@@jordanlindsey4299 Aye, there are so many ways to roll. Hell, the Samurai subclass itself has people going: 1. DPS 2. Tanky McBlitztank 3. DEX Samurais (finesse weapons, dueling, archery, you name it). 0.5: Samurais have used an array of weapons such as katanas, shurikens (so it is said), wakizashis (shortswords that along with a katana would form a set, as you see nowadays, sometimes used to parry so the samurai could then trade it for their katana), longbows, nodachis (swords that are Japanese claymores, refer to Sephiroth as an example of sorts), tantos (Japanese equivalents of daggers used for last resorts, ceremonies and decorations, or even the rite of seppuku, which is honorable suicide over a disgraceful death at the hands of the enemy), naginatas (bladed pole weapons that focuses on slashing), yari (Japanese variant of the spear)... And this is just a subclass, what's to say of the other subclasses?
@@NerdImmersion it might also be fun to see your top ten "roleplay-able" classes. There are a ton of mechanically weak classes that get a ton of fun abilities and have stuff baked in
10: Hexblade Warlock. I actually prefer a Tome Celestial Warlock that snags Shillelagh. Booming Blade and Green-Flame Blade, but I honestly can't deny how effective it is to make Charisma your sole offensive attribute that you can melee attack twice with. 9: Zealot Barbarian. The smite like Rage is heavenly, and the last feature that lets you be "Man literally too angry to die". And even if you do die, you're pretty easy to get revived at a temple. 8: Arcane Trickster Rogue. Being able to Mage Hand your thieves tools is good, being able to naturally take Booming Blade or Green-Flame Balde is great, playing the long haul and getting the Invisibility spells is downright amazing. 7: Ancients Paladin. The usual smite machine, but you're basically taking this for Aura of Warding. 6: Moon Druid. I actually prefer Land, Wildfire, Shepard and Dreams, but I cannot deny the absolute potency of the Wild Shape that basically puts you on par with the melee player characters without even needing to touch your spell slots. 5: Kensei Monk. Somewhat lackluster on the surface, but if you manage to sharpen a Frostbrand or Flame Tongue weapon, its actually extremely potent. 4: Enchantment Wizard. Ramps up all the control spells, and once you get to double up the Power Word Pain, Stun and Kill spells, its kind of terrifying. 3: Wild Magic Sorcerer. A constant nightmare for everyone including yourself, but once you start getting its other features (namely controlled chaos) its actually really solid. 2: Sword Bard. Basically the ultimately flex, as it turns your skill expertise full spellcaster into a very decent melee combatant 1: Light Cleric. Praise the sun, for Radiance of the Dawn does amazing area damage without friendly fire, recharges per short rest, and actually scales in damage with level. If you manage to play in Ravnica, the Boros Guild Spell list lets you take Firebolt. Praise be.
Could I get an example of how Swords bard can be utilized? Like 2 pala 18 sword bard, hold person > steel wind strike. When I go bard I'm always tempted to go lore bard purely cuz of peerless skill + early spiritual weapon/spirit guardians+dodge combo usually outweighing the other options.
@@OnionJuiceEnjoyer If you're going to take Lore Bard for Spiritual Weapon, Spirit Guardians and the Dodge action, you might as well play a Cleric (which would give you Medium armor and Shields without needing to multiclass) For the most part, once you start theorycrafting level 18 or level 20 stuff, everything's basically already broken, and it kind of detracts from the journey required to get there. I will lightly say that level 1-3 is a nightmare, because you're trying to build a half combat character before your subclass kicks in. Faerie Fire is your mob support spell, which will help everyone weapon attack down a bunch of enemies. Once you hit level 3, enjoy the medium armor, Shatter really is your best spell for damage, and Two-Weapon Fighting is technically better because it is more than possible to run out of Bardic Inspiration now that its tied to Blade Flourish. You also get Expertise, which is well spent on being the face of the party for Persuasion and Deception rolls. I'd recommend ASI for Charisma to better flex the skills and spellcasting. Once you get to level 5, you can get your Bardic Inspiration back on a short rest - which gels extremely well with a short rest party. Hypnotic Pattern is nothing to sneeze at though, provided you use it to stall a large enough group of enemies. Level 6 brings Extra Attack, which is good (though perhaps not as uber efficient as Spiritual Weapon + Spirit Guardians) so you're largely at the mercy of what magic weapons your DM hands out. It might be worthwhile to Multiclass into Hexblade Warlock so you can solely rely on Charisma, and get the Shield spell. I could continue down that rabbit hole for Invocations (Agonizing Blast and Improved Pact Weapon) or for Pact of the Blade, but at that point you'd probably be better served making a Hexblade Warlock from the start. (Neither do I want to lock out getting the highest level of Magical Secrets or stalling higher level spell progression.) Levels 7, 8, and 9 aren't too glamorous besides Greater Invisibility, which will let you swing your weapons for profit. Level 10 is the biggest power jump - Magical Secrets. Here, you pick Find Greater Steed and either Guardian of Nature, or Haste. Using either on yourself applies it to your steed, and both have significant merit. Guardian of Nature lets you use the Beast function on your steed for a significant improvement for Multiattack steeds, and gives you the option of either. Haste is kind of insane as it gives extra attacks, added AC, doubled speed, etc, to both your already fast steed and yourself. Technically, a Lore Bard can pull this off too, but Medium Armor and Extra Attack make this combo work better. Second round of Expertise can go into the party's week spot, though I prefer to take Animal Handling for steed synergy, and Perception if the Bard is diving first and fast into unknown territory. From then on, besides True Seeing, Magical Secrets are the only thing worth emphasizing. At Level 14, Magical Secrets for Tenser's Transformation, any of the Investitures, Crown of Stars (combo for advantage with the Great Tree Guardian of Nature), or Heal are pretty good choices. Regenerate is also stupendously efficient when it heals you and your mount. Its also at level 14 that you get Master Flourish, letting use it without digging into your Bardic Inspiration, which is very nice. At level 15, Mind Blank is good but situational, At level 17, Foresight and Invulnerability are extremely amusing choices for you and your mount. The last round of Magical Secrets is mainly to get Wish. Overall though, much of this depends on what magic items are thrown your way, or whether you reach the level 10 milestone. Once you get Tenser's Transformation, the distinction between Lore Bard and Sword Bard gets much smaller. Spirit Guardian/Spiritual Weapon is hard to beat, granted, but in that case I'd go straight to my first pick - Light Cleric. Much better AC, access to Radiance of the Dawn and the Word of Radiance cantrip. Loses out on skill proficiency, expertise, Jack of All Trades and Bardic Inspiration, sure, but if damage is the main focus, Light Cleric is very much a high tier pick for that.
@@Gladerunner2113 Ah it's just to make those two spells work on CHA and also gain access to god tier skill rolls with expertise and peerless skiil (up to 82 persuasion roll). Pretty much like you said, like Cleric but with limited support spell list in return for skill and spell versatility, burst and AC if two paladin levels at the start. Been trying to think of a way to make swords bard work over lore bard other than using it's extra attack for more paladin smites. I think it can definitely peak with a tenser's transformation + steel wind strike + smite combo, though hold person or haste would probably be better to not run out of juice. Lore bard smite build would average 57 damage using 5th level slots to smite Spirit guardians + spiritual weapons upcasted using 5th and 6th level slots would average 45 DPR Lore bard smite build using hold person would average 114 damage using 5th level slots to smite Swords bard using tenser would average 81 damage Swords bard smiting with tenser whilst using flourish on a target under hold person would be pretty scary Assuming all of this was done with flametongue for above for both cases Swords bard would probably work better endgame when enemies have legendary resistances, though a synaptic static + cutting words + bane combination from lore bard is equally enticing for that up to -22 to hit. Though I guess tenser would still work with lore, I definitely learned a nice tactic here then Surprisingly exceeded my expectations of pure bard when I did the math, didn't think they could break 80 DPR without multiclassing or the Animate objects spell
@@OnionJuiceEnjoyer I actually had to double check the validity of Steel Wind Strike + Smite, and apparently melee weapon attacks and melee spell attacks are discrete, separate entities - adn thus don't combo. If your DM doesnt know the distinction, you can probably make it happen, but thats the RAW for me for now. As for the other number crunching, the main draw of my build centers around Tenser's Tranformation and Find Greater Steed, and eeking out as much Tenser 2d12 force damage with advantage attacks. The advantage doesnt extend to the Steed because they can't wield simple or martial weapons, but the potential of giving the steed Extra attack still results in a lot of strikes - only some made at advantage, but all of them are at Advantage once Foresight becomes available. Though Lore Bard getting Spirit Guardians and Spiritual Weapon early, and still being able to attain the above combo is completely respectable. I'd say one side effect however, is that going Redemption Paladin (for the Persuasion Channel Divinity) does mean you have to subscribe to the tenets of that Oath. Additionally, the Lore Bard would require their musical instrument to cast spells, whereas the Sword Bard has the benefit of using their weapon as their focus. Probably worth the tradeoff for more skills and early secret spells I suppose.
My top 10 favourites (probably not the best, but the ones I find most fun): 10: College of Lore Bard 9: Swashbuckler Rogue 8: Inquisitive Rogue 7: Way of the Kensei Monk 6: Order Domain Cleric 5: College of Swords Bard 4: School of Divination Wizard 3: Artillerist Artificer 2: Divine Soul Sorcerer 1: Hexblade Warlock
Your picks are only good for combat and social pillars (but those are the most defined) and you don’t have any paladin subclasses. But it’s a cool list and I can see why they are your favorites. Divine soul and hexblade are powerful for sure.
@@conradkorbol My bias is showing, I guess. I personally prefer combat and social interaction over exploration; I'm content to sit back and follow other players through the wilds/dungeon untill we find something to fight or talk to. As for no paladin classes, I like paladins for a 2 level multiclass dip for some of my favourites on the list, but I don't find the class all that fun to play, myself. Same goes for barbarian, druid, and fighter [-grumbles incoherently about boring mary sues with pointy sticks-], which also didn't make the cut (Horizon Walker and Hunter Rangers were debatable includes, and both would likely end up on a top 15 list, and the only real exceptions to my meh for the exploration pillar). Of the classes that made the list, outside of the specific subclasses mentioned, clerics and wizards fare quite a bit lower for me. My 11-15 picks would likely include 2 rangers (as above) and 3 sorcerers (Draconic, Shadow, and Storm).
prophetisaiah08 I wasn’t judging you. Just offering my critique. My favorite pillars are social and exploration, but I love combat as well. I think they are all fun. Paladin and ranger are my favorite classes, but the only class I haven’t enjoyed is cleric lol. I still need to play sorcerer, wizard, artificer, and monk. I can see why you wouldn’t like the monk. Your character subclasses seem to be more support/dps than tank Healing. Also I enjoy all the classes on your list, but I like mastermind more than inquisitive.
I myself can see why you picked artificer, artillerist! Just having a couple of turrets following you around and maybe even a homunculus is alot of fun with plenty of ground control!
Unless your games have a rule against 2 players using the same class (my games don't, except is the subclass is also the same), a very good 'last pick' type character is a healer feat thief. It's a good way of being able to play a rogue and still fill potential missing party roles like a healer, a secondary blaster with a bow, or a face depending on skill investment.
@@GoblinLord when I played it myself, I never really had a shortage of healer kits, but it does depend on party size, how many times people go down and frequency of combats/short rests, as those are the limiting factors of the main combo. If you frequently short rest, the DM really like quickly knocking someone unconcious and have a big party, you will run out much quicker. So long as you stock up enough you will almost always have uses of them, and you will stock up as that is just what thieves do. Gotta stay on top of your rope, oil, ball bearing and caltrop supplies as well, might as well buy some more kits whenever you resupply any of those. As far a build goes, I played a ranged shortbow rogue that always stayed about 30 ft away from combat, close enough to swoop in and heal or disrupt combat with other items, far enough away to easily duck for cover. The Mobile feat and a friend routinely casting Longstrider on me also really helped. If I would do a full professional build I would have probably taken 2 levels of ranger for zephyr strike, my own longstrider and the archery fighting style
The problem with it that just having it makes you want to not use your ki on anything else just so you have ki to spend on that just in case, so you usually end up just having lot of ki floating around and effectively wasted. Also the Zealot Barbarian still has better version of this ability which just flat out makes them not die as long as they are raging.
Yeah but... until level 11 it's unquestionably the worst monk, and he even points out the poor design that you're just going to crush bugs or whatever to get your Temp HP. Compared to every other monk's 3rd and 6th level features it is just awful though
Honesty, picking my favorite subclass was hard but I eventually settled on Eldritch Knight Fighter, if only for the versatility and the fact that my two favorite classes are Wizard and Fighter.
