbitrariness of crude rankings. The Barbarian's mobility isn't 5 6ths of the Rogue's (at least not by your methodology), it's half. It shouldn't get 5 points for coming 2nd. It should get half the points of the Rogue, and whether it came 2nd or 3rd doesn't matter. Then you'd rate each class damage on a scale from 0-100 as well (assuming you believe your damage metric and your mobility metric is equally useful and impactful). Whether the actual numbers are 40 or 2 doesn't matter. Hope this clarifies 👍
I see. Yea it's not perfect, but it does use the actual numbers to a better extent. I think probably normalizing and summing them up is just as effective.
There are some SLIGHT differences here from what I did in the class videos
1. Control was split between Control and Mobility, Control is buffing and debuffing while mobility is boosts to speed, teleporting, disengaging, etc.
2. Ranger damage includes hail of thorns, and mobility/control were fixed slightly too.
3. Fighter and Barbarian use the same weapon for Damage and Control now, just like all the other classes do.
So I don't know how to put this in. But ranger was the only ranged build. That has to be significant points to either durability (getting hit less) or mobility (no opportunity attacks)
From what Ive seem melee is about 20 percent higher dpr than ranged. So a ranged build maybe should have 20 percent higher defense?
So this is actually a really good point and thanks for taking the time to ask. The reason I didn't include it is based on the definition of durability. It is if you stood there taking hits, not trying to escape.
I've thought about this a lot, and perhaps I could give a boost to durability because of that, but what about skirmishers? If rogue can get in and out without provoking OAs, do I do the same for them? Do they need a certain amount of movement before they are far enough away to be considered "out of range"? It ends up getting pretty messy quickly.
It might not be a perfect solution because, as you said, you end up getting less attacks and have more freedom to move with range. But keeping durability defined the way it is shows how much you need to stay away in order to survive, which is perhaps more helpful when playing or building a ranger to keep in mind.
Kind of the same reason for mobility.
@@DndUnoptimizedOne could argue that defense can often be obtained through mobility. Whether it's step of the wind or cunning action to disengage the for skirmishers, they are obtaining defense through mobility.
So yes, I would absolutely add defensive points for those skirmishing classes if their builds are doing it. Thing about rogues and monks though is are there bonus actions taken? Or are they available to use for skirmishing features?
If available then that is absolutely extra. Defensive points. It just seems so weird to me that The ranger ranged build that doesn't sacrifice any action economy to stay at ranged gets no added defensive benefit whereas skirmishers have to sacrifice damage to use their bonus action to skrimish
To further this point, if there was never any defensive value to being range, then surely the wizard and sorcerer would mind a little melee action.....
The problem with considering "staying at range" as a good ability to have is... that for the party overall it just isn't. (I'm assuming that melee is a thing in your fantasy gaming; if you play D&D like a modern sniper game where you always kite foes - good for you, but I consider that playing style atypical)
All you're accomplishing by staying away from monsters is helping them focus fire on your allies, and you're also not offering up perhaps the most powerful ability of any character: your warm body (=your hit points).
tl;dr: Fans of super sneaky ranged lone assassin builds forget they're not playing a solo videogame. All that their antics accomplish is getting their party murdered faster, even though they themselves might get away clean.
All this to say I believe it is the right decision to not factor in range. It shouldn't be rewarded since it isn't a net positive for the party overall.
@@DndUnoptimized You could also argue that ranged should add damage to the graph, because there will be rounds that melee characters will do nothing while the ranged characters still get to attack
@@user-wm3hu7lo1gI mean if you want to look at it from that glass then why not have your wizard and sorcerer in melee. They can cast shield and soak up DMG. This would be more beneficial no?
Nobody does that because it's insane and they have weak hp and want to protect concentration. This has additional defensive value by staying in the back.
Maybe the ranged rangers doesn't have as much HP issues, maybe their typical build should be melee. But certainly protecting their concentration by hanging in the back adds decent value.
I like the graph and overall it is pretty accurate, except for ranger. I think comparing meele VS ranged builds is a bit unfair, in 2024. Unless you gave some durability/mobility bonus to the ranger as a factor for attacking in a safe position and because mobility is less important if you attack at 100+ fts.
I'm assuming he does. Monsters can't easily focus fire on someone 100 ft away.
Thanks for coming and watching! True that ranged vs martial is somewhat unfair. I don't take range into account at all in these, which might sound crazy, but no I don't boost durability or mobility from being at range.
I could, but then it changes what durability really means. Knowing you are less durable means you know you have to stay at range while being more durable means you can afford to dive into melee more often.
It can also get kind of tricky to add in additional durability for ranged. How far is range? It's 15' knife throwing range enough to prevent melee attacks? Obviously shooting from 100' behind cover is fantastic, but is it just as good as shooting from 10'? Or skirmishers if they have to run in and out and end up 10' away, is that ranged?
The more assumptions I make, the more diluted the number becomes and less useful. My strategy ends up being that you still need to understand the build and what it means. The numbers here aren't everything, just like DPR isn't everything.
Hope that makes sense
Yeah, you conviced me for durability makes little sense.
@@DndUnoptimized But maybe add some into 'mobility' category perhaps?
If having +10 feet Bonus Movement Speed= 3 Points on the mobility 'point system'
Maybe for range something like this:
Short range (10~30 feet) = 2 points.
Medium Range (40~90 feet) = 3 points
Long Range (100+ feets) = 4 points
I would only consider the minimum range into account for ranged weapons for this.
So it would even take into account Reach Weapons/features for melees.
After all it is kind of having a longer 'move' in your arm for reach, and for ranged weapons is like having longer mobility into your ammo 🤣
@@DndUnoptimized
If you find a way to factor in the fact that most of the monster manual only does melee attacks and few do ranged/spell casting, it shows how strong range/control is.
Spike growth and plant growth shut down such a high percentage. Ranged PCs can kite and take cover resulting in zero damage taken.
The community spends sooo much attention to damage that they never factor in the cost of that damage (running into melee taxes resources both your HP/hit and spell and item healing).
Unless there is a narrative reason why you need to kill something right now (ie: bomb going off in 4 rounds) there's zero reason to do this. The most optimized approach is to look at builds which factor in damage RATIO- damage taken vs damage delivered!
As Bilbron would say "if I can hurt the enemy and the enemy can't hurt me, I win". It doesn't matter if it's 10 dpr or 100 as long as the ratio is maintained. This is why control is the most valuable aspect of the fight.
