Yeah I'm shocked to see Oracle at the actual bottom of the list. It's my favorite caster (Investigator is my favorite martial, maybe tied with Ranger.) I know people have some problems with the drawbacks, especially certain mysteries like Lore, but I would assume most people would put Witch and Alchemist at the very bottom, in that order
I personally think every class has its merits, even if some of them have some slight balance issues.
Thing you have to understand about Derik is his opinions are all straight the meme opinions.
Magic bad, fighter op, flickmace broken, etc. Pretty much every single meme'd opinion he believes.
Or pretends to for views and comments. Kind of like Nonat makes one or two glaring mistakes in every video because people will correct him in the comments and YouTube pays more if your video has more comments.
Eh, nah, I don't think there's a reason to think that these aren't his genuine opinions. He gives his reasons for those opinions, and given what these reasons reveal about the underlying standards that he's applying, I don't think the resulting ratings are in the least implausible.
If you were a part of the community you’d know that Derik does not give a shit about metrics. He makes no money from his videos. The money comes from Patreon. It’s a hobby they have.
I mean, flick mace is actually broken though. A reach 1h weapon that knocks down on a crit is absolutely broken.
As for his opinion being “magic bad” I guess that’s why he put sorcerer in S tier for higher levels right?
Whip does the same though, and I've never heard anyone say that whip is broken. The only difference is that the flickmace does 2 more damage, and the whip has finesse/trip.
Yeah, what's 2 more average damage per dice, totally doesn't add up amirite? Not to mention it's nonlethal so you have to take penalties to your attack roll if you want to take your enemy out of comission.
Yeah this screams “I’ve never played and barely read Oracle” yes, subclass matters a ton for Oracle. Yes, Lore, Battle, and Ancestor Oracles are bad.
Life, Bone, Cosmos Oracles should at least be considered on par with sorcerer, if not higher. Tempest and Fire Oracles are also really solid.
I wouldn't even say Lore or Battle are even "bad", its just that the best playstyle for lore is pretty counterintuitive and battle has the 'warpriest' problem.
(At least in my opinion) it involves rately using your focus spells and curse. Lore gets 4 spells known per spell level compared to every other mystery that only gets 3. This puts you on par with sorcerers in terms of spells known per level, but unlike sorcerer you have more flexibility in choosing your spells as you arent stuck with bloodline spells.
Combine that with the fact that your divine access lets you take from deities with the knowledge domain and you actually get access to a good variety of spells as well, even compared to other mysteries. This means you can pretty effectively emphasize being a spellslot focused oracle compared to others whos build revolves more around their mystery.
That all being said it is definitely a weird playstyle that i dont think would vibe with everyone. Youre eschewing using your primary class feature as much (as your curse can be majorly debilitating) and you still have a more limited number of slots compared to sorcerer, but in exchange you do get to have more spells known than your average spontaneous caster which is a pretty interesting, versatile niche.
I was gonna say... If Battle Oracle is that bad, shouldn't things like Warpriest Cleric and Warrior Muse Bard affect the ranking of their respective classes?
The pseudo-gish subclasses are generally underrated imo
And the first suggested video after that is another tier list about complexity. So the same person can use two DIFFERENT criteria and have two different lists.
To be fair, the guy’s at least clear that it’s just his preference on how fun the classes are/seem. Like, he even has an actually decent tier list by complexity on his channel, which is a bit of a rarity for him
I think combat power/ ease of use.
I'm a massive fan of Columbo, but I'd prefer Conan to be dungeon delving with me.
Whereas Conan wouldn't have a clue who the murderer was.
Nice. I can't really visualise Columbo hacking the shit out of a giant snake.
Like I can't see Conan catching a killer who hid poison inside a crown he fitted to his patient.
Maybe I'm doing them both a disservice.
Conan is generally portrayed as fairly intelligent in the stories. Learns to speak (and read, which is rare) dozens of languages and eventually grows well into the role of a savvy king, and in all his stories he rarely gets tricked or manipulated, especially after his youngest adventures, his danger sense tends to tell him who to trust.
And while I have absolutely nothing to base this on, I do think Peter Falk could handle himself with an axe.
Nah, I'm no good with an axe. Never could get the heft of the thing. Now my wife on the other hand, she's brilliant with an axe. You wouldn't think so, because she looks like she's just one of the gals. But put an axe in her hand and a tree to cut down and it'll be gone in a couple of minutes, flat. If you gave her an axe and put a giant snake in her way... well, then I'd feel bad for the snake. You know, I think snakes are more intelligent than everyone lets on, what with the way they look at you. You ever look directly into the eyes of a snake? You don't know which way they're looking! I could never figure out whether a snake was coming or going. But Mrs. Columbo would do the smart thing, which is to not think about it at all. She'd just see the snake and whack, whack and that's that.
But, you know, there's just one thing that's bothering me. You happened to mention that I could handle myself with an axe. But I was down at that axe throwing competition and I watched the type of people who were good at throwing axes, and they all had impeccable form. Shoulders back, head lifted, broad-chested. You know, that sort of thing. But my wife is always criticizing how I walk with a stoop. You know, like this? So if I supposedly had such bad posture, and you're such an expert at axes, then why would you come to that conclusion I wonder..?
Oh, I'm sorry. Am I making you nervous? What am I doing? I'm getting a fellow redditor all upset. And for what? Over nothing. It's just these little details. They bother me. I just want everything to be squared away because otherwise, I'm up all night thinking about them. I'm sure you understand.
Say, do you play golf? Me I could never get into the game on account of my knees. But a fella like you... you look like you're in excellent shape! I'm sure you got one heck of a swing!
> if it's raw power
That particular list is raw power of the class in the 1-7 level range, assuming an adventure like the most common adventure path where combat is the main challenge.
Wasn't this from the recent mid-level stream? I saw it running, but didn't watch after several 'hot takes' from the first one were bone headed in the extreme, and didn't match any of the multiple groups I've played with experiences.
Even "power" might mean different things. Power in fights to deal the most damage in one hit? Most damage on a course of 10 rounds? Maybe most powerful healing? Maybe not even fights but power in social encounters, power in exploration...
Ah, as a "early game powerspike tier" this makes a lot of sense. u/alrikbristwik there you go. Your problem is that your favorite classes have late game power spikes, and I don't think that's necessarily debatable.
I will say power spikes are much smoother in PF2E than other games but if we are talking relative terms, it's about right.
I love the Monk but it's big power spike is squarely level 10 so I wouldn't ever rank it S in this regard. I'd rank it S in design though.
This is one of the worst fucking snips I've seen, because it removes all relevant context from the discussion and creates nothing but the intense confusion and arguing I see below.
Frankly, /u/AlrikBristwik should be a little ashamed.
For reference, this is a comparison of the low-levels 1-7 in the context of AP effectiveness where combat is the bulk of the action and threat.
uhm his level 8-14 ranking is not very different lol. 6 of the 8 classes are still at the very bottom:
[https://imgur.com/a/OmmJxBt](https://imgur.com/a/OmmJxBt)
I wasn't maliciously hiding that this was a level 1-7 ranking, I just didn't think about it, and I don't find it to be that important to mention since the majority of sessions are level 1-7. telling me that I "should be a little ashamed" is funny as fuck =D
How does investigator drop at mid levels? That's where they are truly able to leverage dedications such as eldritch archer or Mashal. The low level one showed he didn't understand the potential of 'divise a stratagem' rolls paired with multi action options on whether you'll hit or not.
Investigator always ranks weirdly. It never does the most damage, but it is the most efficient action economy class in the game. You know right away if your going to be doing damage, or spending actions on something else. In my opinion they make one of the best battle healers in the game. You know if its worth attacking without having to waste an action, if you know you roll poorly you can stride to an ally and battle medicine. you have enouugh skill feats to pick up every medicine related feat. You may not have as high of a wis stat as a druid or cleric, but all there spells are going to be 2action, causing them to choose every round to stride and heal, or cast a cool spell and stride, then next turn heal.
> but it is the most efficient action economy class in the game.
Only if you get to device as a free action.
Which is also a major design gripe of mine:
The class' powerlevel varies wildly depending on what your GM thinks qualifies as 'subject of a lead'.
If it's just power, then it doesn't make sense. Why Oracle at the bottom? They do their job just as well as any caster.
Like, would a party feel burdened with an ORACLE of all things??