Saving throw cantrips are good for front line/melee casters, which is what most Clerics will likely be. A ranged spell attack cantrip like Firebolt would have to be cast at a Disadvantage in melee. This is not a big problem for Wizards, because they shouldn't be fighting in melee, but disengaging and creating distance. A Cleric, with armor, shield and Spirit Guardians might still sometimes use Sacred Flame at longer ranges, but most of the time they will be using it in melee. So, while it's not the greatest cantrip, it offers flexibility, good for a front line support class and it leaves more room for utility cantrips, like Guidance and Mending.
Finally someone who shows some love for the oath of the ancients paladin! Every other TH-camr who reviews the paladin seems to write them off as some sort of gimmick or joke. But honestly it’s the only paladin that I can take seriously. Every other kind of paladin just evolves into crusader Memes.
yeah, i agree! i unabashedly think that paladins are the best designed class in 5e [bards a close second], and the ancients paladin is the strongest one we've gotten so far
Late to the party but ancients Paladin has really attractive spells and the ability to resist spells at 6th level makes it very worth your while, problem is the channel divinity which I’m not a fan of
Kurtis Leung Yeah the channel ability is pretty weak. I could think of maybe a few clever uses but that really is the worst part of the oath. Still I would argue that all of the other features make up for it.
I love the death monk because once you get to 11th level you can basically say I'm not done yet, and punch the BBEG in the face again because that is how you do it
Mg favourite subclasses are: Barbarian: Totem Warrior Bard: College of Lore Cleric: Grave Domain Druid: Circle of the Shepherd Fighter: Samurai Rogue: Swashbuckler Sorcerer: Divine Soul Warlock: Great Old One Wizard: Diviner
@@Cloud_Seeker amen to that man. That book is a godsend. I just wish they would fix hunter and beast master. The ranger needs something that makes them the best with the bow rather than a fighter using their action surge
@@jasonandrews1770 I don't think that should be their strength. Being the best in the use of weapons IS the fighter. A ranger should be a hunter, a tracker. A ranger should be unparalleled when they are on the hunt for someone. That is why Gloomstalkers are best in hunting in the dark. That is why Monster Hunters are the best Witcher style characters. That is why Horizon Walker is the best plainshift hunters with portal and teleportation nonsense. I think WoTC should double down on the Rangers ability to focus on a enemy and relentlessly hunt them instead of trying to take the roll of a fighter. Finding weak spots and using knowledge to figure things out about an enemy. I honestly think the Ranger is best made when you throw some Scout Rogue into the Ranger class. It makes you a hunter instead of a weak fighter. A scout Rogue can kite a melee fighter forever with enough open ground and when the fighter no longer have action surge.
This is a fun idea! I think my top 10 would be: 10. Monster Slayer Ranger 9. Ancestral Guardian Barbarian 8. Redemption Paladin 7. Sun Soul Monk 6. Swashbuckler Rogue 5. Storm Sorcerer 4. Forge Domain Cleric 3. Shadow Monk 2. Divination School Wizard 1. Celestial Warlock Honourable Mentions would be Tempest Cleric,Vengeance Paladin, Arcane Archer, and Shadow Magic Sorcerer.
Would love more subclass videos :) honestly subclasses are my favorite thing about 5e. So like, anything on subclasses would be great for a vid. Which subclasses are the best/your fav for each class? How would you fix the ones u feel are underpowered or broken? What new style subclass would u like to c for each class? Anything like that is an instant add to my watch later for me. Great vid! Excited for more!
@@JayfroC it's so fun, summoning is great and the totems are super useful, a helpful tip I didn't realize at first is that EVERYONE you choose gets the bonus healing of your unicorn totem if you use a healing spell even if your target isnt in your totem range
I'm going Shepherd mainly for RP reasons. My character is an Ancestral Guardian barbarian, so I won't get that much out of the summoning aspect of the Shepherd subclass. I'm more focused on getting the Spirit Totem ability and going full spirit-channeling shaman warrior. Maybe it won't be an efficient multiclass idea in terms of optimization, but I'm all about that 'cool factor' lmao
Instead of giving a top 10, I'm gonna say my favorite of each class (excluding artificer as I never played those.) Barbarian: Totem Warrior, particularly bear on level 3, eagle on 6 and either eagle or elk on 16. Bard: Lore Cleric: Storm Druid: Dreams Fighter: Eldritch Knight Monk: Drunken Master Paladin: Vengeance Ranger: Gloomstalker Rogue: Swashbuckler Sorcerer: Droconic Bloodline Warlock: Hexblade Wizard: Evocation.
I never understood why Draconic Bloodline Sorcerers were so popular. All you get is +3 AC and a breath attack (which is barely better than a cantrip). Divine Soul Sorcerers meanwhile get access to the entire Cleric spell list, a sizeable boost to healing output, and they get to fudge a saving throw each day (which can be super clutch)
@@trapical you don't get s bresth attack tho. You get +3 ac, +1 health per level, resistance to an element without using a spell slot (situational, but cool), extra damage on your specific elemental spells (which also means cantrips btw), flight without conentrarion or a spell slot... you really don't know what you are talking about if you say 'all you get' is +3 ac.
While it's not entirely clear in the RAW, I read Aura of the Guardian as you taking whatever damage the target would have taken *after any damage reduction takes place*. For example, a raging barbarian has resistance to slashing, bludgeoning, and piercing damage, so the damage they'd take is halved, thus I read AotG as you taking the exact amount they'd take, which would be half of the damage roll the same as the barbarian would. Similarly, if an ally is somehow vulnerable to damage, you would take that extra damage. The real reason we're using this isn't to make the barbarians and such last longer than they already do, its to keep the squishy allies alive because you can take what they can't. I love the idea of Redemption Paladin because it does what I refer to as a Reverse Cleric, where the baseline cleric is a spellcaster that can be of a divine calling that lets them be more melee, a paladin is a melee class that can take a divine oath to make them be in the front lines less. EDIT: A quick clarification, the damage on the original target is what's getting reduced/improved when it hits you, I read the limitation listed in the ability as you being unable to reduce the damage after it's been transferred to you. To use our raging barbarian example again, he's got resistance, so that sword attack gets halved, the damage is transferred to you, but you have Blade Ward up, which also gives resistance to the same damage. Unfortunately, you can't reduce the damage any further due to the stipulation in the aura, so you don't halve the damage again. Another example is the Heavy Armor Mastery feat which would reduce the damage of slashing, piercing, and bludgeoning damage by 3, that wont work for this damage. Possibly the biggest thing to mention is the Redemption Paladin's own capstone ability, neither effect activates from damage received by the Aura. You can't reduce the damage in any way, so your resistance doesn't matter, and the target has to hit you with an attack, which isn't what's happening with the aura. You do not get to be some super counter shield for everyone in 30 ft., even though that'd be pretty awesome. There is one thing to note though, it only says it can't be reduced in any way, if you've been made vulnerable to that damage type then that means you CAN take extra damage still.
1. Battle master 2. Tempest 3. First couple levels of gloom stalker 4. Way of the open hand 5. Totem warrior 6. Assassin 7. Oath of ancients 8. The way of shadows 9. Ek 10. Death domain
I made an AL goblin scout/beast master ranger (had a goblin certificate). It was a very fun combination. He would use his bow while using his animal companion as a mount.
My Top 10...word of warning I haven't played them all yet (only my number 1 so far has been played) 10. Artillerist Artificer 9. Bladesinger Wizard 8. Assassin Rogue 7. Death Cleric 6. Beastmaster Ranger 5. Moon Druid 4. Vengeance Paladin 3. Forge Cleric 2. Hexblade Warlock 1. Totem Barbarian
I see you like blasters a lot with those choices. :) I was thinking about putting a top 10 subclasses list of my own together, but that would take quite awhile to narrow things down to just ten, so instead will just give my favorite subclass for each class which is much easier to do, and will just do them in alphabetical order. Barbarian: Path of the Ancestral Guardian. In my opinion the best tank in the game, can just take the attention of enemies and be able to handle it as well. Bard: College of Swords. I just really like the battle bard concept, and swords seems to do it much better than valor, even though I find it really weird that it doesn't give you proficiency with shields (it's literally the only instance in the entire game where something gives you proficiency with medium armor but not shields). Cleric: Nature Domain. This was a really close call for me between forge and nature, but in the end I have slight preference for nature for how it lets you make a solid front line character that only needs con and wis to do everything since they can get Shillelagh along with heavy armor. The channel divinity is a bit situational, but every other ability of the sub class is great. Druid: Circle of Shepherd. This one simply comes down to epitomizing the druids jack of all trades theme, the subclass abilities really help you no matter what role you want to do, the spirits give you buffed healing and great buffs to your party, you get really solid buffs to your summons whether you need more bodies to take hits or to deal them out. The 14th level ability is likely not going to come into play often, but it can save you from tpk when it does. Fighter: Eldritch Knight. This was another really tough choice to make, I really WANT to like arcane archer, but it just gets such limited number of their trick arrows per rest, and battle master is great but doesn't really have that much versatility, whereas eldritch knight is amazing, I especially like to focus on reaction and bonus action spells as much as possible to get the most out of it, like the first two spells I take are always going to be Absorb Elements and Shield. But even just taking these kind of defensive spells will make you really hard to take down since you still have all the standard fighter features too, plus likely very high base ac. Monk: Kensei. This was a close call between kensei and drunken master, but in the end, kensei wins out simply because drunker master is so reliant on spending ki for their abilities, whereas kensei gives amazing abilities that don't require any ki, and then you have option to spend some ki to increase your damage output when it really matters. Paladin: Oath of Conquest. Paladin is probably my least favorite class in 5e, mainly because it just feels like all you ever do is hit things + divine smite. But oath of conquest at least has some nice synergies going with the frightened condition, and multiple ways to apply it, and I like the fallen aasimar as race for it to get yet another way to frighten things. In addition I also really like the oath spells that conquest gets which is big deal for me since one of the things that really turns me away from paladin in general is how incredibly lame their base spell list is. Ranger: Beastmaster. No it is not a joke, I actually really like Beastmaster and I think it is the most under-rated subclass in the whole game, it starts a bit slow, but once you get your extra attack feature you will be doing great, and then once you get bestial fury your effectively making 3 attacks per round (4 if you use one of the many ways to also get a bonus action attack), my favorite beast companion is the Flying Snake, which does very respectable damage, has great manueverability, and most importantly has the flyby ability which lets it stay out of harms way in most cases so it's low hitpoints aren't that much of an issue. Rogue: Arcane Trickster. This is a pretty easy one, the base kit of rogue is already amazing, so you don't so much need more abilities to make it better, but instead getting more versatility and options is great, and what better way to do that than becoming a spellcaster? There is also couple specific spells that I think arcane trickster rogue can utilize better than probably anyone else, those being Booming Blade and especially Shadow Blade (which btw is an illusion). Both of these will significantly increase your damage output, plus who doesn't like all the shennanigans you can do with invisible mage hand? Sorcerer: Draconic. To be honest, I don't really like any of the sorcerer subclasses, I wish there would be something like fiend or fey bloodline, and I am kind of surprised there isn't a fiend one really, taking in that tieflings are core race... but that aside, of the options that are there, draconic is the one I dislike the least, as every feature it gives is at least useful, even if not most exciting. Warlock: Great Old One. From my least favorite class to my most favorite, I have played so many warlocks but I am just a big sucker for eldritch horror, and as such, Great Old One speaks to me in a very personal level. It has so much flavor too, and many warlock spells have kind of this old god theme to it, most obvious being Hunger of Hadar, which just happens to be one of my favorite spells in the game, but it's not just flavor that I like this subclass for, it also gives some great features, starting up with fricking telepathy at level 1, Entropic Ward is the weakest ability and it's rather meh, then at 10th level you gain straight up immunity to attempts to read your mind, resistance to psychic damage, which is very rare resistance indeed, and as a bonus also do damage back to anyone who does psychic damage to you for free. And then at 14th level you get to make your own permanent slaves, what's not to like in that? The bonus spells you get from GOO are also quite nice, with my personal favorite being Evard's Black Tentacles, which is kind of like better version of Hunger of Hadar. Wizard: War Magic. This is a very easy choice for me, first of all, unlike almost all the other wizard subclasses, it doesn't shoehorn you into using spells of one school, but instead gives abilities that are always going to be great, no matter what spells you want to use, boosts your initiative, ac, and saving throws, all things you will always be happy to have, and you get some small damage boosts as well, though in general, I prefer to have my wizards focus more on controlling the battle and let the martials dish out the damage.
My top 10 (I'll only do 1 subclass per class) 10. Wild Fire Druid (Haven't gotten to play it, but would love to) 9. Valor Bard (I know it sucks but I still like it) 8. Swashbuckler Rouge (Who doesn't want to be a pirate?) 7. Shadow Monk (Ninjas, of course they are better then Pirates) 6. Wild Magic Sorcerer (Spin the wheel!) 5. Life Domain Cleric (Someone has to be the healer…. guess it's me) 4. Artillerist Artificer (Bring out the big guns!!!) 3. Totem Barbarian (Unleash your inner furry) 2. Warlock (….) 1. Ancients Paladin (All-around a great sub-class)
My favorites are any subclass that gets their main gimmick within the first 5 levels: Moon Druids, Hexblade Warlock, almost all Clerics, most Paladins, Totem Barbarian, Divine Wizard, etc.