Yes, melee damage from monsters is definitely the majority. I don't want to add it into the durability side, but I can add it to the mobility number, indicating that they can reach the enemy and not get hit back.
Spike growth and plant growth can be total game changers, no doubt about that! Control and mobility can be devastating.
I love the bilbron quote. I really enjoy his stuff.
not a fan of the smooth movement of the graphs, it's too hard to actually look at the differences at a level and the interpolated values are meaningless
That's good feedback and I agree. I'll see if I can make it more jumpy next time without it being jarring.
It does look pretty though
@@DndUnoptimized Maybe make the graphs move like they do now but they stop for a second or 2 on every level so that the graph stays still so we can properly compare
Hey I recognize some of the music here! :P
For real though, this is an exceptionally good video. Amazing work!
hahaha as I was adding it I thought, "I bet Jeremy is going to notice"
I'd have guessed that Rangers would have a good control score once they get access to 2nd Lv spells, with spike growth and pass without trace for example, why is that not the case?
Becuase they aren’t factored in at all. All spells are being expended for hail of thorns and lightning arrow type spells
Because he's not casting them?
Definitely true that they would have greater control if they used different spells, but less damage (unless you end up with a cheese grater party)
I have to make some call on how the characters will act and try to keep it in line with the build. For longbow rangers, I assume they want to do as much damage as possible, so prioritized that and use only Hail of thorns, which is the highest damage boosting spell we can use while concentrating on Hunters Mark.
I did say a few times that ranger can shift their play style and what they focus on and do good control.
Grasping vine gives you control and more dpr than hunters mark. Between 13 and 17 It's like the spell is forgotten
Does ranger no longer have plant growth? Cuz that spell alone trivializes all melee monsters.
Did Paladin get to use their Lay On Hands on themselves for the Durability analysis? An extra 5 HP per level goes a long ways. Provided the paladin survives the first round of combat, they should be able to use it, and since it’s a bonus action, it doesn’t really interfere with sword + board action economy.
Ahhh freak! I meant to add that in! They definitely have spare BAs for most of their career.
Shoot... Thanks for posting this
@@DndUnoptimized Doesn't 2024 paladin use the bonus actions to cast smite now? I don't think they have bonus actions to spare if they want to cast smite
@@Panurome You don't really need to cast them every turn. Best smites work for long time - so you cast it at first turn, and you don't really need to use LOH at first round.
Ranged attack has less potential to do a lot of damage than melee, but it give almost free choice to select your target. To account for this you could give the Ranger some extra point in mobility. They don't movie a lot themself, but they can get to any target they want and if the choose the Beast Master subclass they ability to target anyone on in the battle get even better.
This is a great suggestion that other people have suggested too. I think I will adopt that for next time
While Monk looks really strong and maybe even overtuned, we have to keep in mind that the core concept of Monk conflicts with D&D's magic-centric settings. A monk needs to be strong because they can't use a lot of magical equipment that would normally boost other classes.
Do you think it would be fair to add a metric that determines how well a class can be boosted by magic items? I think it comes down to proficiencies and restrictions, such as heavy armor and martial weapons access. You also see attunement requirements such as being a spellcaster or even a specific class like Paladin.
You've definitely got some truth there. I think monks have a lot more magic weapon options now than before, but yes, definitely not nearly as many as the fighter can use.
I would hesitate to add in a magic affinity dimension because of a few reasons.
1. most DMs will usually find a way to give out magic items to all the party equally regardless of what's in the book.
2. Most class analysis completely ignore magic items
3. It doesn't quite feel like it quite fits in to me.
5e itself is specifically stated to be balanced without magic items in mind as a design paradigm
But really they now have access to wraps of unarmed power +1 to +3 so they aren't left in the cold to magic weapon scaling. There is the potion of pugilism which adds 1d6 force damage to every unarmed attack for 10 minutes. Magic items not reprinted are fair game so the eldritch claw tattoo would also stack with the other two and it is the only one that requires attunement. I mean even with the uncommon +1 wraps, the tattoo and the potion, you are doing +1d6+2 on every unarmed strike, and if you use the tattoo feature you get an additional 1d6 on every strike for 1 min. But honestly outside of armor, spell-caster specific items (wands, scrolls, etc) and some weapons, what magic items are they not able to use exactly?
@khultak You listed 3 items specifically tailored for Monks, then said "outside of armor, spell-caster specific items, and some weapons" as if that doesn't cut out the vast majority of magic items. There's no variety with Monks. Unless you multiclass, you don't get Weapon Masteries, so outside of optimization circles, Monks are most likely going to stick with unarmed fighting. My point is that if you play a Monk and you want power scaling from magic items, you're going to see the same handful of items since there's so few they can use, unlike a fighter or barbarian.
@@Putoaduh Weapon Mastery is either a feat that you can get dex with or you can dip 1 level fighter. And the payoff is quite big, because double dagger nick build will give you 6 attacks per round at 10th level, or a short sword dagger can give you advantage and still net you the nick attack on your main attack action. So weapons are easily available to any monk that wants to go that route. Rings, bracers, cloaks, capes, boots, gauntlets, gloves, a number of weapons including swords with which you will end up doing more damage with than any other class in the game because monk weapon damage scales with unarmed damage. So again what are you really missing out on as a monk? I'm looking at the lists right now, and comparing what monks can't use vs what a fighter can use off the same table generally boils down to 3 things: shield, armor, and very specific weapon types. Belt of Giant Strength, hell yes, because none of your attacks are required to use dex, it very specifically says you can. I mean what I'm left with is you saying that the DM will want to give the other players magic armor and not give the monk bracers or armor or a cloak/ring of protection because they are a monk? Or every weapon found will be of a type that monks won't want to use because?
Your production value has improved so much. The video looks great!
Thanks!
This is just amazing, I was looking for this kind of content for weeks, very good video and good insights for each class, if something was missing is understandable since there is a lot of classes and small details. My nerdy heart is warm and happy
Glad you enjoyed it!