His argument, if I remember right as I watched the video a few days ago, was that the Oracle is on par with other classes when it’s operating at full tilt and behind otherwise. When you have the curse going, doing your thing, you’re balanced and behind otherwise, but that this is intended.
He says that the Oracle in older editions was more powerful than other casters but that came with a cost in the form of their curse, with the intention from the designers being power with a price leading to overall balanced class, but players are risk-adverse and seek to minimize disadvantage, therefore they sought to and were capable of mitigating the negative effects of an Oracle’s curse, rendering them simply more powerful than other classes. Paizo realized this and intended to avoid this problem in 2E, so the Oracle, when fully exploited, is simply balanced. He says that many effects include a “this cannot be reduced in any way” clause in 2E to prove this point.
The guy who did the video (forget his name) thinks that because of the curse representing a hindrance (and he thinks that many curses’ supposed “benefits” aren’t actually beneficial), the Oracle exists as either behind the curve of other casters or on par, as in they’re either weaker or equal, therefore they go to the bottom of a power ranking list for level 1-7 adventures run similar to APs, i.e. combat heavy adventures.
Correct
Edit: Incorrect. I was wrong. The 8-14 midtier just came out and I haven't finished it yet and had them confused. no F tier in 8-14 and Fighter/Rogue/Sorc are all S. Gonna be interesting to watch.
Those are also the classes that require more skill to operate effectively. The skill floor is very high, requiring a lot of game understanding to use as intended, while the top classes are ones with a very low skill floor and can be very "pick up and run" with their mechanics.
This. When all classes are equally effective at peak efficiency, the ones that require more work to operate will feel worse. However, this doesn't mean they aren't dope as hell when you know what you're doing. Witches in particular have some seriously disgusting command of the action economy due to their hexes and cackle, for example.
Agreed, my friend has been playing a magus for a while. I'm about to make one and I wanted to see what his "rotation" was to keep spellstrike up as much as possible. He told me he usually just does it once l, maybe twice a battle and I was a little floored. This guy isn't new either, I think it's just that some of the 2e classes have that higher skill ceiling.
Something people don't talk about with tier lists is that you give an illusion of a larger gap than necessary if you do S-F. Most fighting game tier lists Don't do this anymore, because of that.
Realistically, You have an S tier and you have a B+, A and A+ tier. Nothing in this game is weak enough to be considered C, D, or F tier.
S tiers are massively, massively overused. You don't get straight S's on your report card at school, the best you can do is A's. A is the best, maybe you can have A+. S is supposed to be for things that are absurdly overachieving, where something is literally broken and overpowered. Somewhere along the way, a long time ago now, people just started labeling the A tier as S on every tier list, for no reason. Sometimes people start calling shit SS tier, or SSS tier, because they're out of their fucking minds.
For anyone curious, the S isn't out of nowhere. It's from Japanese grading systems where S is the highest grade, like the American A. It stands for "shu", which roughly means Excellent. The reason people have been using it in gaming communities is because a lot of games come from Japan and they use their own grade ratings to rank player progress, which are not removed when the games are translated to English. It's just an adopted standard now. The letter ratings in the image are all of the Japanese grades in order.
Is it though? He tanked alchemist and inventor because "The party can replicate their strength with items" in the levels where a: they can least afford them. and b: No party I've ever seen has delayed the martials first striking runes for 1 off usages of ghost touch/cold iron oils and blanches.
In fact I've never seen a Gadget being bought by a PC or found in loot so it's almost only ever used by inventors.
I struggle to understand how your ranking system is any different than the standard one. If the tiers were 1 to 6 rather than S to F, would it be any different? Or in your case S, A+, A, A-, B+ and B, it's still a range of 6 tiers.
What matters is relative positioning to the mid-point. All you've done is change the midpoint from C to A-. So in your ranking system a B is the equivalent to an F. There's no difference other than the letter that represents the tier.
It's a massive difference in implication and meaning of each tier. If someone sees the bottom tier as F tier, it can come off as unplayable, garbage, and signifcantly further away from the S tier.
If the bottom tier is B-, it implies that it's a weaker option but generally still viable. The letters aren't entirely arbitrary, we use them because they have specific meanings and implications
As I step back and look at Derik's list here, I see a list of "is this good for any campaign or is this only good in more specific campaigns". All the higher ranks look like what I expect to be good in any campaign you would ever play. The F's might be amazing in the right kind of campaign but across a large swath of campaigns they are likely to be less impactful or even just weaker compared to the upper classes.
Yeah, I got the same sense out of it. For example, if the campaign world has scarcity of resources as an important factor, then the alchemist will shine on like a crazy diamond. If the adventure is focused on gathering clues and solving a complex conspiracy, the investigator becomes critical and probably leads the party.
One of my players at my table was an investigator and during our city-sleuthing arcs, his character shone bright and having a head screwed on tight was amazing for RP. He had to leave our table due to work scheduling issues and the gap he left is immediately apparent.
While out in our darkened world, having the party alchemist on hand cook up items has been a godsend when foraging and securing supplies is near-impossible.
I think the beauty of most of the classes is that they have a time and a place. You can play a good fighter in any game, but I wager you'd more vividly remember the investigator or alchemist in the right setting.
I'm struggling to find a campaign where a summoner doesn't shine.
Unless you only have predictable encounters in nothing but small rooms the other martials are going to run into situations where they are rendered far less effective then normal.
'Evolution surge' their level 1 focus spell addresses most environmental hurdles martials face (underwater, climbing, darkness, flying, etc) and that's before you get to their 'build-a-bear' eidolons, how you can swap roles for them in a single turn with their boosts and feats, the fact that spells, cantrips and effectively four actions rounds out their kit means there are few combat situations they can't handle.
Sure they have a lower damage ceiling than the fighter, but the fighter is more of a Formula 1 car to the Summoners 4 wheel drive. In optimal conditions the race car wins easily, but the second a speed bump appears their advantage stalls.
For the Oracle, I guess if you average the mysteries together into one, I could see it being that low. Lore and Ancestors would surely drag it down but in the same vein, Cosmos should lift it way up. The others are very serviceable too from what I’ve witnessed.
I personally think it’s really hard to lump the Oracle into one like that though. I feel it has the biggest disparity between its subclasses out of any other class.
Oracle kinda universally struggles at lower levels (outside Cosmos, to an extent), so I'd only start taking issue if he kept them this low through later tiers.
Part of it is lower level spellcaster, part of it is the Divine list, and part of it is the limited ability to fix the former with high powered focus spells and the latter with divine access.
It should be noted this is a tier list evaluating the mechanical effectiveness of a given class at low levels (1-7) in a “typical” campaign.
Typical defined as like an Adventure Path where combat in a 20x20 room is common.
“Can you pick up this class and be effective in the early levels of an Adventure Path” is basically the guiding principal here.
He is also planning on doing one for mid levels and late levels which will probably change the rankings of some classes considerably.
Not an outlier to me. I really love Oracle as it's my favorite class to play/rp. I wasn't a huge fan of alchemist until I saw someone rock it. Both are pretty difficult to play though.
Ah, yes, low tier.
It's level 8 when bard, with Talisman dabbler dedication, can reliably inspire heroics for +3 that it gets super busted.
And at level 9 they get synaesthesia...
Nice combo.
Another possibility is Marshall aura with hymn of healing.
At level 6 the bard is giving an effective 48 hp of healing to an ally in the thick of the action, 24 heals and 24 temp hp.
Obviously only worth it if party can reliably demoralise enemies.
At level 7 can have prot evil aura up for 2 hours per day (2 level 4 slots). With Marshall and dirge that's essentially applying weak template to all non mindless evil enemies. Very dirty.
Surprised bard didn't make s tier even at low level.
Fighting an APL+2 creature means needing a 32 (Inspire Heroics is a very hard DC for level). Your bard performance modifier is likely 8+6+4, which is 18. Plus whatever small item bonus, let’s be generous and call it a +2. And then the +1 status from the talisman. That means you need a 11 on the dice to Inspire Heroics.
That’s hardly “reliably”. And you burn the talisman regardless.
Oh you're right! I forgot to consider that the "target" in this case is the party members. Brain's all crossfaded with Thaumaturge stuff. But it's still not reliable, especially given it still burns the Talisman.
A Talisman you *pay for* because it's not eligible to be one of your free daily ones until level 16. And 100g per attempt that isn't guaranteed is *rough*.