Really enjoyed this video! It's fun to hear which are somebodys favorite subclasses, because that tells a lot about their playstyle. I'd gladly listen to more subclass related videos and perhaps some strategies to go with them.
Ancients paladin's the best. With Elder Champion you can bonus action cast Destructive Wave, force your enemy to roll the save with dissadvantage and lvl4 smite him twice with advantage because he's prone
Ultimate out of combat subclass? Knowledge Domain Cleric! Any skill, any tool, you're proficient. Do Jedi Mind Trick. Divine all the knowledge. See the future. It's such a beast of a utility subclass.
Personally, I think the Scout rogue makes a better ranger than the ranger does! This is especially true with the new animal Warrior sidekick now available in Tasha's. However, I also think multiclassing it with the Gloom Stalker, Horizon Walker or the new Fey Wanderer ranger subclasses is a great idea too. If you start out rogue, you get ALL of the rogue's skill proficiencies PLUS an extra ranger proficiency PLUS Survival and Nature. You don't even have to play a half-elf to be a ridiculous skill monkey. ;) And you know, when I FIRST opened the 5e PH and looked through it, I read through all the classes, focused on the College of Lore bard, and said to myself, THIS is the best class in the game, bar none. I'm happy to say that nothing published since has changed my opinion ... though I'm always looking to optimize through a one-or-two-level dip into another class, and for that, well ... there really is NOTHING better than a couple of levels of Hexblade warlock, is there? Medium Armor + Shield means you don't need a DEX above 14, especially since you can use your CHA score for weapon attacks, and you can get Eldritch Blast (based on CHA) for ranged attacks ... plus add your CHA mod to every attack if you go to level 2. So you get almost ALL of the really good benefits of College of Valor along with the massive benefits of the College of Lore. AND you get access to the Shield spell, which sucks when you can only use it with your (max 5) warlock spell slots, but KICKS @SS when you can use it with a bard's many, many 1st-level spell slots. So yeah ... I'm a HUGE fan of the Hexblade warlock too, but to be honest, ONLY as a one-or-two-level dip (well, maybe three for a paladin, so you can go Pact of the Blade and use CHA as your attack mod on ANY weapon). Can you even IMAGINE how tanky a paladin X/warlock 3 combo with access to the Shield spell and heavy armor could be?
Great video. Scout seems kind of meh to me. I think all the other Rogue subclasses get much better features. It could use a bonus climbing or swimming speed.
Is using the magic missile spell with the empowered evocation feature really abuse if it was designed to be that way? It’s not wizards of the coast fault if players and DMs have gotten used to playing the features they’ve designed incorrectly, especially after having tried to correct people.
Is this a list of the Top 10 'Best' subclasses? I would have to disagree with a few of these but here are my 10 in order the best way I can. 10. Totem (Bear) Barbarian 9. Gloom Stalker Ranger 8. Circle of the Moon Druid 7. Battlemaster Fighter 6. Hexblade Warlock 5. Oath of Ancients Paladin 4. Divine Soul Sorcerer 3. Grave Cleric 2. Lore Bard 1. Divination Wizard
I like your list! Here are mine 1. Divination Wizard 2. Lore Bard 3. Shadow Magic Sorcerer 4. Hexblade Warlock 5. Battlemaster Fighter 6. Arcane Trickster 7. Divine Soul Sorcerer 8. Oath of Vengeance Paladin 9. Circle of the Moon Druid 10. Gloomstalker Ranger
The difference between Quivering Palm and Touch of Long Death, is that you have to make and attack roll with quivering palm, where as Touch of Long Death says you merely need to touch them. I think it's a fair trade off, but I haven't had much opportunity to use either ability myself, so if anyone can dispute otherwise, I would very much like to know.
I love playing a hill dwarf evocation wizard that has put a lot of ASI into constitution to get HPs up. Allowed me to blast away up to 5 times the max level and still never drop dead due to the d12 rolls.
Some people argue over what counts as official, but seeing as they are written and released by a long time WotC employee I like several of the subclasses listed in the Plane Shift pdfs. Specifically the pryromancy sorcerer in plane shift Kaladesh, and the zeal and strength clerics in plane shift Amonkhet.
Thank you for posting the list in the comments. I don't want to wade through a long video (anything > 15 minutes is long). I did like this video even if I only watched a couple minutes.
A character I would like to play would be a conquest paladin with 2 levels dip into hexblade. Get maybe swords burst and eldritch blast for cantrip and Agonizing Blast and Grasp of Hadar/Eldritch Mind for invocations. Start with Paladin, that way you can focus on charisma and con while pulling people closer to be afected by your aura and smited to oblivion while having a decent option for long range and wearing freaking full plate. Grab a sword and a shield and you are good to go. Maybe not the greatest damage dealer, but a consistent one in my opinion, with options for every range and good AC and HP.
The one thing i hate about the Oath of Redemption paladin is they got rid of the base 16 AC if you have no armor and are not using a shield. To me this makes the whole flavor of this class giving up your armor and shield to redeem myself. I want to play a half orc one
Ahhhh I’d go Arcane Trickster rogue! Love the versatility, love having the rogue skill set while throwing a spell in here or there in creative situations. So fun and thematic
Hexblade also has the Eldritch Smite invocation which can knock an opponent prone with NO SAVE. It's great, and if you go ranged you can knock dragons out of sky )) (so I've heard, I'm a melee 'lock).
Not that Rogue Scout isn't good, but I do very much prefer Fighter Scout (and yes, for a character focused on archery, the Rogue Scout's ability to move away from trouble is great, but a wilderness Scout type in my mind really feels like they should be at least somewhat capable up close as well, which the Fighter's extra HP and Second Wind also provide). I think it does multiclasses quite well with some Rogue levels, but also begs for you to take the Martial Adept feat which ends up with a really nice range of uses for your Superiority Dice. (Tunnel Fighting if your DM doesn't instantly smite you for wanting to take it, has nice synergy, letting you use your Superiority Dice to avoid a hit/reduce it's damage while still letting you make AoO)
Before I start watching mine are swashbuckler, totem barbarian, evocation wizard, grave cleric, shadow monk, assassin rogue, Hexblade, shadow sorcerer, moon Druid, and eldritch knight not in order just spitballing some
I think you.cannot abuse magic missile with the Evocator feature, that one say that you apply the bonus to one roll of damage, and if i remember right Crawford explain that in the Sage advice, but.maybe i am missing something or i am confused with other feature. About the topic, i agree with most of the subclases, AND i am happy that not all people forgot the sword coast book, Way of the long death Is a so cool subclass
There's an old sage advice that basically tries to argue that because Magic missile says "simultaneously" then you roll one damage die and each magic missile deals that much damage, allowing you to multiply the Evocation damage.
I would agree with 60 percent of your choices only because I would have unearthed arcana in this list. Wish you would have put in the Artillerist from the Artificer class, it's one of the best Jack of all trades in the game. It's also my favorite character.
New viewer (^o^)/ Very interesting list. Glad to see another cleric/paladin enthusiast. (Though I lean more towards rogues and blasty mages, or anything that can reliably dish out utility abilities and DPS/DPT) If I had to pick my personal favorite subclasses I could only choose a handful of them because I haven't really gotten to be a player in many sessions mostly due to various schedule conflicts in the group I play with. For Cleric I like the Forge Domain as it does grant some extra hardiness on the battlefield and potential utility in social situations and downtime if materials are available. My personal favorite Wizard school is Transmutation, especially the way Liam O'Brien plays it on Critical Role and the Xanathar Transmutation spell: Maximillion's Earthen Grasp. While it is sadly a single-target control spell that also takes concentration to maintain, it does target the STR save which only bulky foes such as Giants, Ogres, or Trolls have a chance at shrugging off almost instantly Divine Soul Sorcerer is pretty nutty as it grants access to the entire Cleric spell list on top of the Sorcerer's allowing it to be a supportive-blasting hybrid class without multiclassing and allows access to the Fire Bolt cantrip if I'm not mistaken like you said you would probably change for the Light Domain Cleric. Lastly, Swashbuckler Rogue is a very fun subclass that I'm fairly certain was designed to piss off Rule-Strict DMs with how much it allows the character to practically glide and bounce across the battlefield with hardly any punishment.
I have a bit of an opinion on Warlock based on the fact that Hexblade is so popular and is considered the "fix" to warlock: Patrons shouldn't be the subclass, Pacts should be. Hear me out, nobody in their right mind picks Tome or Chain if you're a Hexblade, right? It's always Hexblade + Blade Pact and a few invocations that improve it like Thirsting Blade and Improved Pact Weapon. Why not merge Hexblade into Pact of the Blade, remove the shadowfell flavoring, and instead giving it Thirsting Blade at level 6 as an Extra Attack similar to Sword and Valar Bard? Now you can assign *any* patron to it and get a ton of flavor. Do the same with Tome and Chain, except since we don't have a subclass to go off of like Hexblade, either grab more of the invocations (don't forget to look at UA) or think about altering some other things instead to solve some other problems with the class, or rather, the spells "unique" to the class. Hey look, it's our good old friend Eldritch Blast, the thing any class can take a dip into warlock to take or just grab from Magic Initiate (Warlock), essentially giving any class a magical heavy crossbow that does multiple shots as you level up. The fact that it's recommended by literally everyone to consider taking a dip into warlock for this is a red flag to me. Here a couple ideas I've had to fix this: The first is to reduce the damage die to a d8, but make a baseline feature of the Tome Pact improve it back to a d10. This still makes it available for Level 1 and 2 warlocks but doesn't make it a stronger option than Fire Bolt. "Doesn't that kind of gimp the damage then?" Only at the first couple of levels, but it also makes you weigh in taking Blade or Chain instead. Agonizing Blast is still an invocation to take at level 2 to improve the damage a bit. Alternatively, just make it Force damage Fire Bolt, so instead of extra attack rolls as you level up, you just get the extra damage die, UNLESS you take Pact of the Tome which could have a baseline feature of changing that to the additional shots instead. Think of it like an ancient arcane secret that comes inside the Book of Shadows. You could also do the least popular option of just binding Eldritch Blast to the Tome. Warlock still has quite a few damaging cantrips, just update Agonizing Blast to "Agony" and make it work for all warlock cantrip damage. This still encourages multiclassing, but not just a 1 or 2 level dip, it should be the same amount of dip as every other class when considered for multiclassing. Also, remember, Wizards has added new Pact types before too, like with Pact of the Star Chain, which was interesting but, in my opinion, too specific. I read one person's attempt to fix the Warlock change it around from Star Chain to Mark, so that it can be flavored for the different patrons and represents something that is very fitting to a warlock in tattoos or brands, a common thing with cultists. So then what about the Patrons? Well, the additions to the spell lists wouldn't change, those are there to help give some flavor to you as a warlock, it's just that the patron becomes the secondary to the subclass rather than the thing that actually changes your playstyle. Patrons can still give their first feature too, as a gift from the patron. As for the rest of the features, either still give features at specific levels as they currently do, changing which levels those are, or instead we can have invocations for particular patrons. This way you can choose how you manifest your patron's gift rather than how you...can somehow not have to sleep anymore because you have a book. Can someone please explain why that's a thing? What's the moon have to do with Tome warlocks and why do they not have to sleep anymore? Anyway, allows you to not be bound to the specific features each patron had and choose other potential options instead (you know, like half of Undying, so you can still have that awesome undead patron and not feel like you got shafted). I personally look at invocations as asking your patron for power in specific forms in the first place, or in the case of GOO just weaving it into how you want while praying they don't notice you or the being so entwined into your mind that it knows what you want and grants it to you without you having to ask because you don't even know whom you're asking.
Urgh...sick of Hexblade getting all the warlock credit...It just lacks as much thematic options compared to other patrons...seems its hyped just for people wanting to pile on fight mechanic over story ideals. Also seems like its just a backdoor for wiz to butch up pact blade. honestly bored of anyone doing warlock they assume they can only do blade boon with hexblade....and secretly instead of the weapon big ups they want the great old one or archfeys fun story bits and extras. Hexblade is just a cool edge name slapped to a few minor extra skills that could have just as well been done with just adding more empowering blade invocations. That or make it its own class seeing as so many just multi-class to fighter or Pally anyway, this way other Warlock patrons would get the cred that they deserve more and hexblades over-hype would not curse the god name of the Warlock.
I must say it seemed strange (to me) that the grave cleric it's not even on the list. a subclass so strong that it allows you to make enemies vulnerable to all damage an attack at level 2, to cancel critics as a reaction at Lv6 and also heal your alley equal the hd of a creature that died in 60 feat of you. again, I find it odd that it hasn't even been considered
though my favorite character to play is a 2nd level paladin combined with a forge cleric because you get crazy amounts of bulk and can let loose a 4th level divine smite like its nothing
Surprised you chose to put evocation over divination, in my opinion divination is better (I don't like subclasses that are mostly centered around combat) but I see evocation being pretty strong in combat
Robert McGee they don’t but people don’t play them correctly. It’s a class people pick when they don’t understand the game and the clsss and subclass require you to know the game. So people are under the impression that they suck.