Regarding the build options, it's kind of like comparing apples to oranges and not taking into account subclasses "washes out" a lot of the nuance (especially in a class like fighter or in cases like world tree Barbarian, one of the best battlefield controllers in 2024)... also, Rangers not having good control and mobility options is nuts
Spike Growth alone makes them a huge threat in that regard and they have longstrider, jump, a climb speed, a swim speed and a natural speed boost too. Even back in 5e, with Tasha's, they were great battlefield controllers, especially if you were playing Swarm Keeper
Monks are maybe one of the best grapplers in the game rn thanks to their in built changes and also tavern brawler, grappler feat and 4 elements monk, not to mention their boost to step of the wind when they can bring an ally with them (and also being by far the fastest martial and able to run up walls and on water or fly all the time if you are 4 elements OR teleporting all over the place if you are a shadow monk)
I think you are onto something here, for sure, but I think you might need to look at things more as a whole and, maybe, be a bit more methodical in comparisons because you clearly understand the game so it's not at all a matter of not knowing enough
Perhaps I need to use more of the features instead of focusing on damage. That's what people most often care about, so I prioritize damage usually (while staying true to the theme of the build), then move to other things. So monks were using Flurry of blows 100% of the time. If I did it 75% of the time and did step of the wind then mobility would jump a ton, but damage would suffer. Maybe I need to give up that damage and use step of the wind and lay on Hands and second wind and whatever else.
Probably people will complain about.
No subclasses helps understand the class better in my opinion, then you can tack on whatever you want to boost these numbers. But to each their own.
@@DndUnoptimized My 2 cents is people will prioritize what feels impactful. most often it is damage, but when you have a juicy plant growth that would greatly impact an encounter then yeah you want to trivialize that encounter.
Wooow. Crazy high quality of the Video! I hope you get 100‘000 members like treanmonk aswell💪🏻 may ask them to do a video together i saw you the first time after 1 year of watching dnd videos from time to time
Thanks! I would love to collab with him too
Great video as always! I really appreciate how you look at classes and compare them in a more realistic sense besides simple damage per round.
The control section seems a bit off. I understand that you are doing basic classic builds, however, if you are just comparing one base class to another, it is unfair to look at the fighter and barbarian, who both get more weapon masteries than other classes, and not take into account that they will be using different weapons to do different control effects. Surely the fight are getting six masteries and the barbarian getting four when everyone else gets a maximum of two should be taken into account.
The ranger in the control section got some points off the bat for just having the slow mastery. If that's the case, the barbarian and fighter should get push & topple assumed, at least, since those masteries are present on normal and heavy weapons, and possibly sap and slow as well.
The barbarian in particular also gets to combine their weapon masteries with brutal strike for enhanced pushes, enhanced slows, or combinations of other control.
I wonder if it would be easier to just assign weapon masteries a base level of control (since any martial can take them) and then then add additional points for each weapon mastery a class is able to take (so fighters get the most points in this category, for example).
ALSO, it was such a good move to add a dedicated mobility section. That was sorely needed I think, and helps put both rogue and barbarian into perspective. It helps monks too, but monks really didn't need that help 😂
That's definitely fair criticism of the system. I'm just not really sure of a reasonable way to do it. Do I make a build using every weapon then average then out their damage and control with them? That is potentially possible for pure martials with a LOT of work, but almost impossible if you get any spells. Or maybe I could do two builds, one damage focused and one control focused and show two different graphs? Maybe that's the easier way to do it, then average out the two builds.
I think unfortunately, if you do either of these techniques it makes understanding the numbers much more difficult and less digestible. If I state the build and why I think it's archetypical, but it has a lot of potential in XYZ direction then at least people can see what the numbers mean and where they might differ based on build. That's the reasoning behind why I went with what I did (and also... This analysis is already a freaking ton of work, so I don't think I can fit much more in without it taking weeks)
Thanks for watching and for the feedback! Always appreciate it
There is one point I disagree that impacts mostly the ranger and monk (but also the fighter). You are just judging one course of action for each build (Cast hunters mark and attack) while not considering other options you might have to boost when you need that specific power, monks can sacrifice their bonus action to have a burst of mobility for example.
If I was doing this analysis I’d change it in one of two ways: first would be to judge based on how much that class can achieve without changing the build, only the decisions in play. The second option would be to add a 6th parameter of variability, exactly judging how much you can change what you deliver on a turn by turn basis.
Great video, thanks for the work
That's an interesting metric. I do agree that some classes can excel in certain areas that they aren't here because of the choices to focus on damage and maybe that needs to be displayed somehow
You just earned my sub. Love the analytical approach.
Loved the video, just wanted to ask, if we're including cleave damage into the dpr, shouldn't we include a second target for hail or thorns damage? I mean especially with the freedom to target anyone that range provides it makes sense to me, but I might be missing something.
Thanks! I added in secondary damage for Hail of Thorns too so it follows the same format as cleave.
@DndUnoptimized oh, I missed that, my bad. Second question, does a swim speed and a climb speed affect the mobility score at all?
Great question. No I didn't, because it is so rarely seen that it is more utility in my mind. I should probably come up with a mobility number for those though.
@DndUnoptimized I think you can probably safely ignore swim speeds, but a small bonus for climb speeds and a big bonus for fly speeds would be a good idea imo.
Although an option I personally prefer would be to replace mobility with effective range. Effective range would be the amount you can move in a turn + weapon range with a penalty for lack of verticality proportional with the amount of foes with flight/spider climb. I think showing the benefits of mobility and range in 1 number would be appropriate and helpful.
I agree with you on the move speeds. I think I'll probably have some really small number for swim speed, bigger one for climb but still small, and then a big one for flying. Probably the same as a full movement
Effective range is probably not an interesting dimension to have because you can intrinsically understand without any analysis
I do agree with Monk durability, but I would never put them ahead of Barbarians in this category. Evasion and the reaction reduce damage is strong as heck, don't get me wrong. But their hit die should have been something to consider in this category. Having a D8 hit die means they aren't as tanky as the other martial classes. And being unable to wear armor, the max they could get is 20 but that would require maxing out Dex and Wis, which using point by, you won't get until 16th level. And with that, that means your Con stays at 14, which isn't bad but isnt high either. So sure, they can dodve and evade attacks, even reduce usinga reaction, but if hard focused by a heavy hitting enemy, they will have a hard time whereas Barbarians rage will reduce the most common damage type, and this isn't taking subclass into consideration. I do believe this new 2024 mink is impressive and is standing up there with the other classes, but not above Barbarian imo
Great video as always! I think it’s a good move to assume a single build & weapon, and have the understanding that there is wiggle room to give up damage for control, or some other benefit, but that this is based off of a given build that is considered the “standard” and deviations can modify it. If you use a different build to determine each aspect it gets not only way harder on your part, but understanding it would be really hard because you are seeing unrealistic values for each aspect.
I also like the addition of Mobility!