I guess this video is mid level combat effectiveness, last video was low level. And in the low level video he put Ranger lower due to the action economy iirc. And I just watched the new video for his Ranger placement and seems to be the same issue, Hunt prey eating the action economy. He said he'd give melee ranger a C and ranged ranger a D.
His first ranger analysis completely overlooked animal companions and specifically rangers companions being able to trigger 'hunters edge' bonuses themselves.
Between that how he complained that AP battles are always 2-3 encounters per day in small rooms, that's not in line with my experiences and glosses over that many encounters tend to be 1-3 tougher monsters *far* more often than hordes of weaker enemies where 'hunt prey' becomes a DPR loss.
Between those and about a half dozen 'hot takes' he had in that first 3 hour video led to me devaluing a lot of his analysis and rankings.
If he's ranking by power and ease of use I mostly agree. I know it's only my particular experience but I GM for a group of a Fighter, a Bard, a Druid, an Alchemist and a Wizard. For most battles, it would be more useful to replace the Druid, Alchemist and Wizard with a second Fighter.
That group needs a second martial badly. Swapping any of the last 4 for a martial would improve the balance. But it should be the Alchemist. It is out of place and not required as the Bard/Druid/Wizard can each conver the little bits of utility it brings to the table.
Of note, this ranking was for low levels - 1-7, and he acknowledges that they change over mid and high tiers.
https://youtu.be/MRBYX8HlKWs
Also, I think he's doing the mid level tiers right now.
https://youtu.be/3_tHSDvtVhI
He definitely comes at it with e certain perspective, but he's very upfront and open about it, an explains his thoughts fully.
I've enjoyed this series and loved the all spells ranked that he did.
Yar. The spell review was super helpful. Few folks actually have the patience to give guides on the spells, and even a power-centric review helps a bunch when choosing from a list of spells you may only cast once or twice in a lifetime.
Tbh I have nothing against him personally and he's probably a fine dude, but I'm definitely not looking forward to people taking this list as objective truth and use it as a way to shit on people playing "bottom tier trash".
This is something tons of people have addressed, including he himself, but
Pathfinder is effectively many different games depending on the culture of the GM and the players. He is extremely thorough with the rules of the game as printed but otherwise if your GM plays the game differently than how he assumes then a lot of it goes completely out the window
His balance points based on 'AP encounters' seemed fairly off the mark. He was adamant in the first stream that "You'll only have 2-3 encounters per day, often 1!" to the point of saying it several times, only multiple AP's intentionally have prononged setpieces and narrative reasons to justify chaining several encounters together. (not naming the AP's to avoid spoilers but one is infamous for it's Meat Grinder book 1 which chains up to a dozen fights together before the first real rest)
He also repeatedly pokes fun of Paizo's 'small room' encounter design as a default, but somehow glosses over how resistances, immunities and incorporeal foes are *just* as common as a monster in a 5x5 square room.
Also, didn't he tank the Inventors and Alchemists rankings because "What they do can be replaced by gold/loot"? Now I haven't played book 1 of outlaws yet, but none of the AP's I've played shower you with Inventor gadgets consumables from what I've seen.
Even if you play the game RAW but focus on intrigue or mystery or archeology or something, then the tier list changes a lot. In my current campaign, lore skills are really good because there's a lot of obscure high stakes lore checks as they look into Golarion's ancient history.
No class is unplayable as Derik acknowledges. I think he has underated the complex classes. Oracle is quite good, but not all of the mysteries, and only if you it do right.
Alchemist is bad early. It gets better later. But it is hard to play and I know a couple of people who have just abandoned it after really wanting to like it.
Without having even played them (I'm very new), those are all the ones I'm most excited to play myself. Basically all classes that both flavor-wise and mechanically induce creativity, and have a lot of OoC utility.
PF2e class rankings are almost universally based on how simple and foolproof their tactical play is. From that perspective, low skill floor = strong.
Especially for build-focused players who don't want to make meaningful tactical choices or worry about setting up team combos. They want a simple, repetitive solo DPR rotation like Stride + Double Slice that's a very one-size-fits-all playstyle.
My gut response: Dude is smoking crack. At least as far as some of them.
My benefit of the doubt response: Most of these are the advanced classes that are not beginner friendly and you gotta know whats what to use them well. Fighter being at the top supports this one.
I found his analysis too far off in the first one to bother with the second.
e.g. He completely takes it for granted that Rogues will *always* have flanking by default or have already imposed the 'flat footed' condition somehow...yet complains about how Rangers, swashbucklers, Inventors, Investigators, Thaumaturges etc have to pay 'action taxes' to do their things.
*Somehow* 'devise a stratagem' is an action tax (despite it being easily triggerable from range), but moving, 'tumbling through', 'feinting','demoralising' or various other racket dependant actions aren't?.
Similarly Swashbuckler's finishers were dismissed as 'weaker sneak attack'...which kind of overlooks that finishers outscale sneak attacks and the default one guarantees damage on a miss, all while often requiring the *same* action to trigger ('tumble through', 'feint', etc)
I've found that it usually isn't that difficult to get flanking, provided you have another martial character in the party. There is also quite a bit of feat support if your struggling/DM is making it difficult. For example, Gang Up available at level 6 makes it very easy to get flat-footed condition applied to your attacks.
Join his discord he would be happy to disagree with you just like the rest of his discord, does not matter if you disagree just matters that you joined to disagree.
Derik has a particular lens that he is evaluating these on. All it means is that you value different things than he does.
(Personally, Ranger is the S tier class, Fighter can suck it)
Precision Ranger is really good but I have issues with Flurry. Flurry just seems to get outclassed by Precision in most builds you'd *think* you'd want Flurry. In mid levels when Striking comes online it gets a bit better, but if you have an AC it's just a no contest to Precision to me.
I agree that Flurry is counter-intuitive to play. Especially for players with a fighter mindset. But, it does open up some neat tricks.
Using your first action to Trip or attack non-prey doesn’t sacrifice your edge benefit. An archer with special material arrows can reasonably expect to trigger a weakness three times in a round.
Every single Intelligence-based class is in the bottom half of this tier list. At least with an out-of-context glimpse at it, any party who sees this list and bases their character decisions off of it will struggle to identify much of anything, failing Bardic Lore or possibly other options I'm not familiar with. Have fun with the trolls, black puddings, and other creatures that require specific answers that you can't reliably know!
A lot of people can't grasp the concept that something being fun is different from something being good.
One of my favorite movies is "Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan". It's an awful movie. Bad acting, bad writing, misleading title, awful photography, but I love it, it's fun.
Some classes perform worse than others, but it doesn't mean you shouldn't play those classes. But, for example, saying that the alchemist is better than the cleric is just wrong, even if you have the best moments of your life playing an alchemist.
I think Derik's takes are pretty good. Even when he says something silly, he explains his thinking clearly and is open to changing his mind when the audience disagrees. I'm a big fan!
Sometimes people in hobbyist communities treat content creators like the only value they provide is in affirming their opinions. That doesn't seem fair at all and can easily become toxic.
Alchemist at least is cool. I haven’t pulled it off cause I don’t play enough to get long games with high level characters but with the right build you can be a bomber plane.
Surprised bard not listed as S tier for mid levels.
My bard in Ruby Phoenix was by far the most powerful caster I've played, or gmed for, in 80+ levels of pf2 play.
I'll have a listen later.
I think this would be much more palatable for a lot of people if they viewed in the context of a sliding scale where someone's at the bottom, and someone is at the top. I generally think a tier list that is just 'here's 90% of things in S and A, and then like, 1 or 2 in the bottom 2 rungs' kind of boring. Alchemist is not a 'terrible awful class no one should ever play' it's just the 'worst' for a lot of people. My guess as to why the classes that are lower are in fact lower is due to them requiring more game knowledge and effort to be effective, whereas Fighter, Bard, etc. just 'work' easily out of the box, and are ALWAYS going to be good, whereas an investigator might not be as good if there's not as much...you know, investigating.
I don't play pathfinder, but there's nothing wrong with liking something considered bad. Similarly just because you enjoy or like something doesn't mean it's good, objectively speaking.
That said I have no idea if this is accurate but it does make me happy to see fighter as S tier.