Robert McGee for example, advantage gives me you a plus five to passive and they add your prof to there already existing prof. So some animal companions have 20 their passive perceptions. Your party no longer has to worry about anyone sneaking up on them. Which if that’s bad then.... well you are just not very smart. But you know, I want a wolf or a panther. Arguably the least ultilty out of all animal companions. Oh and the snake gets blond sense and does a fuck ton of damage.
Conrad Korbol just take the alert feat and get +5 to initiative and have the added bonus of not ever being suprised. Druids can turn into the snake and have portable venom for the party and now is the rouges best friend. Pick Druid instead of Ranger because mechanically Rangers are the worst class in 5e. Beast master happens to be the worst subclass in all of fifth edition. UA Rangers however is mechanically strong and use it if you want to play ranger. The phb Ranger is the worst in 5e. The beast requires your action to attack and the beast dies in about 1 hit at later levels. Flavor wise I love this subclass and you do have points about people not playing them correctly. However this is true for all classes not just Ranger. I like the class and if you like it great but mechanically it is weak.
Robert McGee Choose giant poisonous snake. It does about 14 DPR, more than most classes at level 3. Pick two weapon fighting and you will do about 23.175 DPR at levels 5-10. Level 11 you will be doing about 42.2 DPR. This is without spells or feats. These numbers include miss chance and save chance.
My favorite subclass is oath of conquest paladin. It has a strong narrative theme in fear-based control that really comes to life on the table through its mechanics, especially aura of conquest and it's channel divinity conquering presance. It solves some of the few problems with paladin in that it encourages you to actually spread your spell slots throughout the day instead of hoarding them, underperforming in attrition fights, only to nova exciting boss encounters away before the fight starts. It also forces you to emphasize charisma to land your frighten effects, which makes your other offensive paladin spells more interesting and effective. It reduces the pressure on paladins to multiclass both by making higher level paladin spells more attractive and by making some of the higher level paladin features more valuable - aura of courage in particular is just a ribbon for most paladins, but for a conqueror it's a useful ability that makes your Fear cones easier or position around allies. It solves a problem of the otherwise cool frighten debuff in that it can cause enemies to scatter, triggering additional combats or adding enemies to later encounters after ther rally, but with aura of conquest the enemies you frighten can't run away. It solves a problem of dark and edgy parties in that it's hard to narratively justify an antihero tank due to the inherently selfless nature of the tanking role, but conquest pulls it off by recontextualizing tanking as bullying enemies rather than protecting friends. It solves a problem of playing a dark edgy character in an otherwise traditionally heroic party in that conquest, while not nice, isn't inherently murderous by default, preferring to intimidate enemies into submission rather than murder anything that crosses them. Conquest isn't perfect. A heavy emphasis on frighten effects can be frustrated by enemies with frighten immunity, or legendary saves, or spell resistance, or just strong wisdom saves, and such enemies do get more common as you level. But when confronted with such enemies you do have your strong parent class features to fall back on, including divine smite, plus a decent if dull alternative channel divinity and some useful oath spells, most notably spiritual weapon. And the heavy emphasis on charisma does make the split attack stat problem of the paladin worse. So while Oath of Conquest is my favorite subclass, I'm not sure I'd call it the best one. But you do mention how good hexblade is as a one level dip, and that dip is especially nice for Conquerors, solving the split attack issue, giving you an additional damage option to pull out against fear immune foes in hexblade's curse, and adding some nice spell options in Booming Blade and Shield, particularly when combined with the War Caster feat, and the extra 1st level spell slot per short rest does a lot for any paladin's stamina over the course of an adventuring day, and conqueror is no exception. The dip is far from necessary to make conqueror work, and missing out on the amazing capstone is a real sacrifice in any game that goes to level 20, and you probably don't want to take the dip early, not before extra attack, aura of protection, aura of conquest, maybe even Fear at kevel 9 if you can afford the delay. But yeah, conquest with a 1 to 2 level hexblade dip coming in around level 10 is pretty great and a lot of fun.
Oh man, Conq Paladin is my fav subclass too. I agree with everything you've said here. However, I prefer a level 3 dip into Hexblade Warlock to get the Pact of the Blade in order to enable two-handed pact weapons, opening up the halberd and the glaive as options. You know what comes next. Oh, and to complete the package, be a Fallen Aasimar. F E A R M E
I like to flavor the Accursed Specter ability as the kill needed to activate it providing the spirit within the sword the energy needed to manifest a weak avatar for itself. ‘‘Tis what I do anyway.
Is no one going to mention the Ancestral Guardian barbarian?? I know I’m biased, but it really makes the barbarian such a tank rather than a damage dealer. It was great with rogues where I could turn the damage they take into practically nothing once per round
I don't think it matters for Ambush Master if you go first, everyone gets a go at the creature. A lot of other effects end when it's the creature's turn, those are annoying specially when their turn is right after yours. A crossbow expert rogue with a hand crossbow could get a bonus attack too.
I definitely found this useful and would also like to see a top 10 races (in general) and i bet one of the races is gonna be the elf cause of the amount of different subraces they have, at the very least every game I've played or dm'ed at has had some sort of elf or half elf...
is there really that much of a difference between spell attacks and saving throw based spells? I don't see how there would be much a difference if you try to beat their AC or if they try to beat your spell DC
Hi, can you make Vladimir´s spells for 5e? I´m playing a Blood Mage Wizard v1 in 5e. I´d like to incorporate some abilities of Vladimir to my character (spells) Q: some kind of vampiric touch at distance W: i guess a mix between posion cloud and vamp touch E: this one is easier, its aoe dmg (loosing life) R: mmmmm contagion? xD hahaha Please Master Nerd, help me! I need help to refine this without being OP...
The fact that Battle Smith Artificer isn't on here is sickening. By 5th level, you can have: A sword that does 1d8+5 damage, and you can attack twice. Take the sentinel feat with Variant Human and you get to attack any guys that attack your dog (which should be right next to you at all times). You can use steele defender's reaction to impose disadvantage on attacks against you. You can use your bonus action to have steel defender attack other enemies (consider coating his metallic teeth in posion, effectively dealing 4d6 damage from a bite). You can still cast spells, can replicate magic items, can gain proficiency in alchemist supplies (perhaps some potions of oil and taking create bonfire cantrip). Let's not forget the fact that you're getting almost 22 AC by 5th level in medium armor if you use studded leather with enhanced defense and use a repulsion shield. Your sword should be an enhanced sword, allowing you to use your intelligence modifier (with the right set up, it should be either 18 or 19 by 5th level). AND you can get homunculus servant mounted to your shoulder, giving you 3 turns where you can push an enemy back by 10 feet with homnculus servants force damage (you can always make this a flyer by 10th level and equip it with horn of blasting by taking a tinkerer and having it play music into the attached horn, and taking clan craftsman can let you make a bunch of these little spares for this guy, and getting an indestructible gem like a diamond makes it literally impossible to not have one all the time). Let's not forget that you can use a metal javelin with a bead of fireball attached to the front and you can cast catapult on it with returning weapon infusion, dealing 12d8+4 damage (PER TURN). By 11th level? Snare grenades. Granted, you can alwats go artillerist and run a small character like rock gnome or dwarf and use your cannon as an armor, or a barrier, take a heavy crossbow and sharpshooter and slap repeating weapon on that bad boy to ignore the reloading mechanic. And alchemist? Haven't experimented too much with that... Yet.
@@NerdImmersion I'll admit that it requires a certain kind of player, but a very creative player can absolutely abuse the system. You can even run 14th level Necromancer and 6th level Artificer and now you have an army of the undead. Artificer is one of the best tank dps classes in the game. Running it almost seems unfair at times. You're constantly able to impose disadvantage and you're able to attack 5 times in a single round. Get some gear that can cast counterspell and you're a pain in the ass to deal with. You have flash of genius for saving throws and you have spell storming item for catapult javelins. The creative possibilities are endless, but then again, almost any class can be busted. I was helping a buddy yesterday with his Paladin build going mounted combatant route, and it seems pretty narly of a build.
Oath of vengeance paladin is the best. Paladin spells don’t matter, all their spell slots are for is extra damage. Especially since most their spells are underwhelming
I would pay money to see one shots, or short games at different tiers of play with good players playing all of D&D’s subclasses so I could see how they look “in action.”
Problem I have is the narrative way to make it work. I once made a barbarian NPC that followed the party as they lack a frontline tank. I made him a Path of the Ancestral Guardian. He was a Orc that had been kicked out of the tribe because he was a raging alcoholic and rather then smithing new weapons, drank on the job. He was Path of the Ancestral Guardian because his father was killed in a raid the group have had in a different campaign, and his father came and protected him as he was raging. I just do not find the subclass interesting enough even knowing those resistences.
Rather than a top 10 I'd love to see a top subclass of every class list, since a few classes aren't represented here
There is only like 2 classes with 10+ subclasses I think
I think they meant the top subclass that each class has, not ten sub classes for each
@@julianlastname5730 yes that's what I meant
@@jordanlindsey4299 Aye, there are so many ways to roll. Hell, the Samurai subclass itself has people going:
1. DPS
2. Tanky McBlitztank
3. DEX Samurais (finesse weapons, dueling, archery, you name it).
0.5: Samurais have used an array of weapons such as katanas, shurikens (so it is said), wakizashis (shortswords that along with a katana would form a set, as you see nowadays, sometimes used to parry so the samurai could then trade it for their katana), longbows, nodachis (swords that are Japanese claymores, refer to Sephiroth as an example of sorts), tantos (Japanese equivalents of daggers used for last resorts, ceremonies and decorations, or even the rite of seppuku, which is honorable suicide over a disgraceful death at the hands of the enemy), naginatas (bladed pole weapons that focuses on slashing), yari (Japanese variant of the spear)...
And this is just a subclass, what's to say of the other subclasses?
he paly and cleric nuts
Would be interested to see a side by side of your favorite and least favorite subclass for every single class.
That could be a fun series, I'll add it to my list
Definitely interested in this or just a top 10 least favorite subclasses.
that's a good idea. We could see his thoughts on the mechanical execution
@@NerdImmersion it might also be fun to see your top ten "roleplay-able" classes. There are a ton of mechanically weak classes that get a ton of fun abilities and have stuff baked in
10: Hexblade Warlock. I actually prefer a Tome Celestial Warlock that snags Shillelagh. Booming Blade and Green-Flame Blade, but I honestly can't deny how effective it is to make Charisma your sole offensive attribute that you can melee attack twice with.
9: Zealot Barbarian. The smite like Rage is heavenly, and the last feature that lets you be "Man literally too angry to die". And even if you do die, you're pretty easy to get revived at a temple.
8: Arcane Trickster Rogue. Being able to Mage Hand your thieves tools is good, being able to naturally take Booming Blade or Green-Flame Balde is great, playing the long haul and getting the Invisibility spells is downright amazing.
7: Ancients Paladin. The usual smite machine, but you're basically taking this for Aura of Warding.
6: Moon Druid. I actually prefer Land, Wildfire, Shepard and Dreams, but I cannot deny the absolute potency of the Wild Shape that basically puts you on par with the melee player characters without even needing to touch your spell slots.
5: Kensei Monk. Somewhat lackluster on the surface, but if you manage to sharpen a Frostbrand or Flame Tongue weapon, its actually extremely potent.
4: Enchantment Wizard. Ramps up all the control spells, and once you get to double up the Power Word Pain, Stun and Kill spells, its kind of terrifying.
3: Wild Magic Sorcerer. A constant nightmare for everyone including yourself, but once you start getting its other features (namely controlled chaos) its actually really solid.
2: Sword Bard. Basically the ultimately flex, as it turns your skill expertise full spellcaster into a very decent melee combatant
1: Light Cleric. Praise the sun, for Radiance of the Dawn does amazing area damage without friendly fire, recharges per short rest, and actually scales in damage with level. If you manage to play in Ravnica, the Boros Guild Spell list lets you take Firebolt. Praise be.
YES! SWORD BARD!!!
Could I get an example of how Swords bard can be utilized? Like 2 pala 18 sword bard, hold person > steel wind strike. When I go bard I'm always tempted to go lore bard purely cuz of peerless skill + early spiritual weapon/spirit guardians+dodge combo usually outweighing the other options.
@@OnionJuiceEnjoyer If you're going to take Lore Bard for Spiritual Weapon, Spirit Guardians and the Dodge action, you might as well play a Cleric (which would give you Medium armor and Shields without needing to multiclass)
For the most part, once you start theorycrafting level 18 or level 20 stuff, everything's basically already broken, and it kind of detracts from the journey required to get there.