Thanks man! I agree with the multiple builds thing. Mobility does add a nicer big picture which definitely helps the rogue.
Excluding the issues that have been discussed by me and countless others. I do love the methodology here.
One thing I think is important for our analysis is observing how these features extend other benefits through our play.
For example a the multi attack weapon classes get more from magic weapons. Those who rely on armor like the fighter are going to have more options than the rogue for defense etc.
Very true, magic weapons being ignored can be big factor, especially with fighters vs rogues.
Question - would Combat Space calculations change with new encounter difficulty rules?
I will end up adjusting Combat Space when new MM comes out and use the new encounter difficulty rules. They are going to be tricky though since there is now a MUCH higher range of encounter difficulty, especially since multiple monsters don't have a multiplier, and more monsters = more HP.
Previously, that balance was somewhat kept in check due to the multiplier. I'll have to take a look at what is reasonable, but I will be collaborating with other creators on combat space this time around.
Amazing video! Let's see one for casters next, please :)
Next I'm going through the casters one by one, them I'll do another summary one like this!
i like the new style, tho i would say you can make a stop every 5 level for catch up and explaination❤
I feel way more durable as a Barbarian than your graph shows. Did it include their resistances ? Interesting.
The graph shows how long you'd last in this white box deadly encounter if everyone was focused on you. So it definitely isn't what you'd see at a table. Everyone will hopefully last longer than 2 rounds.
Yes, I'm taking BPS resistance into account, but as you increase in level, the amount of BPS damage goes down as a percentage. So at level 5, based on the monster stats, around 60% of all damage monsters deal is BPS, then at level 17 it's something like 35% because a lot of monsters deal other damage types at that point. So the resistance doesn't scale.
It is also table dependant because you might face more or less monsters that do BPS. Or you might have less or more Dex/Con Saves than what I assume. So yes it's never going to map on 100%, but it does take resistance into account and monster damage types across the levels. You can check out the Barbarian by the numbers video for details on that if you'd like.
@DndUnoptimized oh! I forgot that you calculate durability as if everyone was focused on you. And since that rarely happens, then yes a Character is going to feel more durable than represented here. Gotcha.
This was incredible thank you for posting
Thanks! Glad you enjoyed
Really well done, next video should go over which is ranked what in each tier. bc some games only go to Lv5, or Lv10 & it would be useful to know which melee straight class could be more useful in which areas :). again 10/10 i like this kinda stuff - ima sub now
For durability did you include max hitpoints or just resistances and actions to mitigate damage?
Max hp too
i had absolutely no idea fighters got so me talky resilient at higher levels
i guess thats a natural evolution of mkst games never getting to high level, and fighter usually being given as a class to the lewst enthusiastic players, but its still a whole side of the class I'd never even considered
This is really interesting, do you think you’ll ever go back and rank the subclasses? While I think the classes would largely stay in similar positions there would be some variance that could be interesting to see. In particular I think Vengeance vs Devotion Paladins would be cool since they both get a sizable damage bonus from their respective uses of Channel Divinity. Another fun comparison would be Battle Master vs Eldritch Knight for control. I’m also curious how the Beast Master’s companion would fit into the rankings here, damage is easy to factor in but do they get a durability bonus since their companion can absorb some attacks?
I hope to get there, but given how long it's taking me to generate all this content, I might end up skipping it so I can actually do other video content. I'll have to see how it feels after finishing casters though.
I do want to have a complete ranking... that would be really cool.
Thanks for always watching Jinx!
As another idea for a value you could add, i think an interesting point is combat stamina, how many combats you can get through while still having access to your key features. I could see barbarian, monk, ranger, and paladin falling behind here, with fighter and rogue pulling ahead.
That is an interesting idea for sure!
With a Fighter using a Polearm, and a Barbarian using a Greataxe, they both have a free hand and the Strength to pull off a Grapple, increasing their control. They wouldn't be able to attack their target afterwards unless they end their grapple.
I think the bias toward damage is not so much a matter of over/undervaluing other dimensions so much as it’s more a matter of the other dimensions being less quantifiable without coming up with an elaborate system. To your credit, I believe that your system is fair, though I would like to see more “class potential” values rather than 1 specific build representing the entire class since each class has so many different playstyles and options available.
This is amazing. Love it!
Thank you so much!
Good video mate, i like the format!
I have some considerations though.
If we put aside the stats we need to consider how martial classes fare in every scenario.
Barbs have massive issues against flying enemies and casters, rogues are virtually useless if left alone against someone who can cast a simple blur or have a disadvantage spell/effect and rangers still have sub par damage and spell save DC ( they have tons of spells with saves).
Unless I'm missing something fighter, monk and paladin are far stronger and more reliable than the former two, but i'd like to hear your considerations on the matter
Definitely fair points, especially about rogue. Barbarians can do pretty well with thrown weapons now, so they shouldn't be totally useless against flying anymore, but with a low resistance, yea they are pretty weak against spell casters. I'd say out of any of the classes, monks will be worst vs flying.
But you definitely raise a good point that these values and rankings can shift pretty easily under certain circumstances.
@DndUnoptimized thank you man👍
I forgot about barbarians throwing stuff, that could at least do something. Most monks will struggle vs flying, the elemental monk might be able to do something though.
I didn't mean to complain cause I like every class but yeah, I was hoping for some balance this time around.
I love rogues and rangers, but my poor archers are not doing well
This is awesome, thank you
Glad you like it!
why the rogue is more mobile than monk? monk can run as an bonus action too (without expending ki) and has a plus mobility as well.
I assume you are considering the monk will always use flurry of blows or his unarmed strike, but the rogue could easily just use his other attack with bonus action too (knowing that is really weak) or hide to obtain advantage, thing that is necesary to obtain sneak attack.
Im just curious in any case, good video bro.
You've got it dead on. Rogue uses Cunning Action every turn since level 2 and can afford to use it because most of the damage comes from sneak attack, and with Nick and vex we already have a pretty decent chance of getting it off anyway.
For monks, they use flurry of blows every round because it's a huge part of their damage. Monks CAN have a lot more mobility, but they lose out on a lot of damage from that whereas rogues don't miss out of much at all to get their mobility. And monk's movement bonus increases slowly over time.
I think there are other areas where both Paladins and Rangers have the edge.
Healing: Both Paladins and Rangers have good options for healing. With healing spells doubled in potency, these two classes are pretty good. Thete is also Lesser Restoration which is a bonus action. Paladin has Lay on Hands which is also a bonus action.