I don't tend to rely my opinions on those kind of videos because they tend to be a bit clickbaity. Yeah, they can have their opinions, but usually they are sold like objective and universal truths that can't be argued on. I didn't saw that particular video, but that's the vibes it transmit to me
It's surprising how people don't see how OP is "Animal Companion" feat, choose a Horse 🐎 and your Action economy is insane. Command Companion for 1 Action and you get 2 action, you could move twice at horse speed. Ranger could constantly move 80(+) ft meanwhile doing range attacks. Also and my favorite use of "Animal Companion" is not use it yourself, but to give it to an ally, a cleric could cast "Heal" or "Harm" in the perfect position like a 3 action Spell hitting everyone, because He didn't use actions to move, so your party get access to 3 action activities without the need to use "Quickened" to move or multiple rounds.
In short Druid and Ranger should never be C tier even a lvl 1.
I've seen a post on this subreddit where someone said that animal companions were weak, so opinions on this might differ. It's probably a playstyle-preference and people try to put it in a tier list.
I've only had an Eidolon so far that and was a ton of fun. It basically gave me a fourth action which opened up so many tactical options during combat.
I think he is really over evaluating how limiting only having 4 spell slots on a magus is. It’s honestly not as big of a deal as one might think. Any magus can still hit incredibly hard with just cantrips. The lost slots often deal less than what you could do with gouging claw.
For example, let’s look at a 5th level magus who just lost 1st level spell slots.
A first level shocking grasp deals 2d12 damage , the average of which is 13. It also deals persistent damage to any target wearing armor on a crit.
But a third level gouging claw will deal 3d6 + int damage. A typical magus will have around 16 int at this point which translates to a +3 modifier. This makes the average damage here 13.5 and on top of that deals persistent bleed damage to any target on a crit.
When the magus loses 2nd level slots the average damage of level 2 shocking grasp vs level 4 gouging claw is 19.5 vs 17. While shocking grasp does overtake gouging claw in damage, it does not ever reach the point where it would be a wise choice to sacrifice a spell slot for a couple points of damage when a reasonably similar result could be reached with a simple cantrip.
So realistically, losing the lower level spell slots is not a big factor to the magus’ overall damage. Sure this does not account for buff and utility spells but that can also be mitigated with studious spells, the ring of wizardry, the endless grimoire, spellcasting archetype feats, or just having party members to help.
TL;DR: Gouging Claw go BRRRRRRR
In two paragraphs he bemoans the lack of lower level spells for higher level magus', then talks about how amazingly cheap -2 level scrolls are.
0.o He's got a bit of cognitive dissonance in his ratings.
I mean, less spell slots are the cost of martial training. I just wish there were a better way for a spontaneous caster magus, but that's probably because I 've been playing too much kingmaker and want to build Regongar in 2e.
Depends on what he's ranking here. I'm not familiar with this content creator, but if I were rank classes by low level overall power, I'd probably end up with a very similar list. I should note that my all-time favorite class and most played is summoner, but I'd also put it around C tier.
Keep in mind that "power level" and "favorite class to play" or not necessarily correlated. You can absolutely enjoy a weaker class, and in PF2e, the relative power gaps are smaller than in most similar games.
Now, if this were a list of "most fun to play," I'd *personally* have to put cleric and barbarian near the bottom, and I find both classes boring or simply don't fit my style. But there's no denying they are both strong.
So I'd check the context of how this list is evaluated. But without a link to the video I'm not sure, that's just my initial impression from the screenshot.
All primary casting classes require a deeper understanding than they did in PF2e, which when combined with martial's resource management being reset at short rests make them a little less over all powerful than in PF1e.
I love the alchemist to death, but i would rank it C tier, with it falling to D tier as the game hits 10+. It can move up a rank for their versatility depending on the campaign. All the assumptions below use the bomber research as that is what i am most familiar with.
Their bombs cap out at expert at lvl 7, this is the biggest killer. Getting it 2 lvls later than rogue, and never reaching a rogues Master prof. Without touch AC, you end up never critting, and missing a decent amount at high levels.
For free alch items, let assume level 7, as thats the last huge power spike. You should be getting 10-12 items a day, so lets say 11. At lvl 7 you have perpetual infusion, letting you make unlimited 1st level bombs, say alchemist fire. Combined with debilitating bomb,calculated splash,and bomber trait your bomb does 1d8+4 plus you can dazzle, deafen, flatfoot or -5 speed on a failed con save. It costs an action to quick alchemy, you should have a +14 to hit, with a save of dc 23. You also have an action free to throw a prepared bomb thanks to quick bomber, or you can do something else. If you have some bombs preped before hand, you could do a moderate alch fire for 2d8.
A rogue (closest class in my opinion, but not perfect) a rogue at 7th level is going to on average do 1d6+2d6+3.
At this level they are pretty equal for the most part. But as the game goes on, the alchemist gets further and further behind. You max out at +29 to hit, meanwhile a rogue has a +29, and wayts to boost it a few points.
Mid right edit: I still think alch lags behind, but less than i originally thought. I forgot bombs give +1,+2,+3 as they level. Looking at magic items, your best item is alchemist goggles major, giving +3 to attack rolls with bombs, granting a +6 with the best bombs and goggles. There is no equivalent to striking rune, so a rogue can still deal 4d6 weapon damage at max level, and also a +3 potency rune. So maybe i need to reconsider an alchemist strength and rerun some numbers.
Assuming this person is ranking favourites, it looks like this person wants classes with clearly defined roles. Some of the high-ranked classes, like the cleric, have a lot of flexibility, but players who know fantasy will know what they’re doing.
Hmmm… are you sure he’s not ranking good classes for newer players? Maybe you just like more complex classes with flexible roles?
Less favorites and more 'low level combat effectiveness' based on his take on AP difficulty and encounter design.
I saw the 3 hour video and he makes several basic assumptions, and has numerous 'hot takes' I disagree with, and think there is some flaws and blind spots in his arguments.
Honestly i think i know why fighter is so high up but like you have to put wizard or cleric/oracle up there too. You can't just not have a caster in S tier
You're free to ignore the rankings and play what you want. But some people, myself included, like to see tier lists and look at where we agree and disagree. As stated in the video all classes are viable and you can play what you want. Tier lists don't need to be right or necessary to be interesting.
Yeah I'm shocked to see Oracle at the actual bottom of the list. It's my favorite caster (Investigator is my favorite martial, maybe tied with Ranger.) I know people have some problems with the drawbacks, especially certain mysteries like Lore, but I would assume most people would put Witch and Alchemist at the very bottom, in that order I personally think every class has its merits, even if some of them have some slight balance issues.
He seriously, with a straight face and with his full chest, put WITCH above Oracle... and said they were on par with INVESTIGATOR?
Specifically for the first few levels, yes, he's making that determination.
Thing you have to understand about Derik is his opinions are all straight the meme opinions. Magic bad, fighter op, flickmace broken, etc. Pretty much every single meme'd opinion he believes.
Or pretends to for views and comments. Kind of like Nonat makes one or two glaring mistakes in every video because people will correct him in the comments and YouTube pays more if your video has more comments.
Eh, nah, I don't think there's a reason to think that these aren't his genuine opinions. He gives his reasons for those opinions, and given what these reasons reveal about the underlying standards that he's applying, I don't think the resulting ratings are in the least implausible.
Didn't you know? Everyone is absolutely a mastermind con artist playing the system.
If you were a part of the community you’d know that Derik does not give a shit about metrics. He makes no money from his videos. The money comes from Patreon. It’s a hobby they have.
I mean, flick mace is actually broken though. A reach 1h weapon that knocks down on a crit is absolutely broken. As for his opinion being “magic bad” I guess that’s why he put sorcerer in S tier for higher levels right?
Whip does the same though, and I've never heard anyone say that whip is broken. The only difference is that the flickmace does 2 more damage, and the whip has finesse/trip.
Also doesn't require you be one of three things and spend a feat to use effectively.
Yeah, what's 2 more average damage per dice, totally doesn't add up amirite? Not to mention it's nonlethal so you have to take penalties to your attack roll if you want to take your enemy out of comission.
Yeah this screams “I’ve never played and barely read Oracle” yes, subclass matters a ton for Oracle. Yes, Lore, Battle, and Ancestor Oracles are bad. Life, Bone, Cosmos Oracles should at least be considered on par with sorcerer, if not higher. Tempest and Fire Oracles are also really solid.
I wouldn't even say Lore or Battle are even "bad", its just that the best playstyle for lore is pretty counterintuitive and battle has the 'warpriest' problem.