I will lightly say that level 1-3 is a nightmare, because you're trying to build a half combat character before your subclass kicks in. Faerie Fire is your mob support spell, which will help everyone weapon attack down a bunch of enemies. Once you hit level 3, enjoy the medium armor, Shatter really is your best spell for damage, and Two-Weapon Fighting is technically better because it is more than possible to run out of Bardic Inspiration now that its tied to Blade Flourish. You also get Expertise, which is well spent on being the face of the party for Persuasion and Deception rolls. I'd recommend ASI for Charisma to better flex the skills and spellcasting.
Once you get to level 5, you can get your Bardic Inspiration back on a short rest - which gels extremely well with a short rest party. Hypnotic Pattern is nothing to sneeze at though, provided you use it to stall a large enough group of enemies. Level 6 brings Extra Attack, which is good (though perhaps not as uber efficient as Spiritual Weapon + Spirit Guardians) so you're largely at the mercy of what magic weapons your DM hands out. It might be worthwhile to Multiclass into Hexblade Warlock so you can solely rely on Charisma, and get the Shield spell. I could continue down that rabbit hole for Invocations (Agonizing Blast and Improved Pact Weapon) or for Pact of the Blade, but at that point you'd probably be better served making a Hexblade Warlock from the start. (Neither do I want to lock out getting the highest level of Magical Secrets or stalling higher level spell progression.) Levels 7, 8, and 9 aren't too glamorous besides Greater Invisibility, which will let you swing your weapons for profit.
Level 10 is the biggest power jump - Magical Secrets. Here, you pick Find Greater Steed and either Guardian of Nature, or Haste. Using either on yourself applies it to your steed, and both have significant merit. Guardian of Nature lets you use the Beast function on your steed for a significant improvement for Multiattack steeds, and gives you the option of either. Haste is kind of insane as it gives extra attacks, added AC, doubled speed, etc, to both your already fast steed and yourself. Technically, a Lore Bard can pull this off too, but Medium Armor and Extra Attack make this combo work better. Second round of Expertise can go into the party's week spot, though I prefer to take Animal Handling for steed synergy, and Perception if the Bard is diving first and fast into unknown territory.
From then on, besides True Seeing, Magical Secrets are the only thing worth emphasizing. At Level 14, Magical Secrets for Tenser's Transformation, any of the Investitures, Crown of Stars (combo for advantage with the Great Tree Guardian of Nature), or Heal are pretty good choices. Regenerate is also stupendously efficient when it heals you and your mount. Its also at level 14 that you get Master Flourish, letting use it without digging into your Bardic Inspiration, which is very nice.
At level 15, Mind Blank is good but situational, At level 17, Foresight and Invulnerability are extremely amusing choices for you and your mount. The last round of Magical Secrets is mainly to get Wish.
Overall though, much of this depends on what magic items are thrown your way, or whether you reach the level 10 milestone. Once you get Tenser's Transformation, the distinction between Lore Bard and Sword Bard gets much smaller. Spirit Guardian/Spiritual Weapon is hard to beat, granted, but in that case I'd go straight to my first pick - Light Cleric. Much better AC, access to Radiance of the Dawn and the Word of Radiance cantrip. Loses out on skill proficiency, expertise, Jack of All Trades and Bardic Inspiration, sure, but if damage is the main focus, Light Cleric is very much a high tier pick for that.
@@Gladerunner2113 Ah it's just to make those two spells work on CHA and also gain access to god tier skill rolls with expertise and peerless skiil (up to 82 persuasion roll). Pretty much like you said, like Cleric but with limited support spell list in return for skill and spell versatility, burst and AC if two paladin levels at the start.
Been trying to think of a way to make swords bard work over lore bard other than using it's extra attack for more paladin smites. I think it can definitely peak with a tenser's transformation + steel wind strike + smite combo, though hold person or haste would probably be better to not run out of juice.
Lore bard smite build would average 57 damage using 5th level slots to smite
Spirit guardians + spiritual weapons upcasted using 5th and 6th level slots would average 45 DPR
Lore bard smite build using hold person would average 114 damage using 5th level slots to smite
Swords bard using tenser would average 81 damage
Swords bard smiting with tenser whilst using flourish on a target under hold person would be pretty scary
Assuming all of this was done with flametongue for above for both cases
Swords bard would probably work better endgame when enemies have legendary resistances, though a synaptic static + cutting words + bane combination from lore bard is equally enticing for that up to -22 to hit. Though I guess tenser would still work with lore, I definitely learned a nice tactic here then
Surprisingly exceeded my expectations of pure bard when I did the math, didn't think they could break 80 DPR without multiclassing or the Animate objects spell
@@OnionJuiceEnjoyer I actually had to double check the validity of Steel Wind Strike + Smite, and apparently melee weapon attacks and melee spell attacks are discrete, separate entities - adn thus don't combo. If your DM doesnt know the distinction, you can probably make it happen, but thats the RAW for me for now.
As for the other number crunching, the main draw of my build centers around Tenser's Tranformation and Find Greater Steed, and eeking out as much Tenser 2d12 force damage with advantage attacks. The advantage doesnt extend to the Steed because they can't wield simple or martial weapons, but the potential of giving the steed Extra attack still results in a lot of strikes - only some made at advantage, but all of them are at Advantage once Foresight becomes available.
Though Lore Bard getting Spirit Guardians and Spiritual Weapon early, and still being able to attain the above combo is completely respectable. I'd say one side effect however, is that going Redemption Paladin (for the Persuasion Channel Divinity) does mean you have to subscribe to the tenets of that Oath. Additionally, the Lore Bard would require their musical instrument to cast spells, whereas the Sword Bard has the benefit of using their weapon as their focus. Probably worth the tradeoff for more skills and early secret spells I suppose.
"17th-level Light Clerics get--"
DEMONETIZED
My top 10 favourites (probably not the best, but the ones I find most fun):
10: College of Lore Bard
9: Swashbuckler Rogue
8: Inquisitive Rogue
7: Way of the Kensei Monk
6: Order Domain Cleric
5: College of Swords Bard
4: School of Divination Wizard
3: Artillerist Artificer
2: Divine Soul Sorcerer
1: Hexblade Warlock
Your picks are only good for combat and social pillars (but those are the most defined) and you don’t have any paladin subclasses.
But it’s a cool list and I can see why they are your favorites. Divine soul and hexblade are powerful for sure.
@@conradkorbol My bias is showing, I guess. I personally prefer combat and social interaction over exploration; I'm content to sit back and follow other players through the wilds/dungeon untill we find something to fight or talk to.
As for no paladin classes, I like paladins for a 2 level multiclass dip for some of my favourites on the list, but I don't find the class all that fun to play, myself. Same goes for barbarian, druid, and fighter [-grumbles incoherently about boring mary sues with pointy sticks-], which also didn't make the cut (Horizon Walker and Hunter Rangers were debatable includes, and both would likely end up on a top 15 list, and the only real exceptions to my meh for the exploration pillar). Of the classes that made the list, outside of the specific subclasses mentioned, clerics and wizards fare quite a bit lower for me. My 11-15 picks would likely include 2 rangers (as above) and 3 sorcerers (Draconic, Shadow, and Storm).
prophetisaiah08 I wasn’t judging you. Just offering my critique. My favorite pillars are social and exploration, but I love combat as well.
I think they are all fun. Paladin and ranger are my favorite classes, but the only class I haven’t enjoyed is cleric lol. I still need to play sorcerer, wizard, artificer, and monk.
I can see why you wouldn’t like the monk. Your character subclasses seem to be more support/dps than tank
Healing.
Also I enjoy all the classes on your list, but I like mastermind more than inquisitive.
I myself can see why you picked artificer, artillerist! Just having a couple of turrets following you around and maybe even a homunculus is alot of fun with plenty of ground control!
cleric of the forge for me, so useful for early and mid level play, with easy access to magic weapons and HEAT METAL
ah yes, heat metal, the world's best torture mechanic
Unless your games have a rule against 2 players using the same class (my games don't, except is the subclass is also the same), a very good 'last pick' type character is a healer feat thief. It's a good way of being able to play a rogue and still fill potential missing party roles like a healer, a secondary blaster with a bow, or a face depending on skill investment.
how would you go about building a healer rogue, cause the worry I have is the lack of charges on healer kits
@@GoblinLord when I played it myself, I never really had a shortage of healer kits, but it does depend on party size, how many times people go down and frequency of combats/short rests, as those are the limiting factors of the main combo. If you frequently short rest, the DM really like quickly knocking someone unconcious and have a big party, you will run out much quicker. So long as you stock up enough you will almost always have uses of them, and you will stock up as that is just what thieves do. Gotta stay on top of your rope, oil, ball bearing and caltrop supplies as well, might as well buy some more kits whenever you resupply any of those.
As far a build goes, I played a ranged shortbow rogue that always stayed about 30 ft away from combat, close enough to swoop in and heal or disrupt combat with other items, far enough away to easily duck for cover. The Mobile feat and a friend routinely casting Longstrider on me also really helped. If I would do a full professional build I would have probably taken 2 levels of ranger for zephyr strike, my own longstrider and the archery fighting style
That Way of the Long Death avoid death ability might be the most bonkers class feature I've yet seen.
The problem with it that just having it makes you want to not use your ki on anything else just so you have ki to spend on that just in case, so you usually end up just having lot of ki floating around and effectively wasted. Also the Zealot Barbarian still has better version of this ability which just flat out makes them not die as long as they are raging.
Klaital1 why not use both
Yeah but... until level 11 it's unquestionably the worst monk, and he even points out the poor design that you're just going to crush bugs or whatever to get your Temp HP. Compared to every other monk's 3rd and 6th level features it is just awful though
Ehem, Arch Druid, ehem
Honesty, picking my favorite subclass was hard but I eventually settled on Eldritch Knight Fighter, if only for the versatility and the fact that my two favorite classes are Wizard and Fighter.
Saving throw cantrips are good for front line/melee casters, which is what most Clerics will likely be. A ranged spell attack cantrip like Firebolt would have to be cast at a Disadvantage in melee. This is not a big problem for Wizards, because they shouldn't be fighting in melee, but disengaging and creating distance. A Cleric, with armor, shield and Spirit Guardians might still sometimes use Sacred Flame at longer ranges, but most of the time they will be using it in melee. So, while it's not the greatest cantrip, it offers flexibility, good for a front line support class and it leaves more room for utility cantrips, like Guidance and Mending.
Finally someone who shows some love for the oath of the ancients paladin! Every other TH-camr who reviews the paladin seems to write them off as some sort of gimmick or joke. But honestly it’s the only paladin that I can take seriously. Every other kind of paladin just evolves into crusader Memes.
yeah, i agree! i unabashedly think that paladins are the best designed class in 5e [bards a close second], and the ancients paladin is the strongest one we've gotten so far
Redemption, my boy. Well, at least the part about crusaders. I agree that Ancients is pretty dope.
As a first time dnd player my first character was an ancients paladin, they just seemed the best out of the bunch, glad I had the right hunch
Late to the party but ancients Paladin has really attractive spells and the ability to resist spells at 6th level makes it very worth your while, problem is the channel divinity which I’m not a fan of
Kurtis Leung Yeah the channel ability is pretty weak. I could think of maybe a few clever uses but that really is the worst part of the oath. Still I would argue that all of the other features make up for it.
I love the death monk because once you get to 11th level you can basically say I'm not done yet, and punch the BBEG in the face again because that is how you do it
Sean Wisniewski or u could stunning strike
since everyone else is ranking theirs, i figured i'd chime in and rank mine:
10: lore bard
9: lore bard
8: lore bard
7: lore bard
6: lore bard
5: lore bard
4: lore bard
3: lore bard
2: lore bard
1: four elements monk
Nice to see someone else who likes the Oath of Redemption Paladin!
Way of long death + warlock with soul cage =Your Soul Is Mine!
Shang tsung WINS!
@@rainbowslushy223 perfect
Fatality
Way of the Long Death is my favorite subclass, so it's nice to see someone acknowledge it!
I'm just starting a Long death Monk and was considering down the line dipping into grave cleric 🤔😁
@@martingfeller8835 Flurry of blows + bless = a good time
Mg favourite subclasses are:
Barbarian: Totem Warrior
Bard: College of Lore
Cleric: Grave Domain
Druid: Circle of the Shepherd
Fighter: Samurai
Rogue: Swashbuckler
Sorcerer: Divine Soul
Warlock: Great Old One
Wizard: Diviner
LOL I forgot monk.
I guess my favourite one it's kensai monk
Lol love how you just said "no" to the ranger
@@jasonandrews1770 I like all of the rangers in XGtE. That book solves so many problems.
@@Cloud_Seeker amen to that man. That book is a godsend. I just wish they would fix hunter and beast master. The ranger needs something that makes them the best with the bow rather than a fighter using their action surge
@@jasonandrews1770 I don't think that should be their strength. Being the best in the use of weapons IS the fighter. A ranger should be a hunter, a tracker. A ranger should be unparalleled when they are on the hunt for someone. That is why Gloomstalkers are best in hunting in the dark. That is why Monster Hunters are the best Witcher style characters. That is why Horizon Walker is the best plainshift hunters with portal and teleportation nonsense.