Rangers and Paladins are pretty lack luster as casters until those higher levels. Once they get those third level spells, it is time to switch gears. Ranger can summon allies and use crowd control effects. Paladins have buffs and protection spells.
When you factor in spell casting, both of these classes are all rounders. Not exactly excelling at anything but have a lot of flexibility. Think of them as Battlemages.
It's true that at level 13-16 ranger it is much more beneficial to cast summon fey as opposed to hunters Mark. At other levels HM is a pretty competitive spell.
Their spell casting definitely adds versatility other martials don't have, and both can do decent healing, especially Paladins.
you should do a series for each class and how their subclasses fit with this system
I have a series for all the martials and this one is a summary, next I'm going through all the casters base classes them I'll do another summary and if people are still into it, I'll do subclasses after that
This was excellent. I agreed with the comment that maybe the Ranger should have gotten some survivability type bonus for staying out of the action. I actually think Paladin should have gotten something on mobility for Find Steed, even if it was just a little bit. I'm not sure it would have mattered TOO much, but I think it is something to think about. I also thought it was fine that the rogue got Defensive Duelist. The others could have taken it as well. They just didn't because it didn't make sense with their weapon choices.
huh, Monk didn't seem impressive with each category but somehow came out on top
It was pretty decent in every category so it got a lot of points
Great video!
Glad you enjoyed it! Thanks for stopping by
I like your approach but not counting a monk grappling in the control category seems odd
That's definitely fair. Perhaps doing grappling is going to be on every monk considering the great changes to the grappler feat.
Love the concept of this video, but the conclusions seem very far from my experiences. I would really like to see the actual builds you used, as I have concerns about the choices made that are detrimental to accurate comparisons.
Yup, I have a playlist with all the classes so far and all the analysis and a spreadsheet on each class. (It's also the last 6 videos I've made if you can't find them)
Did you update your combat space calcs to account for the 2024 DMG’s new XP guidelines?
No, not yet. I am planning on updating it once I get new MM stats.
Next video: oops, all Clerics?
Did you account for smite ?
Paladin does the same damage per round as fighter if they use the same weapons until level 11
That's mostly true except for PAM because Paladin is BA heavy. But yes, I do take smites into account.
This Paladin is sword and board so it does less damage, but smites definitely help. If you went more damage instead of defense, you can go great sword Paladin and do a lot of damage.
I would assume that paladin would have the highest durability, because lay on hands and low level buff spells such as shield of faith, sanctuary and heroism
Yes, that can definitely boost them, but we aren't using them here. Just slots for smite.
I should have used lay on hands up until we are smiting every turn with our BA, but these calculations don't include that. It's assuming using lay on hands out of combat
Cool way to break down the data!
Interesting info, I do.think that for some classes , a sub class has more of an effect than for others. Like fighters getting psychic dies or superiority dies. And especially for eldritch knight gaining casting. Where as barbarians and monks get a bit more or the same keeping them a bit more linear ( but still good... don't hate me lol)
Definitely true! Some increase ones damage or durability or control, or a combination. It would be interesting to see! I was planning on doing subclasses eventually, but starting with base classes for now.
Lol And don't worry no hate here. Just irritation if you come in with a ton of anger and have no good points (neither of which are true here).
The problem with your ranking at the end is that the categories are not equal and the differences between the placements are not equal. What I mean is that in some categories, 1st is miles above 2nd, but it others. 1st and 2nd are nearly identical
Very true. I'll probably change it up next time to account for that
Love how much better you are getting with the quality of the video. I may not really accept your metrics but they are well thought out and I can understand where you are coming from.
But..
Paladins having “0” mobility still does not work for me. I got to point out that paladins get a free find steed and you can rest cast it. If also heals on your spells,. Aid and Barding are a thing. And one mount has 60 teleports. You can even cast it with any form you like so make a Millipede that can go up stairs as easily as a horse. I just don’t buy the idea that they have no mobility. I understand what you are saying just don’t see it as valid.
Yea just me I guess.
It's definitely not a "end all be all" analysis, but hopefully a more holistic view based in real stuff as opposed to just vibes. At the end of the day, this white box analysis will never match up to real play, but hopefully it gives some idea.
As for Paladin mobility, yea, if you give it a steed it shoots way up for sure. Maybe I should have added it.
@@DndUnoptimized problem is, when you don't pin down what sets the metric the moment you have paladin with 0 mobility while having find steed, your analysis is just vibes pretending not to be. The approach you have is interesting, the style is interesting especially as you're trying to measure more than DPR, but if you want to be more rigid about your data you have to put in the extra work.
You need to define the condition of why X is more mobility than Y. An easy example of this is +movement speed, any character with +movement speed can engage a target further than 30ft. 60ft is a breakpoint that allows you to engage 30ft in difficult terrain. Find conditions and breakpoints and use those, without it, your approach is vibes with dishonest graphs
@ProjectPTSheep I have videos about all of this with spreadsheets documenting where it all comes from. Have you seen those?
I am not sure how much more rigid you'd like. But yea nothing is really explained in this video to keep it short and on point, so I get why someone might think it.
As for choosing to not mount Paladin, maybe its not the way you play, but this gives you an idea of all the other dimensions at least. Of course your choice of weapon might differ too, so you'll have to end up making extrapolations there too.
@@DndUnoptimized "but this gives you an idea of all the other dimensions at least"
not really, non of these datapoints were useful or even accurate. I checked two of your other videos and there are too many criticisms to bother with. To demonstrate an obvious point; ignoring subclasses when accessing a class only works in a system where all subclasses are created equally. You have ranger control only the slow of the bow because you just assumed Hunter's Mark and not bother with anything else.
This is a high quality of visual representation on what is pretending to be high quality data. But this is vibes, I would prefer vibes because bad data pretending not to be vibes is worse
College of swords bard is highly underrated
For Durability the base Rogue at level 18 has Elusive no attack roll against you can have advantage against you. Lowering the chance of creatures damaging the Rogue.
Very true. I didn't actually add that into durability because the benefit could vary pretty wildly. And I don't assume advantage on any of the incoming attacks (except for Barbarian). But maybe I could have assumed 10% of attacks gave disadvantage or something.
@@DndUnoptimized I think a fairer to think of is that no creature can get advantage against the rogue. Meaning all their attacks are normal at best. Since not having advantage on an attack roll means it is harder to get over their ac.