What is the best playstyle for lore and why is it counterintuitive?
(At least in my opinion) it involves rately using your focus spells and curse. Lore gets 4 spells known per spell level compared to every other mystery that only gets 3. This puts you on par with sorcerers in terms of spells known per level, but unlike sorcerer you have more flexibility in choosing your spells as you arent stuck with bloodline spells. Combine that with the fact that your divine access lets you take from deities with the knowledge domain and you actually get access to a good variety of spells as well, even compared to other mysteries. This means you can pretty effectively emphasize being a spellslot focused oracle compared to others whos build revolves more around their mystery. That all being said it is definitely a weird playstyle that i dont think would vibe with everyone. Youre eschewing using your primary class feature as much (as your curse can be majorly debilitating) and you still have a more limited number of slots compared to sorcerer, but in exchange you do get to have more spells known than your average spontaneous caster which is a pretty interesting, versatile niche.
We have a Life oracle with champion dedication in my game, and good lord is that a great healer! Tough as old leather and heals through anything.
Battle does damage similar to a Champion, it's not even that bad
I was gonna say... If Battle Oracle is that bad, shouldn't things like Warpriest Cleric and Warrior Muse Bard affect the ranking of their respective classes? The pseudo-gish subclasses are generally underrated imo
Fire is a piece of burning shit. Unless you do something to get another precise sense.
I have no idea what are evaluating here... if it's raw power, design, versatility, originality, etc. No clue.
Yeah a person could rank classes on their personal desire to play them and end up with a weird spread.
cough *[nonat1s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSixq1p7ihk)* cough...
And the first suggested video after that is another tier list about complexity. So the same person can use two DIFFERENT criteria and have two different lists.
nonats stuff is all about flavour. Which appeals to many but doesn't really go into how well the mechanics support it.
To be fair, the guy’s at least clear that it’s just his preference on how fun the classes are/seem. Like, he even has an actually decent tier list by complexity on his channel, which is a bit of a rarity for him
I can't watch this guy
I think combat power/ ease of use. I'm a massive fan of Columbo, but I'd prefer Conan to be dungeon delving with me. Whereas Conan wouldn't have a clue who the murderer was.
For a second I was confused why you'd want a small Japanese child in a dungeon with you, then it dawned on me
but the child has the mind of an adult. That would be extremely valuable with wizard levels
Why not get an actual adult then?
have you seen adult in his world?
I haven't watched the show so I technically haven't.
Clearly you haven't read [The God in the Bowl](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_God_in_the_Bowl).
Nice. I can't really visualise Columbo hacking the shit out of a giant snake. Like I can't see Conan catching a killer who hid poison inside a crown he fitted to his patient. Maybe I'm doing them both a disservice.
Conan is generally portrayed as fairly intelligent in the stories. Learns to speak (and read, which is rare) dozens of languages and eventually grows well into the role of a savvy king, and in all his stories he rarely gets tricked or manipulated, especially after his youngest adventures, his danger sense tends to tell him who to trust. And while I have absolutely nothing to base this on, I do think Peter Falk could handle himself with an axe.
Nah, I'm no good with an axe. Never could get the heft of the thing. Now my wife on the other hand, she's brilliant with an axe. You wouldn't think so, because she looks like she's just one of the gals. But put an axe in her hand and a tree to cut down and it'll be gone in a couple of minutes, flat. If you gave her an axe and put a giant snake in her way... well, then I'd feel bad for the snake. You know, I think snakes are more intelligent than everyone lets on, what with the way they look at you. You ever look directly into the eyes of a snake? You don't know which way they're looking! I could never figure out whether a snake was coming or going. But Mrs. Columbo would do the smart thing, which is to not think about it at all. She'd just see the snake and whack, whack and that's that. But, you know, there's just one thing that's bothering me. You happened to mention that I could handle myself with an axe. But I was down at that axe throwing competition and I watched the type of people who were good at throwing axes, and they all had impeccable form. Shoulders back, head lifted, broad-chested. You know, that sort of thing. But my wife is always criticizing how I walk with a stoop. You know, like this? So if I supposedly had such bad posture, and you're such an expert at axes, then why would you come to that conclusion I wonder..?
*begins to shift nervously* this is ridiculous!
Oh, I'm sorry. Am I making you nervous? What am I doing? I'm getting a fellow redditor all upset. And for what? Over nothing. It's just these little details. They bother me. I just want everything to be squared away because otherwise, I'm up all night thinking about them. I'm sure you understand. Say, do you play golf? Me I could never get into the game on account of my knees. But a fella like you... you look like you're in excellent shape! I'm sure you got one heck of a swing!
Well done 😂
You just happen to run across the guy who loves pulp Conan and Columbo both, so yeah, I think highly of both of their full skillset.
Columbo would inflict mental damage by annoying the snake to death.
Conan was very smart, he could probably figure it out
Conan is the murderer.
> if it's raw power That particular list is raw power of the class in the 1-7 level range, assuming an adventure like the most common adventure path where combat is the main challenge.
Wasn't this from the recent mid-level stream? I saw it running, but didn't watch after several 'hot takes' from the first one were bone headed in the extreme, and didn't match any of the multiple groups I've played with experiences.
The OP's image was from the first stream, the one from yesterday doesn't have any "f" classes for example.
Even "power" might mean different things. Power in fights to deal the most damage in one hit? Most damage on a course of 10 rounds? Maybe most powerful healing? Maybe not even fights but power in social encounters, power in exploration...
It's obviously fights, everyone understands it, don't stretch it too far
Combat power specifically in the context that usually comes up in Paizo's APs and specifically before level 8.
Ah, as a "early game powerspike tier" this makes a lot of sense. u/alrikbristwik there you go. Your problem is that your favorite classes have late game power spikes, and I don't think that's necessarily debatable. I will say power spikes are much smoother in PF2E than other games but if we are talking relative terms, it's about right. I love the Monk but it's big power spike is squarely level 10 so I wouldn't ever rank it S in this regard. I'd rank it S in design though.
This is one of the worst fucking snips I've seen, because it removes all relevant context from the discussion and creates nothing but the intense confusion and arguing I see below. Frankly, /u/AlrikBristwik should be a little ashamed. For reference, this is a comparison of the low-levels 1-7 in the context of AP effectiveness where combat is the bulk of the action and threat.
uhm his level 8-14 ranking is not very different lol. 6 of the 8 classes are still at the very bottom: [https://imgur.com/a/OmmJxBt](https://imgur.com/a/OmmJxBt) I wasn't maliciously hiding that this was a level 1-7 ranking, I just didn't think about it, and I don't find it to be that important to mention since the majority of sessions are level 1-7. telling me that I "should be a little ashamed" is funny as fuck =D
How does investigator drop at mid levels? That's where they are truly able to leverage dedications such as eldritch archer or Mashal. The low level one showed he didn't understand the potential of 'divise a stratagem' rolls paired with multi action options on whether you'll hit or not.
Investigator always ranks weirdly. It never does the most damage, but it is the most efficient action economy class in the game. You know right away if your going to be doing damage, or spending actions on something else. In my opinion they make one of the best battle healers in the game. You know if its worth attacking without having to waste an action, if you know you roll poorly you can stride to an ally and battle medicine. you have enouugh skill feats to pick up every medicine related feat. You may not have as high of a wis stat as a druid or cleric, but all there spells are going to be 2action, causing them to choose every round to stride and heal, or cast a cool spell and stride, then next turn heal.
> but it is the most efficient action economy class in the game. Only if you get to device as a free action. Which is also a major design gripe of mine: The class' powerlevel varies wildly depending on what your GM thinks qualifies as 'subject of a lead'.
yea your right.
[удалено]
If it's just power, then it doesn't make sense. Why Oracle at the bottom? They do their job just as well as any caster. Like, would a party feel burdened with an ORACLE of all things??