I think WoTC should double down on the Rangers ability to focus on a enemy and relentlessly hunt them instead of trying to take the roll of a fighter. Finding weak spots and using knowledge to figure things out about an enemy. I honestly think the Ranger is best made when you throw some Scout Rogue into the Ranger class. It makes you a hunter instead of a weak fighter. A scout Rogue can kite a melee fighter forever with enough open ground and when the fighter no longer have action surge.
This is a fun idea! I think my top 10 would be:
10. Monster Slayer Ranger
9. Ancestral Guardian Barbarian
8. Redemption Paladin
7. Sun Soul Monk
6. Swashbuckler Rogue
5. Storm Sorcerer
4. Forge Domain Cleric
3. Shadow Monk
2. Divination School Wizard
1. Celestial Warlock
Honourable Mentions would be Tempest Cleric,Vengeance Paladin, Arcane Archer, and Shadow Magic Sorcerer.
Would love more subclass videos :) honestly subclasses are my favorite thing about 5e. So like, anything on subclasses would be great for a vid. Which subclasses are the best/your fav for each class? How would you fix the ones u feel are underpowered or broken? What new style subclass would u like to c for each class? Anything like that is an instant add to my watch later for me. Great vid! Excited for more!
I liked the longer video, hearing you explain things thoroughly is great
Add Yuanti to that Oath of the Ancients Paladin to get resistance to magic on top of that crazy savingthrows and resistance to spell damage
Ooh, smart thinking
I've always been turned off by moon Druids but I love circle of the shepherd
Life from the Loamly I’ve been playing circle of the shepherd, I love it, super flavorful and good abilities
I'm multiclassing into Shepherd druid once I level up, it seems like a dope sublcass ^^
@@JayfroC it's so fun, summoning is great and the totems are super useful, a helpful tip I didn't realize at first is that EVERYONE you choose gets the bonus healing of your unicorn totem if you use a healing spell even if your target isnt in your totem range
@@nbeutler1134 yeah I just got word the campaign played mine in is starting back up and I'm looking forward to it for sure
I'm going Shepherd mainly for RP reasons. My character is an Ancestral Guardian barbarian, so I won't get that much out of the summoning aspect of the Shepherd subclass. I'm more focused on getting the Spirit Totem ability and going full spirit-channeling shaman warrior. Maybe it won't be an efficient multiclass idea in terms of optimization, but I'm all about that 'cool factor' lmao
Instead of giving a top 10, I'm gonna say my favorite of each class (excluding artificer as I never played those.)
Barbarian: Totem Warrior, particularly bear on level 3, eagle on 6 and either eagle or elk on 16.
Bard: Lore
Cleric: Storm
Druid: Dreams
Fighter: Eldritch Knight
Monk: Drunken Master
Paladin: Vengeance
Ranger: Gloomstalker
Rogue: Swashbuckler
Sorcerer: Droconic Bloodline
Warlock: Hexblade
Wizard: Evocation.
I never understood why Draconic Bloodline Sorcerers were so popular. All you get is +3 AC and a breath attack (which is barely better than a cantrip).
Divine Soul Sorcerers meanwhile get access to the entire Cleric spell list, a sizeable boost to healing output, and they get to fudge a saving throw each day (which can be super clutch)
@@trapical you don't get s bresth attack tho. You get +3 ac, +1 health per level, resistance to an element without using a spell slot (situational, but cool), extra damage on your specific elemental spells (which also means cantrips btw), flight without conentrarion or a spell slot... you really don't know what you are talking about if you say 'all you get' is +3 ac.
tempest domain works really well with the breath weapon for dragonborns.
Why haven’t I realized this!
D&D fandom: Bards are weak!
College of lore: Hold my tambourine
While it's not entirely clear in the RAW, I read Aura of the Guardian as you taking whatever damage the target would have taken *after any damage reduction takes place*. For example, a raging barbarian has resistance to slashing, bludgeoning, and piercing damage, so the damage they'd take is halved, thus I read AotG as you taking the exact amount they'd take, which would be half of the damage roll the same as the barbarian would. Similarly, if an ally is somehow vulnerable to damage, you would take that extra damage. The real reason we're using this isn't to make the barbarians and such last longer than they already do, its to keep the squishy allies alive because you can take what they can't. I love the idea of Redemption Paladin because it does what I refer to as a Reverse Cleric, where the baseline cleric is a spellcaster that can be of a divine calling that lets them be more melee, a paladin is a melee class that can take a divine oath to make them be in the front lines less.
EDIT: A quick clarification, the damage on the original target is what's getting reduced/improved when it hits you, I read the limitation listed in the ability as you being unable to reduce the damage after it's been transferred to you. To use our raging barbarian example again, he's got resistance, so that sword attack gets halved, the damage is transferred to you, but you have Blade Ward up, which also gives resistance to the same damage. Unfortunately, you can't reduce the damage any further due to the stipulation in the aura, so you don't halve the damage again. Another example is the Heavy Armor Mastery feat which would reduce the damage of slashing, piercing, and bludgeoning damage by 3, that wont work for this damage.
Possibly the biggest thing to mention is the Redemption Paladin's own capstone ability, neither effect activates from damage received by the Aura. You can't reduce the damage in any way, so your resistance doesn't matter, and the target has to hit you with an attack, which isn't what's happening with the aura. You do not get to be some super counter shield for everyone in 30 ft., even though that'd be pretty awesome.
There is one thing to note though, it only says it can't be reduced in any way, if you've been made vulnerable to that damage type then that means you CAN take extra damage still.
I can totally relate to being the nice guy who chooses his class last, but it’s with wizard for me.
1. Battle master
2. Tempest
3. First couple levels of gloom stalker
4. Way of the open hand
5. Totem warrior
6. Assassin
7. Oath of ancients
8. The way of shadows
9. Ek
10. Death domain
I made an AL goblin scout/beast master ranger (had a goblin certificate). It was a very fun combination. He would use his bow while using his animal companion as a mount.
Here are mine
1. Divination Wizard
2. Lore Bard
3. Shadow Magic Sorcerer
4. Hexblade Warlock
5. Battlemaster Fighter
6. Arcane Trickster
7. Divine Soul Sorcerer
8. Oath of Vengeance Paladin
9. Circle of the Moon Druid
10. Gloomstalker Ranger
Currently wrapping up an Out of the Abyss game where I played as a Hexblade. Lots of fun, and I highly recommend it to anyone interested in a Warlock.
My Top 10...word of warning I haven't played them all yet (only my number 1 so far has been played)
10. Artillerist Artificer
9. Bladesinger Wizard
8. Assassin Rogue
7. Death Cleric
6. Beastmaster Ranger
5. Moon Druid
4. Vengeance Paladin
3. Forge Cleric
2. Hexblade Warlock
1. Totem Barbarian
Are you trolling? I can't tell.
I love my Nature Paladin. The magic resistance has came in handy in the Mad Mage model.
I see you like blasters a lot with those choices. :) I was thinking about putting a top 10 subclasses list of my own together, but that would take quite awhile to narrow things down to just ten, so instead will just give my favorite subclass for each class which is much easier to do, and will just do them in alphabetical order.
Barbarian: Path of the Ancestral Guardian. In my opinion the best tank in the game, can just take the attention of enemies and be able to handle it as well.
Bard: College of Swords. I just really like the battle bard concept, and swords seems to do it much better than valor, even though I find it really weird that it doesn't give you proficiency with shields (it's literally the only instance in the entire game where something gives you proficiency with medium armor but not shields).
Cleric: Nature Domain. This was a really close call for me between forge and nature, but in the end I have slight preference for nature for how it lets you make a solid front line character that only needs con and wis to do everything since they can get Shillelagh along with heavy armor. The channel divinity is a bit situational, but every other ability of the sub class is great.
Druid: Circle of Shepherd. This one simply comes down to epitomizing the druids jack of all trades theme, the subclass abilities really help you no matter what role you want to do, the spirits give you buffed healing and great buffs to your party, you get really solid buffs to your summons whether you need more bodies to take hits or to deal them out. The 14th level ability is likely not going to come into play often, but it can save you from tpk when it does.
Fighter: Eldritch Knight. This was another really tough choice to make, I really WANT to like arcane archer, but it just gets such limited number of their trick arrows per rest, and battle master is great but doesn't really have that much versatility, whereas eldritch knight is amazing, I especially like to focus on reaction and bonus action spells as much as possible to get the most out of it, like the first two spells I take are always going to be Absorb Elements and Shield. But even just taking these kind of defensive spells will make you really hard to take down since you still have all the standard fighter features too, plus likely very high base ac.
Monk: Kensei. This was a close call between kensei and drunken master, but in the end, kensei wins out simply because drunker master is so reliant on spending ki for their abilities, whereas kensei gives amazing abilities that don't require any ki, and then you have option to spend some ki to increase your damage output when it really matters.
Paladin: Oath of Conquest. Paladin is probably my least favorite class in 5e, mainly because it just feels like all you ever do is hit things + divine smite. But oath of conquest at least has some nice synergies going with the frightened condition, and multiple ways to apply it, and I like the fallen aasimar as race for it to get yet another way to frighten things. In addition I also really like the oath spells that conquest gets which is big deal for me since one of the things that really turns me away from paladin in general is how incredibly lame their base spell list is.
Ranger: Beastmaster. No it is not a joke, I actually really like Beastmaster and I think it is the most under-rated subclass in the whole game, it starts a bit slow, but once you get your extra attack feature you will be doing great, and then once you get bestial fury your effectively making 3 attacks per round (4 if you use one of the many ways to also get a bonus action attack), my favorite beast companion is the Flying Snake, which does very respectable damage, has great manueverability, and most importantly has the flyby ability which lets it stay out of harms way in most cases so it's low hitpoints aren't that much of an issue.
Rogue: Arcane Trickster. This is a pretty easy one, the base kit of rogue is already amazing, so you don't so much need more abilities to make it better, but instead getting more versatility and options is great, and what better way to do that than becoming a spellcaster? There is also couple specific spells that I think arcane trickster rogue can utilize better than probably anyone else, those being Booming Blade and especially Shadow Blade (which btw is an illusion). Both of these will significantly increase your damage output, plus who doesn't like all the shennanigans you can do with invisible mage hand?
Sorcerer: Draconic. To be honest, I don't really like any of the sorcerer subclasses, I wish there would be something like fiend or fey bloodline, and I am kind of surprised there isn't a fiend one really, taking in that tieflings are core race... but that aside, of the options that are there, draconic is the one I dislike the least, as every feature it gives is at least useful, even if not most exciting.
Warlock: Great Old One. From my least favorite class to my most favorite, I have played so many warlocks but I am just a big sucker for eldritch horror, and as such, Great Old One speaks to me in a very personal level. It has so much flavor too, and many warlock spells have kind of this old god theme to it, most obvious being Hunger of Hadar, which just happens to be one of my favorite spells in the game, but it's not just flavor that I like this subclass for, it also gives some great features, starting up with fricking telepathy at level 1, Entropic Ward is the weakest ability and it's rather meh, then at 10th level you gain straight up immunity to attempts to read your mind, resistance to psychic damage, which is very rare resistance indeed, and as a bonus also do damage back to anyone who does psychic damage to you for free. And then at 14th level you get to make your own permanent slaves, what's not to like in that? The bonus spells you get from GOO are also quite nice, with my personal favorite being Evard's Black Tentacles, which is kind of like better version of Hunger of Hadar.
Wizard: War Magic. This is a very easy choice for me, first of all, unlike almost all the other wizard subclasses, it doesn't shoehorn you into using spells of one school, but instead gives abilities that are always going to be great, no matter what spells you want to use, boosts your initiative, ac, and saving throws, all things you will always be happy to have, and you get some small damage boosts as well, though in general, I prefer to have my wizards focus more on controlling the battle and let the martials dish out the damage.
My top 10 (I'll only do 1 subclass per class)
10. Wild Fire Druid (Haven't gotten to play it, but would love to)
9. Valor Bard (I know it sucks but I still like it)
8. Swashbuckler Rouge (Who doesn't want to be a pirate?)
7. Shadow Monk (Ninjas, of course they are better then Pirates)
6. Wild Magic Sorcerer (Spin the wheel!)
5. Life Domain Cleric (Someone has to be the healer…. guess it's me)
4. Artillerist Artificer (Bring out the big guns!!!)
3. Totem Barbarian (Unleash your inner furry)
2. Warlock (….)
1. Ancients Paladin (All-around a great sub-class)
My TOP 10 favorite subclasses:
10: Warplate - Artificer homebrew Kibblestasty
9: Swashbuckler Rogue
8: Tempest Domain Cleric
7: Berserker Barbarian (nerfed Exhaustion variant)
6: Wild Mage Sorceror
5: Circle of the Sheperd Druid
4: Hunter Ranger (Revised + Class variant)
3: Crown Paladin
2: Battlemaster Fighter
1: Devotion Paladin
Dude your name is actually grammatically labyrinthine
My favorites are any subclass that gets their main gimmick within the first 5 levels: Moon Druids, Hexblade Warlock, almost all Clerics, most Paladins, Totem Barbarian, Divine Wizard, etc.