Great stuff
Why doesn’t the monk grapple…?
It's just the choice of build we did to make things easy and simple. But yes, grappling really helps with control, and also boost damage.
Cool graph!
Thanks!
To be honest I have zero idea why you'd build a non-grappling monk. As someone who has played a 2024 monk from 1-8 so far in a campaign that may go to 20, grappling is an absolutely vital part of the monk toolkit, and not taking grappler is just leaving damage, mobility, and control on the table for no conceivable purpose.
Definitely a fair point.
Perhaps Resistance should include all saves or at the very least Cha and Int saves??
So that's definitely a good idea and I considered it but ended up with pure wisdom saves since that's the majority of them. But especially with new monster design that might change a bunch.
Con saves Dex saves are used for durability to prevent damage since that's what it's mostly used for.
Gonna have to try a fighter lol, also no warlock or anything?
This is just martials (and half casters). I'm going to analyze casters next
@DndUnoptimized goootchhuu
You had the ranger and rogue backwards, ranger should be the dual wielder with scimitar and short sword, and rogue should be the one using a bow, a light crossbow to be exact, with true strike.
If you want optimization then yea, maybe. True strike ranged rogue is a good build, but I don't think it's what people play when they make rogues. And same with rangers.
But TWF ranger isn't very different than longbow, if you look at Damage its better in the first few levels, but actually worse later on. Treantmonk also did a build series comparing them you can check out for a second opinion.
I don't love the final calculation. It ranks them only by order with no consideration for magnitude. For example for Resistance you have a cluster of 3 near the top (paladin, monk, fighter) and then a big drop to rogue. That doesn't seem right that fighter and rogue are only 1 point apart but fighter and paladin are 2 points apart.
Yea that's fair. I'll do it a different way next time
@DndUnoptimized love your response to feedback!
We suddenly add subclasses and world tree barbarians shoot up to the top lol
Haha that's a real possibility!
Im a little surprised, that the durability of the barbarian is not higher. Gues more armor does nearly the same job then half dmg
It's because Bludgeoning, Piercing, and slashing damage decreases as you level up, so they are resistant to less and less, but then everyone has advantage on attacks against them and they have low AC, so combining all of those, Barbarian isn't quite as tanky as people initially think
Monks have much higher mobility than Rogues with a combination of unarmored movement and a bonus action to dash using Step of the Wind without using any focus points.
That is very true that monks have better mobility. But for most of the monk career they are using Flurry of Blows instead of step of the wind in this build to focus on damage. I should have pointed out that monks have insane mobility if they want/need it in the video though.
Bonus Action Dash for monk also cost them half of their damage. Even more after 10th level. It is more versatile - but rogue can also use ranged weapons if they need it. So it evens out.
I dont get why monk is lower than rogue when it comes to mobility. At all. Monks are not only FAR faster than rogues through their movement speed, but they also get the ability to dash as a bonus action. PLUS, some of their higher level abilities give them the ability to run on water, or on walls I believe?
At max level, a monk can move (assuming they are dashing as both an action and a bonus action) 180 ft a turn. Spending a ki point means that movement is also not going to provoke an opportunity attack.
Rogues, by contrast, will only be able to move a max of 90 ft per turn. That is HALF.
Great questions. It comes down to two points. It is averaged over your career, so getting super high movement at end of career isn't as impactful as an extra dash at LVL 2.
Second is that our monk was using Flurry of blows every turn with their BA. So they COULD have a lot more mobility if they needed it, and that is fantastic, but not demonstrated here. All classes have areas they could do better in at the expense of other areas and this is an example of that.
@@DndUnoptimized understandable, but if the idea is that this is during combat, wouldn’t the rogue be using disengage far more than dash as a bonus action?
@@DndUnoptimizedI dont play rogue, so this is a genuine question
Sorry, yes, rogues will disengage with it mostly.
Seems like you are undercutting monk in control by removing grappling, which is an unarmed strike that favors monks because it is Dex based for them, and it has zero affect on their damage output except for the grapple attempt, assuming you don't talent grappler.
I'm also curious about your movement calculations, monks start at 40' but by 10th level they are doing 50' per round, 10' less than a rogue using cunning action dash. However, if we look at level 10, a monk with flurry of blows has 5 attacks, but they could use a standard dash action and still have 3 flurry of blows attacks for an average of (3d8 + 15) 28.5 average damage and 100' of movement vs (1d8 + 5d6 +5) + (1d6) 27.5 average damage for a full damage sneak attack and off hand attack with the nick property using the cunning action for a dash to move 60'.
Grapple monk definitely has great control and it boosts damage too. Perhaps it wasn't fair to ignore grappling here.
As for Mobility, monks can have good mobility but at the sacrifice of damage. Base class you have to lose 1/2 to 3/5 of your damage to dash/disengage but rogue doesn't really lose anything to do that. That's why they end up with higher mobility. Open hand monks get fleet step to FoB and step of the wind, but not base monk.
I should have mentioned in the video that monks can have amazing mobility if you really need it, but you sacrifice a lot of damage.
@@DndUnoptimized I think you are making a mistake by assuming it is always the best option for a monk to dash using step of the wind instead of the dash action. At level 10, a monk that doesn't dual wield with access to nick specialization gets more attacks from their bonus action than from their attack action. So they would lose 2/5 of their damage in exchange for almost double the movement of a rogue, and they would still likely out damage the rogue, especially if the rogue is using cunning strike. Unless the rogue has the chance to use their reaction on an opportunity attack that they can sneak attack with.
Well if you are looking to maximize mobility then step of the wind is definitely the way to go. But yes, using action dash will give you better damage.
@@DndUnoptimized Does it? Even putting aside subclasses, they still have highest base speed and can run on walls or water. And while "step of the wind" does sacrifice damage it's still additional option on top of that.
It also assumes Rouge is ranged build (reasonable assumption, but still...), if they were meele, cunning action would cut damage from two weapon fighting as well and even for ranged build they will likely impede their mobility themselves due "Steady Aim".
how do you have so few subs??
tbf, I thought I subbed to you months ago...
Paladin mobility should be much higher. They get find steed for free. That's 120 ft of movement and 60 teleport. Level 5: Faithful Steed
Fair for sure.
I do not understand how can paladins be so low. They pretty much still have an extra minimum (2d6) per round since level 1. Besides, they have abilities to boost their attack roll
What do you mean 2d6 per round? If you divine smite every round then yes, but you don't have that make spell slots until a very high level.