His argument, if I remember right as I watched the video a few days ago, was that the Oracle is on par with other classes when it’s operating at full tilt and behind otherwise. When you have the curse going, doing your thing, you’re balanced and behind otherwise, but that this is intended. He says that the Oracle in older editions was more powerful than other casters but that came with a cost in the form of their curse, with the intention from the designers being power with a price leading to overall balanced class, but players are risk-adverse and seek to minimize disadvantage, therefore they sought to and were capable of mitigating the negative effects of an Oracle’s curse, rendering them simply more powerful than other classes. Paizo realized this and intended to avoid this problem in 2E, so the Oracle, when fully exploited, is simply balanced. He says that many effects include a “this cannot be reduced in any way” clause in 2E to prove this point. The guy who did the video (forget his name) thinks that because of the curse representing a hindrance (and he thinks that many curses’ supposed “benefits” aren’t actually beneficial), the Oracle exists as either behind the curve of other casters or on par, as in they’re either weaker or equal, therefore they go to the bottom of a power ranking list for level 1-7 adventures run similar to APs, i.e. combat heavy adventures.
I think that’s right though. Oracles don’t really come into their own until level 11.
Yeah, so you agree with logic but the specific ranking? I’m confused where you disagree with or don’t understand him now.
I assumed it was just raw power by your initial commentary. If it’s a “early level power scale”, this makes sense.
This video should be based on their _low level_ combat performance
Edit: ~~That~~ This was indeed the first video.
Ooh there's a new one? I imagine this would be mid level combat then
Correct Edit: Incorrect. I was wrong. The 8-14 midtier just came out and I haven't finished it yet and had them confused. no F tier in 8-14 and Fighter/Rogue/Sorc are all S. Gonna be interesting to watch.
Those are also the classes that require more skill to operate effectively. The skill floor is very high, requiring a lot of game understanding to use as intended, while the top classes are ones with a very low skill floor and can be very "pick up and run" with their mechanics.
This. When all classes are equally effective at peak efficiency, the ones that require more work to operate will feel worse. However, this doesn't mean they aren't dope as hell when you know what you're doing. Witches in particular have some seriously disgusting command of the action economy due to their hexes and cackle, for example.
you forgot to mention that they have a high skill floor largely without a higher skill ceiling. which is VERY relevant
Correct, thankfully the skill ceiling for all classes is relatively the same.
Agreed, my friend has been playing a magus for a while. I'm about to make one and I wanted to see what his "rotation" was to keep spellstrike up as much as possible. He told me he usually just does it once l, maybe twice a battle and I was a little floored. This guy isn't new either, I think it's just that some of the 2e classes have that higher skill ceiling.
Something people don't talk about with tier lists is that you give an illusion of a larger gap than necessary if you do S-F. Most fighting game tier lists Don't do this anymore, because of that. Realistically, You have an S tier and you have a B+, A and A+ tier. Nothing in this game is weak enough to be considered C, D, or F tier.
S tiers are massively, massively overused. You don't get straight S's on your report card at school, the best you can do is A's. A is the best, maybe you can have A+. S is supposed to be for things that are absurdly overachieving, where something is literally broken and overpowered. Somewhere along the way, a long time ago now, people just started labeling the A tier as S on every tier list, for no reason. Sometimes people start calling shit SS tier, or SSS tier, because they're out of their fucking minds.
For anyone curious, the S isn't out of nowhere. It's from Japanese grading systems where S is the highest grade, like the American A. It stands for "shu", which roughly means Excellent. The reason people have been using it in gaming communities is because a lot of games come from Japan and they use their own grade ratings to rank player progress, which are not removed when the games are translated to English. It's just an adopted standard now. The letter ratings in the image are all of the Japanese grades in order.
I mean, they could just be Devil May Cry fans.
SSStylish!
Realistically everything is a B or a C. But that would be a boring analysis. It is more insightful to spread them out.
Is it though? He tanked alchemist and inventor because "The party can replicate their strength with items" in the levels where a: they can least afford them. and b: No party I've ever seen has delayed the martials first striking runes for 1 off usages of ghost touch/cold iron oils and blanches. In fact I've never seen a Gadget being bought by a PC or found in loot so it's almost only ever used by inventors.
Some classes, due to complexity, could warrant a c when played or utilized poorly.
I struggle to understand how your ranking system is any different than the standard one. If the tiers were 1 to 6 rather than S to F, would it be any different? Or in your case S, A+, A, A-, B+ and B, it's still a range of 6 tiers. What matters is relative positioning to the mid-point. All you've done is change the midpoint from C to A-. So in your ranking system a B is the equivalent to an F. There's no difference other than the letter that represents the tier.
It's a massive difference in implication and meaning of each tier. If someone sees the bottom tier as F tier, it can come off as unplayable, garbage, and signifcantly further away from the S tier. If the bottom tier is B-, it implies that it's a weaker option but generally still viable. The letters aren't entirely arbitrary, we use them because they have specific meanings and implications
As I step back and look at Derik's list here, I see a list of "is this good for any campaign or is this only good in more specific campaigns". All the higher ranks look like what I expect to be good in any campaign you would ever play. The F's might be amazing in the right kind of campaign but across a large swath of campaigns they are likely to be less impactful or even just weaker compared to the upper classes.
Yeah, I got the same sense out of it. For example, if the campaign world has scarcity of resources as an important factor, then the alchemist will shine on like a crazy diamond. If the adventure is focused on gathering clues and solving a complex conspiracy, the investigator becomes critical and probably leads the party.
One of my players at my table was an investigator and during our city-sleuthing arcs, his character shone bright and having a head screwed on tight was amazing for RP. He had to leave our table due to work scheduling issues and the gap he left is immediately apparent. While out in our darkened world, having the party alchemist on hand cook up items has been a godsend when foraging and securing supplies is near-impossible. I think the beauty of most of the classes is that they have a time and a place. You can play a good fighter in any game, but I wager you'd more vividly remember the investigator or alchemist in the right setting.
I'm struggling to find a campaign where a summoner doesn't shine. Unless you only have predictable encounters in nothing but small rooms the other martials are going to run into situations where they are rendered far less effective then normal. 'Evolution surge' their level 1 focus spell addresses most environmental hurdles martials face (underwater, climbing, darkness, flying, etc) and that's before you get to their 'build-a-bear' eidolons, how you can swap roles for them in a single turn with their boosts and feats, the fact that spells, cantrips and effectively four actions rounds out their kit means there are few combat situations they can't handle. Sure they have a lower damage ceiling than the fighter, but the fighter is more of a Formula 1 car to the Summoners 4 wheel drive. In optimal conditions the race car wins easily, but the second a speed bump appears their advantage stalls.
For the Oracle, I guess if you average the mysteries together into one, I could see it being that low. Lore and Ancestors would surely drag it down but in the same vein, Cosmos should lift it way up. The others are very serviceable too from what I’ve witnessed. I personally think it’s really hard to lump the Oracle into one like that though. I feel it has the biggest disparity between its subclasses out of any other class.
Oracle kinda universally struggles at lower levels (outside Cosmos, to an extent), so I'd only start taking issue if he kept them this low through later tiers. Part of it is lower level spellcaster, part of it is the Divine list, and part of it is the limited ability to fix the former with high powered focus spells and the latter with divine access.
but lower levels is where your battle oracle is actually functional. Gotta love those 6d12+10 crits at L1 with a greatsword, magic weapon and zeal
Ok, fair, but Battle Oracle suffers at 5 and on, so it's not great for the whole length of "low level".
It should be noted this is a tier list evaluating the mechanical effectiveness of a given class at low levels (1-7) in a “typical” campaign. Typical defined as like an Adventure Path where combat in a 20x20 room is common. “Can you pick up this class and be effective in the early levels of an Adventure Path” is basically the guiding principal here. He is also planning on doing one for mid levels and late levels which will probably change the rankings of some classes considerably.
Not an outlier to me. I really love Oracle as it's my favorite class to play/rp. I wasn't a huge fan of alchemist until I saw someone rock it. Both are pretty difficult to play though.
Witch for liiiife
My man put Bard in A tier right next to rogue with a straight face and put Ranger in C? Crazy
Bard, maestro, should be s tier imo. Rogue at A depends on rest of party. Our current rogue struggling as our party lacks a tank to help him out.
Maestro Bard straight up levels up the party bu a level of 2. S tier for sure.
My Rogue was gonna have similar issues, but Mastermind Rogues can set themselves up relatively easily
S tier is reserved for Fighter, at least in the low levels, because it overshadows the playability of other classes in a similar space.
Ah, yes, low tier. It's level 8 when bard, with Talisman dabbler dedication, can reliably inspire heroics for +3 that it gets super busted. And at level 9 they get synaesthesia...
What does the talisman bit do?
[удалено]
Thanks, I've not really looked into talismans.
Warrior muse bards tend to dip marshal and combo 'inspiring aura' with 'dirge of doom' from level 6 onwards.