Really enjoyed this video! It's fun to hear which are somebodys favorite subclasses, because that tells a lot about their playstyle.
I'd gladly listen to more subclass related videos and perhaps some strategies to go with them.
Ancients paladin's the best. With Elder Champion you can bonus action cast Destructive Wave, force your enemy to roll the save with dissadvantage and lvl4 smite him twice with advantage because he's prone
Ultimate out of combat subclass? Knowledge Domain Cleric! Any skill, any tool, you're proficient. Do Jedi Mind Trick. Divine all the knowledge. See the future. It's such a beast of a utility subclass.
I think Lore Bard can give it a run for its money, tons of skill, and the charisma to make social interactions much easier ....
19:15 it could be really useful to pair the scout rogue with a battle master fighter, because the fighter can allow you to attack again on their turn.
Personally, I think the Scout rogue makes a better ranger than the ranger does! This is especially true with the new animal Warrior sidekick now available in Tasha's. However, I also think multiclassing it with the Gloom Stalker, Horizon Walker or the new Fey Wanderer ranger subclasses is a great idea too. If you start out rogue, you get ALL of the rogue's skill proficiencies PLUS an extra ranger proficiency PLUS Survival and Nature. You don't even have to play a half-elf to be a ridiculous skill monkey. ;)
And you know, when I FIRST opened the 5e PH and looked through it, I read through all the classes, focused on the College of Lore bard, and said to myself, THIS is the best class in the game, bar none. I'm happy to say that nothing published since has changed my opinion ... though I'm always looking to optimize through a one-or-two-level dip into another class, and for that, well ... there really is NOTHING better than a couple of levels of Hexblade warlock, is there? Medium Armor + Shield means you don't need a DEX above 14, especially since you can use your CHA score for weapon attacks, and you can get Eldritch Blast (based on CHA) for ranged attacks ... plus add your CHA mod to every attack if you go to level 2. So you get almost ALL of the really good benefits of College of Valor along with the massive benefits of the College of Lore. AND you get access to the Shield spell, which sucks when you can only use it with your (max 5) warlock spell slots, but KICKS @SS when you can use it with a bard's many, many 1st-level spell slots.
So yeah ... I'm a HUGE fan of the Hexblade warlock too, but to be honest, ONLY as a one-or-two-level dip (well, maybe three for a paladin, so you can go Pact of the Blade and use CHA as your attack mod on ANY weapon). Can you even IMAGINE how tanky a paladin X/warlock 3 combo with access to the Shield spell and heavy armor could be?
Great video. Scout seems kind of meh to me. I think all the other Rogue subclasses get much better features. It could use a bonus climbing or swimming speed.
New subscriber. Was looking for information on magic weapons and fell down a rabbit hole yesterday. Enjoying everything so far.
Is using the magic missile spell with the empowered evocation feature really abuse if it was designed to be that way?
It’s not wizards of the coast fault if players and DMs have gotten used to playing the features they’ve designed incorrectly, especially after having tried to correct people.
Is this a list of the Top 10 'Best' subclasses? I would have to disagree with a few of these but here are my 10 in order the best way I can.
10. Totem (Bear) Barbarian
9. Gloom Stalker Ranger
8. Circle of the Moon Druid
7. Battlemaster Fighter
6. Hexblade Warlock
5. Oath of Ancients Paladin
4. Divine Soul Sorcerer
3. Grave Cleric
2. Lore Bard
1. Divination Wizard
I like your list!
Here are mine
1. Divination Wizard
2. Lore Bard
3. Shadow Magic Sorcerer
4. Hexblade Warlock
5. Battlemaster Fighter
6. Arcane Trickster
7. Divine Soul Sorcerer
8. Oath of Vengeance Paladin
9. Circle of the Moon Druid
10. Gloomstalker Ranger
It's not a top ten "best" list. It's Ted's favorites.
Edit: that being said, div wizard 4 life!
The difference between Quivering Palm and Touch of Long Death, is that you have to make and attack roll with quivering palm, where as Touch of Long Death says you merely need to touch them. I think it's a fair trade off, but I haven't had much opportunity to use either ability myself, so if anyone can dispute otherwise, I would very much like to know.
Armorer Artificer
Totem barbarian
Lore Bard
Twilight Cleric
Moon Druid
Echo Fighter
Mercy Monk
Vengeance Paladin
Hexblade Warlock
Divine Soul Sorcerer
Bladesinger Wizard
I love playing a hill dwarf evocation wizard that has put a lot of ASI into constitution to get HPs up. Allowed me to blast away up to 5 times the max level and still never drop dead due to the d12 rolls.
Some people argue over what counts as official, but seeing as they are written and released by a long time WotC employee I like several of the subclasses listed in the Plane Shift pdfs. Specifically the pryromancy sorcerer in plane shift Kaladesh, and the zeal and strength clerics in plane shift Amonkhet.
Thank you for posting the list in the comments. I don't want to wade through a long video (anything > 15 minutes is long). I did like this video even if I only watched a couple minutes.
A character I would like to play would be a conquest paladin with 2 levels dip into hexblade. Get maybe swords burst and eldritch blast for cantrip and Agonizing Blast and Grasp of Hadar/Eldritch Mind for invocations. Start with Paladin, that way you can focus on charisma and con while pulling people closer to be afected by your aura and smited to oblivion while having a decent option for long range and wearing freaking full plate. Grab a sword and a shield and you are good to go. Maybe not the greatest damage dealer, but a consistent one in my opinion, with options for every range and good AC and HP.
Loved this video... Potential follow-up 10 worst subclasses though having all the ranger subclasses would be boring
True
The gloomstalker isn't too bad... Theirs just better...
@@general.catallion_8054 Horizon Walker isn't too bad either. Both subclasses actually make the ranger good.
Rangers have some cool subclasses...........for like 5 levels
I only hear the phb ones getting flack
The one thing i hate about the Oath of Redemption paladin is they got rid of the base 16 AC if you have no armor and are not using a shield. To me this makes the whole flavor of this class giving up your armor and shield to redeem myself. I want to play a half orc one
Ahhhh I’d go Arcane Trickster rogue! Love the versatility, love having the rogue skill set while throwing a spell in here or there in creative situations. So fun and thematic
I played a scout rogue for a while, and yes, they’re super fun. I hope you get the chance.
Hexblade also has the Eldritch Smite invocation which can knock an opponent prone with NO SAVE. It's great, and if you go ranged you can knock dragons out of sky )) (so I've heard, I'm a melee 'lock).
I've always hated the Moon Druids, i love Spore Druids, however i do think they were somewhat unfairly nerfed from their UA version.
Eh, I mostly like moon Druid cause it reminds me of tony tony chopper from one piece
It helps that Druid gives you healing spells
why do you hate moon druids? how else am i supposed to turn into a giant snek?
Not that Rogue Scout isn't good, but I do very much prefer Fighter Scout (and yes, for a character focused on archery, the Rogue Scout's ability to move away from trouble is great, but a wilderness Scout type in my mind really feels like they should be at least somewhat capable up close as well, which the Fighter's extra HP and Second Wind also provide). I think it does multiclasses quite well with some Rogue levels, but also begs for you to take the Martial Adept feat which ends up with a really nice range of uses for your Superiority Dice. (Tunnel Fighting if your DM doesn't instantly smite you for wanting to take it, has nice synergy, letting you use your Superiority Dice to avoid a hit/reduce it's damage while still letting you make AoO)
Before I start watching mine are swashbuckler, totem barbarian, evocation wizard, grave cleric, shadow monk, assassin rogue, Hexblade, shadow sorcerer, moon Druid, and eldritch knight not in order just spitballing some
I think you.cannot abuse magic missile with the Evocator feature, that one say that you apply the bonus to one roll of damage, and if i remember right Crawford explain that in the Sage advice, but.maybe i am missing something or i am confused with other feature.
About the topic, i agree with most of the subclases, AND i am happy that not all people forgot the sword coast book, Way of the long death Is a so cool subclass
There's an old sage advice that basically tries to argue that because Magic missile says "simultaneously" then you roll one damage die and each magic missile deals that much damage, allowing you to multiply the Evocation damage.
I would agree with 60 percent of your choices only because I would have unearthed arcana in this list. Wish you would have put in the Artillerist from the Artificer class, it's one of the best Jack of all trades in the game. It's also my favorite character.
My first d&d character was an oath of redemption paladin; a half elf con man who decided to go straight and use his talky skills for good
New viewer (^o^)/
Very interesting list. Glad to see another cleric/paladin enthusiast. (Though I lean more towards rogues and blasty mages, or anything that can reliably dish out utility abilities and DPS/DPT)
If I had to pick my personal favorite subclasses I could only choose a handful of them because I haven't really gotten to be a player in many sessions mostly due to various schedule conflicts in the group I play with.
For Cleric I like the Forge Domain as it does grant some extra hardiness on the battlefield and potential utility in social situations and downtime if materials are available.
My personal favorite Wizard school is Transmutation, especially the way Liam O'Brien plays it on Critical Role and the Xanathar Transmutation spell: Maximillion's Earthen Grasp. While it is sadly a single-target control spell that also takes concentration to maintain, it does target the STR save which only bulky foes such as Giants, Ogres, or Trolls have a chance at shrugging off almost instantly
Divine Soul Sorcerer is pretty nutty as it grants access to the entire Cleric spell list on top of the Sorcerer's allowing it to be a supportive-blasting hybrid class without multiclassing and allows access to the Fire Bolt cantrip if I'm not mistaken like you said you would probably change for the Light Domain Cleric.
Lastly, Swashbuckler Rogue is a very fun subclass that I'm fairly certain was designed to piss off Rule-Strict DMs with how much it allows the character to practically glide and bounce across the battlefield with hardly any punishment.
can you use the samurai thing to get sneak attack twice? they both require your bonus action.
I have a bit of an opinion on Warlock based on the fact that Hexblade is so popular and is considered the "fix" to warlock: Patrons shouldn't be the subclass, Pacts should be. Hear me out, nobody in their right mind picks Tome or Chain if you're a Hexblade, right? It's always Hexblade + Blade Pact and a few invocations that improve it like Thirsting Blade and Improved Pact Weapon. Why not merge Hexblade into Pact of the Blade, remove the shadowfell flavoring, and instead giving it Thirsting Blade at level 6 as an Extra Attack similar to Sword and Valar Bard? Now you can assign *any* patron to it and get a ton of flavor. Do the same with Tome and Chain, except since we don't have a subclass to go off of like Hexblade, either grab more of the invocations (don't forget to look at UA) or think about altering some other things instead to solve some other problems with the class, or rather, the spells "unique" to the class.
Hey look, it's our good old friend Eldritch Blast, the thing any class can take a dip into warlock to take or just grab from Magic Initiate (Warlock), essentially giving any class a magical heavy crossbow that does multiple shots as you level up. The fact that it's recommended by literally everyone to consider taking a dip into warlock for this is a red flag to me. Here a couple ideas I've had to fix this: The first is to reduce the damage die to a d8, but make a baseline feature of the Tome Pact improve it back to a d10. This still makes it available for Level 1 and 2 warlocks but doesn't make it a stronger option than Fire Bolt. "Doesn't that kind of gimp the damage then?" Only at the first couple of levels, but it also makes you weigh in taking Blade or Chain instead. Agonizing Blast is still an invocation to take at level 2 to improve the damage a bit. Alternatively, just make it Force damage Fire Bolt, so instead of extra attack rolls as you level up, you just get the extra damage die, UNLESS you take Pact of the Tome which could have a baseline feature of changing that to the additional shots instead. Think of it like an ancient arcane secret that comes inside the Book of Shadows. You could also do the least popular option of just binding Eldritch Blast to the Tome. Warlock still has quite a few damaging cantrips, just update Agonizing Blast to "Agony" and make it work for all warlock cantrip damage. This still encourages multiclassing, but not just a 1 or 2 level dip, it should be the same amount of dip as every other class when considered for multiclassing.
Also, remember, Wizards has added new Pact types before too, like with Pact of the Star Chain, which was interesting but, in my opinion, too specific. I read one person's attempt to fix the Warlock change it around from Star Chain to Mark, so that it can be flavored for the different patrons and represents something that is very fitting to a warlock in tattoos or brands, a common thing with cultists.