This doesn't include subclasses.
@DndUnoptimized dont you have like 3 1st level spells at 1st level?
@GabrielLyra-q5f everything will be divided among 4 encounters per day though, so that's not even one smite per encounter. But I round up and do it once until we have 5 slots then I do it twice, etc.
@@DndUnoptimized what type of campaign has 4 encounters per day? I mean, if you are putting up small encounters with like goblins and stuff then this damage count for every class is pretty much irrelevant, since they have limited abilities (barbarian has 2 rages, fighter 1 attack surge, monk limited ki points...)
Good vid
Doing more damage helps the team I want my party to be able to deal damage. Tho I don’t play hug box dnd
Doing good damage is definitely vital, I don't want to say anything against that.
Being mind controlled is not fun. You can wind up torching a village killing everyone because the game master chose to control your character. Heck you can wind up having no control of your character for an entire campaign. Don't ignore mental resistance. Some game masters might have fun exploiting this.
100% agree
Why no moon Druid
This is martials only. And base classes only too
So, let me get this straight with your calculations. Some classes, if they do their proper DPR, are responsible for doing 50% of the damage necessary to take out a DEADLY encounter? In a game that you play with 4 people? WHAT THE FUCK? Is that good game design?
Correct, but that is assuming quite a few things.
1. They always have a target to hit
2. They never overkill (doing 25 damage when they have 1 HP)
3. They always attack, so no action dash, action to break someone out of an effect, or even BA potion
4. Never debuffed or controlled in any way
5. It's a 4 round encounter. So if everyone deals this damage, it could just end up being a 2 round encounter instead, which isn't so bad.
So this ends up being brought down much lower at actual tables.
BUT... This doesn't include subclasses either. So yes, definitely some subclasses can take out 50% of a deadly encounter no problem.
Martials got big buffs at low levels due to weapon mastery, so I hope low level monsters got a boost to their defenses too.
@@DndUnoptimized I mean, when playing 5e14 my problems NEVER were "players are too weak and do too little damage" or "the combat is too fast because players have too few options".
I guess making every character stronger and then throwing a "we can fix it with the new monster manual" (which honestly I don't see it coming, given the monsters that we saw in the PhB and the ones released until now. The changes seem pretty random, with some monsters getting slightly stronger while other got slightly weaker). But that solution feels like "fixing" wizards by giving them more spells that don't require saves, like wall of force! And then, maybe, we can release some monsters that are immune to that. Ahhh, wait, what? People were complaining that wall of force was too weak? What?
Results aren't surprising tbh
I wouldn't have put the rogue ahead of fighter, but I think overall it's close-ish to what I would have guessed.
@@DndUnoptimized Yeah feel about the same there. I think the subclasses for fighter are just still better. The rogue has a better base, so it'll always get that bit extra ahead in areas besides fighting. Fighter isn't going to be single killing an army in their sleep too easily. Rogue dips have always been strong because of it, esp since action surge with magic is off the table.
This analysis seems highly biased imo, due to the equipment choice being so spread out for different classes. A good comparison should have the builds as close as possible in terms of options, including masteries provided by equipment. Also, you lost me when you chose to simply ignore a good mobility feature from the fighter and give it zero mobility, sorry
Ranger in last place! Oh no!
Well, with the build he used and the metrics he measured it is, it's important to keep in mind that this is an interesting look at things but not exactly the full picture.
Yea, it's unfortunate. I know they can be good in certain areas, but you have to sacrifice a lot of resources to deal good damage. It has a lot of internal clashing of features in my opinion.
I guess that's the price of flexibility?
I'm having a really hard time actually finding this analysis objective when it's comparing a sword and board Paladin to Fighters and Barbarians using Great Weapon Mastery. Sword and Shield isn't bad, but its contribution is so different from a two-handed weapon, and so easily available to all three, that comparing Paladin with it to Barbarians and Fighters with a two-handed weapon is inaccurate and deeply misleading. You're comparing weapon choices more than classes at that point.
I don't find using Cleave on the Barbarian and not the Fighter to be a very good decision either, that's no longer apples to apples and really easy to change (halberds are right there, after all...why not go with the most similar option?). A ranged build for Ranger is more defensible (though I'm not thrilled) since that actually is the stereotypical build, but saying that Paladins are more stereotypically shield-users than Fighters are is not a good take and leads to some deep inaccuracies understating Paladin damage by a lot, and overstating their control and defenses somewhat. Or, from another perspective, overstating Fighter damage but understating their control, defense, and mobility if you made them the shield user.
Rogues and Monks actually necessitate different weapon choices, and it can be argued Rangers at least encourage it, but there's no actual reason you can't compare a Barbarian, a Fighter, and a Paladin, all using similar weapons. And that being the case, that's what you should do.
Ignoring spells for things like control and utility is also not great at all. Rangers have Jump and Longstrider for mobility, for instance, and that's a huge mobility boost that's easily available and ignored completely. Neither are Concentration spells and both are 1st level so they're pretty available even while using spells for damage.
I do agree with you for some of this, but are you essentially saying you disagree with the stereotypical builds I chose? That's totally fine. You can use this as a springboard to compare with other weapon choices. GWM Paladin will obviously do more damage and have lower durability. I did run numbers for GWM Paladin focused on damage only and it ends up really good. (See the Paladin video for that).
I don't think all weapon types work with all martials equally though. Paladin is BA heavy, so obviously PAM isn't going to work, but fighters have BAs free while barbarians need it once to rage then it's free. So I chose the weapons that kind of fit their class and narrative best. I definitely see your point though that if everyone used GWM then it would be a cleaner comparison for damage.
Hopefully people will have an idea of how a weapon change might change these numbers up. But just remember that the weapon choices will take from one area to add to another.
I think this video is poorly organized for people looking to pick classes. This only takes into account class abilities but not any of their other attributes.
For instance im the durability category Barbarians are definitely the most durable of the martial classes. There is no universe where rogues should be number three. Their constitution is a low priority score and they will almost never have as much maximum hp as a barbarian in any circumstance. Same goes with the monk. While they may have abilities that negate damage these are often circumstantial or chance based.
Also damage is extremely hard to measure in this way and most abilities are corcumstantial and cant be properly represented with a flat number. Like rogues, who have extremely low damage in most situations but he fails to mention that they mostly do damage in massive bursts in stealth attacks and mostly focus on things out of combat.
Regardless. Don't use this video to make decisions on what class to play if you want something that plays a certain way. Just read the book.