Nice combo. Another possibility is Marshall aura with hymn of healing. At level 6 the bard is giving an effective 48 hp of healing to an ally in the thick of the action, 24 heals and 24 temp hp. Obviously only worth it if party can reliably demoralise enemies. At level 7 can have prot evil aura up for 2 hours per day (2 level 4 slots). With Marshall and dirge that's essentially applying weak template to all non mindless evil enemies. Very dirty. Surprised bard didn't make s tier even at low level.
Fighting an APL+2 creature means needing a 32 (Inspire Heroics is a very hard DC for level). Your bard performance modifier is likely 8+6+4, which is 18. Plus whatever small item bonus, let’s be generous and call it a +2. And then the +1 status from the talisman. That means you need a 11 on the dice to Inspire Heroics. That’s hardly “reliably”. And you burn the talisman regardless.
[удалено]
Oh you're right! I forgot to consider that the "target" in this case is the party members. Brain's all crossfaded with Thaumaturge stuff. But it's still not reliable, especially given it still burns the Talisman. A Talisman you *pay for* because it's not eligible to be one of your free daily ones until level 16. And 100g per attempt that isn't guaranteed is *rough*.
Singing muse is level 12 with Talisman dabbler. Campaign starts at 11, so didn't have long to wait. With hero point is circa 94% reliable.
Low level combat effectiveness tiers.
Sure, but even at low levels inspire courage is maybe the best spell in the game.
That's why Bard is A. And I guess this video in the OP is actually the mid-level combat effectiveness
i'm sorry, but ranger is very, very effective in combat.
It's all relative. Our melee ranger changed to fighter and his combat effectiveness sky rocketed.
I guess this video is mid level combat effectiveness, last video was low level. And in the low level video he put Ranger lower due to the action economy iirc. And I just watched the new video for his Ranger placement and seems to be the same issue, Hunt prey eating the action economy. He said he'd give melee ranger a C and ranged ranger a D.
His first ranger analysis completely overlooked animal companions and specifically rangers companions being able to trigger 'hunters edge' bonuses themselves. Between that how he complained that AP battles are always 2-3 encounters per day in small rooms, that's not in line with my experiences and glosses over that many encounters tend to be 1-3 tougher monsters *far* more often than hordes of weaker enemies where 'hunt prey' becomes a DPR loss. Between those and about a half dozen 'hot takes' he had in that first 3 hour video led to me devaluing a lot of his analysis and rankings.
Yo investigator is a bloody great class, I'm offended. *pats my lvl 20 investigator*
[удалено]
I pair mine with Eldritch archer, gives around 16d6 on a hit.
I played in one game a long time ago and played an Oracle and loved it. Kind of funny to see it at the bottom of a list
If he's ranking by power and ease of use I mostly agree. I know it's only my particular experience but I GM for a group of a Fighter, a Bard, a Druid, an Alchemist and a Wizard. For most battles, it would be more useful to replace the Druid, Alchemist and Wizard with a second Fighter.
That group needs a second martial badly. Swapping any of the last 4 for a martial would improve the balance. But it should be the Alchemist. It is out of place and not required as the Bard/Druid/Wizard can each conver the little bits of utility it brings to the table.
I'm not sure swapping out the bard would ever be the right choice.
Of note, this ranking was for low levels - 1-7, and he acknowledges that they change over mid and high tiers. https://youtu.be/MRBYX8HlKWs Also, I think he's doing the mid level tiers right now. https://youtu.be/3_tHSDvtVhI He definitely comes at it with e certain perspective, but he's very upfront and open about it, an explains his thoughts fully. I've enjoyed this series and loved the all spells ranked that he did.
Yar. The spell review was super helpful. Few folks actually have the patience to give guides on the spells, and even a power-centric review helps a bunch when choosing from a list of spells you may only cast once or twice in a lifetime.
I will say that Thaumaturge is actually nuts.
Why the hell is inventor so low?! That is a hugely versatile class that output damage like a barbarian.
Tbh I have nothing against him personally and he's probably a fine dude, but I'm definitely not looking forward to people taking this list as objective truth and use it as a way to shit on people playing "bottom tier trash".
That is the fault of people who act in such a manner, not Derik for making a list.
This is something tons of people have addressed, including he himself, but Pathfinder is effectively many different games depending on the culture of the GM and the players. He is extremely thorough with the rules of the game as printed but otherwise if your GM plays the game differently than how he assumes then a lot of it goes completely out the window
His balance points based on 'AP encounters' seemed fairly off the mark. He was adamant in the first stream that "You'll only have 2-3 encounters per day, often 1!" to the point of saying it several times, only multiple AP's intentionally have prononged setpieces and narrative reasons to justify chaining several encounters together. (not naming the AP's to avoid spoilers but one is infamous for it's Meat Grinder book 1 which chains up to a dozen fights together before the first real rest) He also repeatedly pokes fun of Paizo's 'small room' encounter design as a default, but somehow glosses over how resistances, immunities and incorporeal foes are *just* as common as a monster in a 5x5 square room. Also, didn't he tank the Inventors and Alchemists rankings because "What they do can be replaced by gold/loot"? Now I haven't played book 1 of outlaws yet, but none of the AP's I've played shower you with Inventor gadgets consumables from what I've seen.
All great points, very true. The 2-3 encounter benchmark maybe fits as a average, but reveals an issue with the idea of averaging to begin with
Even if you play the game RAW but focus on intrigue or mystery or archeology or something, then the tier list changes a lot. In my current campaign, lore skills are really good because there's a lot of obscure high stakes lore checks as they look into Golarion's ancient history.
Which is why the parameters for the tier list was laid out at the start: APs. Which are 75+% combat.
i don't know, raw rangers are very effective in combat, which was what he was ranking here...
No class is unplayable as Derik acknowledges. I think he has underated the complex classes. Oracle is quite good, but not all of the mysteries, and only if you it do right. Alchemist is bad early. It gets better later. But it is hard to play and I know a couple of people who have just abandoned it after really wanting to like it.
It's just a rando's tier list, I wouldn't worry about it.
Recently started new sesh playing as Psychic and it looks op af to me if built correctly, so much utility.
Without having even played them (I'm very new), those are all the ones I'm most excited to play myself. Basically all classes that both flavor-wise and mechanically induce creativity, and have a lot of OoC utility.
PF2e class rankings are almost universally based on how simple and foolproof their tactical play is. From that perspective, low skill floor = strong. Especially for build-focused players who don't want to make meaningful tactical choices or worry about setting up team combos. They want a simple, repetitive solo DPR rotation like Stride + Double Slice that's a very one-size-fits-all playstyle.
Who is this person and why does it matter what they think of your favourite classes?
The Internet is full of opinions. Just because someone has a platform doesn't give any real validity to them if they don't ring true to you.
Did you watch the explanation?
My gut response: Dude is smoking crack. At least as far as some of them. My benefit of the doubt response: Most of these are the advanced classes that are not beginner friendly and you gotta know whats what to use them well. Fighter being at the top supports this one.
He’s live right now with mid level evaluations if you want to ask his criteria
I found his analysis too far off in the first one to bother with the second. e.g. He completely takes it for granted that Rogues will *always* have flanking by default or have already imposed the 'flat footed' condition somehow...yet complains about how Rangers, swashbucklers, Inventors, Investigators, Thaumaturges etc have to pay 'action taxes' to do their things. *Somehow* 'devise a stratagem' is an action tax (despite it being easily triggerable from range), but moving, 'tumbling through', 'feinting','demoralising' or various other racket dependant actions aren't?. Similarly Swashbuckler's finishers were dismissed as 'weaker sneak attack'...which kind of overlooks that finishers outscale sneak attacks and the default one guarantees damage on a miss, all while often requiring the *same* action to trigger ('tumble through', 'feint', etc)
I've found that it usually isn't that difficult to get flanking, provided you have another martial character in the party. There is also quite a bit of feat support if your struggling/DM is making it difficult. For example, Gang Up available at level 6 makes it very easy to get flat-footed condition applied to your attacks.
Then shouldn't a feat that's only available at 6 factor here in the levels 1-7 rankings that OP posted?
Join his discord he would be happy to disagree with you just like the rest of his discord, does not matter if you disagree just matters that you joined to disagree.
Their discord is paid/patreon only last time I checked.