So then what about the Patrons? Well, the additions to the spell lists wouldn't change, those are there to help give some flavor to you as a warlock, it's just that the patron becomes the secondary to the subclass rather than the thing that actually changes your playstyle. Patrons can still give their first feature too, as a gift from the patron. As for the rest of the features, either still give features at specific levels as they currently do, changing which levels those are, or instead we can have invocations for particular patrons. This way you can choose how you manifest your patron's gift rather than how you...can somehow not have to sleep anymore because you have a book. Can someone please explain why that's a thing? What's the moon have to do with Tome warlocks and why do they not have to sleep anymore? Anyway, allows you to not be bound to the specific features each patron had and choose other potential options instead (you know, like half of Undying, so you can still have that awesome undead patron and not feel like you got shafted). I personally look at invocations as asking your patron for power in specific forms in the first place, or in the case of GOO just weaving it into how you want while praying they don't notice you or the being so entwined into your mind that it knows what you want and grants it to you without you having to ask because you don't even know whom you're asking.
Urgh...sick of Hexblade getting all the warlock credit...It just lacks as much thematic options compared to other patrons...seems its hyped just for people wanting to pile on fight mechanic over story ideals. Also seems like its just a backdoor for wiz to butch up pact blade. honestly bored of anyone doing warlock they assume they can only do blade boon with hexblade....and secretly instead of the weapon big ups they want the great old one or archfeys fun story bits and extras. Hexblade is just a cool edge name slapped to a few minor extra skills that could have just as well been done with just adding more empowering blade invocations. That or make it its own class seeing as so many just multi-class to fighter or Pally anyway, this way other Warlock patrons would get the cred that they deserve more and hexblades over-hype would not curse the god name of the Warlock.
I'm amazed there are dislikes for an preference video. I think monks are stupid, but you don't see me disliking the video because he likes them.
Solid choices, Oath of Ancients Paladin to me is pretty dam strong.
I must say it seemed strange (to me) that the grave cleric it's not even on the list. a subclass so strong that it allows you to make enemies vulnerable to all damage an attack at level 2, to cancel critics as a reaction at Lv6 and also heal your alley equal the hd of a creature that died in 60 feat of you. again, I find it odd that it hasn't even been considered
the Scout class of Rogue just seems so...unexciting. Am i missing something about this class that makes it so great?
though my favorite character to play is a 2nd level paladin combined with a forge cleric because you get crazy amounts of bulk and can let loose a 4th level divine smite like its nothing
Never watched before. Liked the vid👍
Great list, probably helped having similar opinions and favourites to each other.
Tempest cleric is my favorite class. Playing a centaur tempest cleric is awesome
Surprised you chose to put evocation over divination, in my opinion divination is better (I don't like subclasses that are mostly centered around combat) but I see evocation being pretty strong in combat
No Sorc, or Fighter, Subclasses? Any particular reasons?
Sorc sucks
Fighter just doesnt have that many outstanding subclasses.
Huge fan of the tempest cleric and I agree insect plague is an odd pick.
How did Beastmaster Ranger not make the list???
- Innkeeper Vase Odin
Cause they suck
Robert McGee they don’t but people don’t play them correctly. It’s a class people pick when they don’t understand the game and the clsss and subclass require you to know the game. So people are under the impression that they suck.
Robert McGee for example, advantage gives me you a plus five to passive and they add your prof to there already existing prof.
So some animal companions have 20 their passive perceptions. Your party no longer has to worry about anyone sneaking up on them.
Which if that’s bad then.... well you are just not very smart.
But you know, I want a wolf or a panther. Arguably the least ultilty out of all animal companions.
Oh and the snake gets blond sense and does a fuck ton of damage.
Conrad Korbol just take the alert feat and get +5 to initiative and have the added bonus of not ever being suprised. Druids can turn into the snake and have portable venom for the party and now is the rouges best friend. Pick Druid instead of Ranger because mechanically Rangers are the worst class in 5e. Beast master happens to be the worst subclass in all of fifth edition. UA Rangers however is mechanically strong and use it if you want to play ranger. The phb Ranger is the worst in 5e. The beast requires your action to attack and the beast dies in about 1 hit at later levels. Flavor wise I love this subclass and you do have points about people not playing them correctly. However this is true for all classes not just Ranger. I like the class and if you like it great but mechanically it is weak.
Robert McGee
Choose giant poisonous snake. It does about 14 DPR, more than most classes at level 3. Pick two weapon fighting and you will do about 23.175 DPR at levels 5-10. Level 11 you will be doing about 42.2 DPR.
This is without spells or feats. These numbers include miss chance and save chance.
My favorite subclass is oath of conquest paladin. It has a strong narrative theme in fear-based control that really comes to life on the table through its mechanics, especially aura of conquest and it's channel divinity conquering presance. It solves some of the few problems with paladin in that it encourages you to actually spread your spell slots throughout the day instead of hoarding them, underperforming in attrition fights, only to nova exciting boss encounters away before the fight starts. It also forces you to emphasize charisma to land your frighten effects, which makes your other offensive paladin spells more interesting and effective. It reduces the pressure on paladins to multiclass both by making higher level paladin spells more attractive and by making some of the higher level paladin features more valuable - aura of courage in particular is just a ribbon for most paladins, but for a conqueror it's a useful ability that makes your Fear cones easier or position around allies. It solves a problem of the otherwise cool frighten debuff in that it can cause enemies to scatter, triggering additional combats or adding enemies to later encounters after ther rally, but with aura of conquest the enemies you frighten can't run away. It solves a problem of dark and edgy parties in that it's hard to narratively justify an antihero tank due to the inherently selfless nature of the tanking role, but conquest pulls it off by recontextualizing tanking as bullying enemies rather than protecting friends. It solves a problem of playing a dark edgy character in an otherwise traditionally heroic party in that conquest, while not nice, isn't inherently murderous by default, preferring to intimidate enemies into submission rather than murder anything that crosses them.
Conquest isn't perfect. A heavy emphasis on frighten effects can be frustrated by enemies with frighten immunity, or legendary saves, or spell resistance, or just strong wisdom saves, and such enemies do get more common as you level. But when confronted with such enemies you do have your strong parent class features to fall back on, including divine smite, plus a decent if dull alternative channel divinity and some useful oath spells, most notably spiritual weapon. And the heavy emphasis on charisma does make the split attack stat problem of the paladin worse. So while Oath of Conquest is my favorite subclass, I'm not sure I'd call it the best one.
But you do mention how good hexblade is as a one level dip, and that dip is especially nice for Conquerors, solving the split attack issue, giving you an additional damage option to pull out against fear immune foes in hexblade's curse, and adding some nice spell options in Booming Blade and Shield, particularly when combined with the War Caster feat, and the extra 1st level spell slot per short rest does a lot for any paladin's stamina over the course of an adventuring day, and conqueror is no exception.
The dip is far from necessary to make conqueror work, and missing out on the amazing capstone is a real sacrifice in any game that goes to level 20, and you probably don't want to take the dip early, not before extra attack, aura of protection, aura of conquest, maybe even Fear at kevel 9 if you can afford the delay. But yeah, conquest with a 1 to 2 level hexblade dip coming in around level 10 is pretty great and a lot of fun.
Oh man, Conq Paladin is my fav subclass too. I agree with everything you've said here. However, I prefer a level 3 dip into Hexblade Warlock to get the Pact of the Blade in order to enable two-handed pact weapons, opening up the halberd and the glaive as options. You know what comes next. Oh, and to complete the package, be a Fallen Aasimar.
F E A R M E
"It's 2d12 the first time..."
Somebody didn't read Evocation close enough *Insta dies charging meteor swarm after overclocking for the 2nd time*
You can only Overchannel up to a 5th level spell. The 2nd time, though with a 5th level is still 10d12 (The third time boosts it to 15d12, etc, etc)
I like to flavor the Accursed Specter ability as the kill needed to activate it providing the spirit within the sword the energy needed to manifest a weak avatar for itself. ‘‘Tis what I do anyway.
Is no one going to mention the Ancestral Guardian barbarian?? I know I’m biased, but it really makes the barbarian such a tank rather than a damage dealer. It was great with rogues where I could turn the damage they take into practically nothing once per round
I don't think it matters for Ambush Master if you go first, everyone gets a go at the creature. A lot of other effects end when it's the creature's turn, those are annoying specially when their turn is right after yours. A crossbow expert rogue with a hand crossbow could get a bonus attack too.
I definitely found this useful and would also like to see a top 10 races (in general) and i bet one of the races is gonna be the elf cause of the amount of different subraces they have, at the very least every game I've played or dm'ed at has had some sort of elf or half elf...
Man i love hexblade. Just made myself a nightcrawler assassin type
is there really that much of a difference between spell attacks and saving throw based spells?
I don't see how there would be much a difference if you try to beat their AC or if they try to beat your spell DC
No gloomstalker?
I love how he says "number 3"
Hi, can you make Vladimir´s spells for 5e? I´m playing a Blood Mage Wizard v1 in 5e. I´d like to incorporate some abilities of Vladimir to my character (spells)
Q: some kind of vampiric touch at distance
W: i guess a mix between posion cloud and vamp touch
E: this one is easier, its aoe dmg (loosing life)
R: mmmmm contagion? xD hahaha
Please Master Nerd, help me! I need help to refine this without being OP...
Grave domain is my absolute favorite, kind of sucks and I’m playing out of the abyss so things are incredibly insane but hey, it’s a good time
The fact that Battle Smith Artificer isn't on here is sickening.
By 5th level, you can have:
A sword that does 1d8+5 damage, and you can attack twice.
Take the sentinel feat with Variant Human and you get to attack any guys that attack your dog (which should be right next to you at all times). You can use steele defender's reaction to impose disadvantage on attacks against you. You can use your bonus action to have steel defender attack other enemies (consider coating his metallic teeth in posion, effectively dealing 4d6 damage from a bite). You can still cast spells, can replicate magic items, can gain proficiency in alchemist supplies (perhaps some potions of oil and taking create bonfire cantrip). Let's not forget the fact that you're getting almost 22 AC by 5th level in medium armor if you use studded leather with enhanced defense and use a repulsion shield. Your sword should be an enhanced sword, allowing you to use your intelligence modifier (with the right set up, it should be either 18 or 19 by 5th level). AND you can get homunculus servant mounted to your shoulder, giving you 3 turns where you can push an enemy back by 10 feet with homnculus servants force damage (you can always make this a flyer by 10th level and equip it with horn of blasting by taking a tinkerer and having it play music into the attached horn, and taking clan craftsman can let you make a bunch of these little spares for this guy, and getting an indestructible gem like a diamond makes it literally impossible to not have one all the time). Let's not forget that you can use a metal javelin with a bead of fireball attached to the front and you can cast catapult on it with returning weapon infusion, dealing 12d8+4 damage (PER TURN).
By 11th level? Snare grenades.
Granted, you can alwats go artillerist and run a small character like rock gnome or dwarf and use your cannon as an armor, or a barrier, take a heavy crossbow and sharpshooter and slap repeating weapon on that bad boy to ignore the reloading mechanic.
And alchemist? Haven't experimented too much with that... Yet.
Yeah, I don't think artificer is that great, hence it's not on the list
@@NerdImmersion I'll admit that it requires a certain kind of player, but a very creative player can absolutely abuse the system. You can even run 14th level Necromancer and 6th level Artificer and now you have an army of the undead.
Artificer is one of the best tank dps classes in the game. Running it almost seems unfair at times. You're constantly able to impose disadvantage and you're able to attack 5 times in a single round. Get some gear that can cast counterspell and you're a pain in the ass to deal with. You have flash of genius for saving throws and you have spell storming item for catapult javelins. The creative possibilities are endless, but then again, almost any class can be busted. I was helping a buddy yesterday with his Paladin build going mounted combatant route, and it seems pretty narly of a build.
Loved the video! Thank you!
No DM tells you you're being attacked without just saying the to hit. Warding flare will get its opportunity missed a lot
“Top subclasses” and by that I mean “here are 10 subclasses that I personally enjoy and that have nothing to do with objective value”
*Clearly has never seen a Top 10 video before*
Oath of vengeance paladin is the best. Paladin spells don’t matter, all their spell slots are for is extra damage. Especially since most their spells are underwhelming
Has this changed at all post-Tasha’s? I am really enjoying Aberrant Mind Sorcerer! ♥️
With Van Richten's so close I feel I should wait, then remake it. But yeah some tasha's subclasses have jumped to the top of the list
I would pay money to see one shots, or short games at different tiers of play with good players playing all of D&D’s subclasses so I could see how they look “in action.”
@@maegn I like the sound of this. Stay tuned
Will you be potentially making a fix it for the couple of subs that you brought up like the sun soul?
Yup! They are future plans!
This video is chock full of red hot takes. But like you said, it's your list.
No bear totem barbarian? Maybe it's just me, but man... those resistences...
Problem I have is the narrative way to make it work. I once made a barbarian NPC that followed the party as they lack a frontline tank. I made him a Path of the Ancestral Guardian. He was a Orc that had been kicked out of the tribe because he was a raging alcoholic and rather then smithing new weapons, drank on the job. He was Path of the Ancestral Guardian because his father was killed in a raid the group have had in a different campaign, and his father came and protected him as he was raging.
I just do not find the subclass interesting enough even knowing those resistences.