I think your videos could be helpful if you instead focused on other topics because DND classes are have most of their abilities situationalized and s single number will always be inaccruate. Perhaps focus on a single class per video and discuss their playstyle?
You mean those videos on every one of these classes I did? This is a summary to give the consolidated info. I'll be going through the casters one at a time next.
@DndUnoptimized Yes something like that although I didn't know you already made videos like that. The point of my comment was to point out that this video and the information you give are completely useless because they don't consider all attributes of the classes and take into consideration that many of these abilities are situational. Consolidating and summarizing them doesn't do anything because especially when you do it inaccurately.
That this style of video cannot accurately represent a topic this complex in this way.
@MrMcMedium nothing can accurately sum it up everything because there are too many variables, but if you go take a look at the other videos you can see a lot of details and there is a spreadsheet with the build including attributes for each of these.
But for sure you aren't totally wrong. A ranking of classes is never going to be final and completely accurate
Can'understand how a vengeance Paladin should do less dmg of a Ranger. I mean pure damage. On melee he could put : divine favor (no concentration) Hunter's mark, adv on hit with channel div. At liv 3. At liv 11 he add 1 d8 on any atk free. How a melee ranger close that gap? Am i miss something?🤔
He's not using subclasses in the video. This is only core class analysis.
@gloryrod86 still divine favor and elemental weapon are more dmg and smite too. Talking basic classes
So you could use Divine favor, but it ends up adding about as much damage as a divine smite, but if you can get it off before the encounter then why not. You can check out the paladin specific video if you'd like to see all of the spells compared.
Fighters suck at fighting in D&D? Color me surprised (not).
Your really undervaluing the control of monks here, they can grapple very effectively from level 1, and at third level once you get the subclass, they can grapple from 15 feet away, stopping most enemies they grapple from even being able to attack back. Also there is NO WAY rogues have more mobility than monks. Monks not only have much higher movement speed, they can also dash and disengage as bonus action, and unlike rogues, even do both at the same time if they want, and nearly every subclass gets even more mobility on top of that, picking from your choice of teleportation, flying, or free dash/disengage in addition to whatever else you do with your bonus action.
You are correct on all points here. But considering when monks dash they lose 1/2 to 3/5 of their damage for the turn it's very detrimental to their damage output to be doing that. Rogues get most of their damage through sneak attack, so using their BA to dash/disengage isn't a problem. So yes, monks CAN have better mobility for sure, but in the end they sacrifice a lot of damage for it. I should have mentioned that in the video though.
Also, this monk didn't grapple, but if it had, it would do much better control too. So yes, even though monk ended up in first place, it has additional potential that this analysis doesn't reach.
This is base classes only, so no subclasses
WHAT TRASH! This analysis has as much to do with your opinion of what weapon is welded by your personal "stereotypical build" than the actual reality of the class.
It's a complete joke. I too would have preferred that they built every conceivable version of every class from levels 1 through 20 before they even considered something like this. Simply giving us the context and information behind how all the numbers were derived feels woefully lackluster in comparison. I came here for answers, not to extrapolate.
Thanks man! Look you aren't totally wrong, this is definitely skewed by what the stereotypical build is.
Your final calculation seems a bit wonky. Your decision to award 1st place with 6 points and last place with 1 point feels super arbitrary and sands down a lot of your methodology into nothing. (Whether a class beats out another class by a little or a lot gets completely lost by this crude method)
Why not instead calculate the area of each radar diagram? (You already color these areas) The class with the largest area is a much more nuanced metric as to "which class is best" since you're no longer throwing away all the numerical results you've so carefully collected and calculated.
Very true. Let me explain why it would be kind of arbitrary regardless. First, mathematically, I don't think area works out and you'll get different areas depending on where the dimensions are located. Maybe this isn't true for 5 dimensions, but it definitely is for 4. If you have super high values for opposite sides with nothing in the other areas, you could end up with an area of 0. But if you put those dimensions next to each other then you get a big triangle.
The other option is to sum up all the dimensions for each character and see the total, but every dimension has a different maximum. So adding 40 damage + 30 control + 2 durability... Means some are inherently less valuable UNLESS I do an arbitrary mapping to multiply durability by 20 or something. Then depending on what mapping I choose it skews the results. (This same problem applies to the area solution as well)
So yea, you are correct that it takes a lot of the nuance out, but I couldn't think of a better way. Let me know if you have another idea and perhaps I can use that for next time
@@DndUnoptimized If you shuffle the order of dimensions for each class, calculate the area for each permutation, and then pick the largest area, you've removed the "opposites cancel each other out" effect. (Obvs assuming you've got a computer program to do that for you)
As for comparing 40 damage to 2 durability, you'd normalize each dimension to a fractional value from 0..1 (assuming you value each dimension equally). In layman's terms, use the percentage of the value of the best class (so the winner of each dimension gets 100 points regardless of whether it won through 40 or 2 points)
The areas are already normalized in this way, since the diagram gives each dimension the same length.
@user-wm3hu7lo1g good ideas. But what do I normalize them all to? Combat Space should be out of 100? Should durability be min 1 and Max 4?
There isn't really a logical maximum to any of the dimensions and choosing a max is arbitrary.
@@DndUnoptimized You should choose the best score in each dimension as the max. Again, assuming you value each dimension equally.
The main point is to not lose the actual data (that you so carefully measured).
Example: For mobility, you ended up with 14 points for the rogue. Giving it 6 points while the Monk and Barbarian getting 4 or 5 is super crude, not to mention the fighter and paladin getting 1 or 2 despite having no mobility points at all. It just throws away all the scientificness or objectiveness of your measurements...
If you instead give the Rogue's Mobility 100 points, the Monk and Barbarian would get 50 each, and the fighter and paladin would get zero.
This is much more representative of the data you've collected, as opposed to the arbitrariness of crude rankings. The Barbarian's mobility isn't 5 6ths of the Rogue's (at least not by your methodology), it's half. It shouldn't get 5 points for coming 2nd. It should get half the points of the Rogue, and whether it came 2nd or 3rd doesn't matter.
Then you'd rate each class damage on a scale from 0-100 as well (assuming you believe your damage metric and your mobility metric is equally useful and impactful). Whether the actual numbers are 40 or 2 doesn't matter.
Hope this clarifies 👍
I see. Yea it's not perfect, but it does use the actual numbers to a better extent. I think probably normalizing and summing them up is just as effective.