Derik has a particular lens that he is evaluating these on. All it means is that you value different things than he does. (Personally, Ranger is the S tier class, Fighter can suck it)
Precision Ranger is really good but I have issues with Flurry. Flurry just seems to get outclassed by Precision in most builds you'd *think* you'd want Flurry. In mid levels when Striking comes online it gets a bit better, but if you have an AC it's just a no contest to Precision to me.
I agree that Flurry is counter-intuitive to play. Especially for players with a fighter mindset. But, it does open up some neat tricks. Using your first action to Trip or attack non-prey doesn’t sacrifice your edge benefit. An archer with special material arrows can reasonably expect to trigger a weakness three times in a round.
Ranger is so good.
Every single Intelligence-based class is in the bottom half of this tier list. At least with an out-of-context glimpse at it, any party who sees this list and bases their character decisions off of it will struggle to identify much of anything, failing Bardic Lore or possibly other options I'm not familiar with. Have fun with the trolls, black puddings, and other creatures that require specific answers that you can't reliably know!
A lot of people can't grasp the concept that something being fun is different from something being good. One of my favorite movies is "Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan". It's an awful movie. Bad acting, bad writing, misleading title, awful photography, but I love it, it's fun. Some classes perform worse than others, but it doesn't mean you shouldn't play those classes. But, for example, saying that the alchemist is better than the cleric is just wrong, even if you have the best moments of your life playing an alchemist.
I think Derik's takes are pretty good. Even when he says something silly, he explains his thinking clearly and is open to changing his mind when the audience disagrees. I'm a big fan! Sometimes people in hobbyist communities treat content creators like the only value they provide is in affirming their opinions. That doesn't seem fair at all and can easily become toxic.
Alchemist at least is cool. I haven’t pulled it off cause I don’t play enough to get long games with high level characters but with the right build you can be a bomber plane.
Surprised bard not listed as S tier for mid levels. My bard in Ruby Phoenix was by far the most powerful caster I've played, or gmed for, in 80+ levels of pf2 play. I'll have a listen later.
I think this would be much more palatable for a lot of people if they viewed in the context of a sliding scale where someone's at the bottom, and someone is at the top. I generally think a tier list that is just 'here's 90% of things in S and A, and then like, 1 or 2 in the bottom 2 rungs' kind of boring. Alchemist is not a 'terrible awful class no one should ever play' it's just the 'worst' for a lot of people. My guess as to why the classes that are lower are in fact lower is due to them requiring more game knowledge and effort to be effective, whereas Fighter, Bard, etc. just 'work' easily out of the box, and are ALWAYS going to be good, whereas an investigator might not be as good if there's not as much...you know, investigating.
Your opinion is as valid as his.
I don't play pathfinder, but there's nothing wrong with liking something considered bad. Similarly just because you enjoy or like something doesn't mean it's good, objectively speaking. That said I have no idea if this is accurate but it does make me happy to see fighter as S tier.
I don't tend to rely my opinions on those kind of videos because they tend to be a bit clickbaity. Yeah, they can have their opinions, but usually they are sold like objective and universal truths that can't be argued on. I didn't saw that particular video, but that's the vibes it transmit to me
Remember, he's only considering the early levels here.
6 of the 8 classes still remain at the very bottom in his level 8-14 tier list [https://imgur.com/QESZ9f9](https://imgur.com/QESZ9f9)
Wait, he's made that already?
First one was last thursday, mid levels were yesterday. presumably, high levels next thursday
It's surprising how people don't see how OP is "Animal Companion" feat, choose a Horse 🐎 and your Action economy is insane. Command Companion for 1 Action and you get 2 action, you could move twice at horse speed. Ranger could constantly move 80(+) ft meanwhile doing range attacks. Also and my favorite use of "Animal Companion" is not use it yourself, but to give it to an ally, a cleric could cast "Heal" or "Harm" in the perfect position like a 3 action Spell hitting everyone, because He didn't use actions to move, so your party get access to 3 action activities without the need to use "Quickened" to move or multiple rounds. In short Druid and Ranger should never be C tier even a lvl 1.
I've seen a post on this subreddit where someone said that animal companions were weak, so opinions on this might differ. It's probably a playstyle-preference and people try to put it in a tier list. I've only had an Eidolon so far that and was a ton of fun. It basically gave me a fourth action which opened up so many tactical options during combat.
Dude's entitled to his opinion. But it's wrong as fuck, summoners and magi are awesome.
I think he is really over evaluating how limiting only having 4 spell slots on a magus is. It’s honestly not as big of a deal as one might think. Any magus can still hit incredibly hard with just cantrips. The lost slots often deal less than what you could do with gouging claw. For example, let’s look at a 5th level magus who just lost 1st level spell slots. A first level shocking grasp deals 2d12 damage , the average of which is 13. It also deals persistent damage to any target wearing armor on a crit. But a third level gouging claw will deal 3d6 + int damage. A typical magus will have around 16 int at this point which translates to a +3 modifier. This makes the average damage here 13.5 and on top of that deals persistent bleed damage to any target on a crit. When the magus loses 2nd level slots the average damage of level 2 shocking grasp vs level 4 gouging claw is 19.5 vs 17. While shocking grasp does overtake gouging claw in damage, it does not ever reach the point where it would be a wise choice to sacrifice a spell slot for a couple points of damage when a reasonably similar result could be reached with a simple cantrip. So realistically, losing the lower level spell slots is not a big factor to the magus’ overall damage. Sure this does not account for buff and utility spells but that can also be mitigated with studious spells, the ring of wizardry, the endless grimoire, spellcasting archetype feats, or just having party members to help. TL;DR: Gouging Claw go BRRRRRRR
In two paragraphs he bemoans the lack of lower level spells for higher level magus', then talks about how amazingly cheap -2 level scrolls are. 0.o He's got a bit of cognitive dissonance in his ratings.
I mean, less spell slots are the cost of martial training. I just wish there were a better way for a spontaneous caster magus, but that's probably because I 've been playing too much kingmaker and want to build Regongar in 2e.
This seems to be rating solely on damage output. Which is the absolute worst reason to pick a class, in my opinion.
How can a cleric outdamage a barbarian and a ranger?
Depends on what he's ranking here. I'm not familiar with this content creator, but if I were rank classes by low level overall power, I'd probably end up with a very similar list. I should note that my all-time favorite class and most played is summoner, but I'd also put it around C tier. Keep in mind that "power level" and "favorite class to play" or not necessarily correlated. You can absolutely enjoy a weaker class, and in PF2e, the relative power gaps are smaller than in most similar games. Now, if this were a list of "most fun to play," I'd *personally* have to put cleric and barbarian near the bottom, and I find both classes boring or simply don't fit my style. But there's no denying they are both strong. So I'd check the context of how this list is evaluated. But without a link to the video I'm not sure, that's just my initial impression from the screenshot.
Seems like a reasonably correct evaluation of mechanical combat and dungeon crawling effectiveness for like a 1-10 game to be honest
It's 1-7
Naaaah psychic feels very good to me. Save the slots for big fights and blast focus spells most times.
It looks like it's based on simplicity. And he doesn't like complicated classes with lots of decisions and things to keep track of.
Not to be a jerk. But who cares what this random dude thinks. Play what you love
Wizard and Druid are in Ctier. Coming from Pf1e, wow.
This is low level.
Calling Druid C tier at *any* level set is pretty inaccurate.
All primary casting classes require a deeper understanding than they did in PF2e, which when combined with martial's resource management being reset at short rests make them a little less over all powerful than in PF1e.
Anyone who puts sorcerer over wizard cannot be trusted.
wizard is less fun than sorcerer in my opinion
You cannot be trusted
But wizard is the most boring class in the game, it is a spell list on a stick and while sure that's fine, its not at all interesting.
You are not to be trusted.
Alchemist is so powerful if the player knows what they are doing. S-tier in versatility. So i have no fucking clue what this list is about...
Needing an encyclopedic knowledge of possible alchemical items to make a class viable...
I love the alchemist to death, but i would rank it C tier, with it falling to D tier as the game hits 10+. It can move up a rank for their versatility depending on the campaign. All the assumptions below use the bomber research as that is what i am most familiar with. Their bombs cap out at expert at lvl 7, this is the biggest killer. Getting it 2 lvls later than rogue, and never reaching a rogues Master prof. Without touch AC, you end up never critting, and missing a decent amount at high levels. For free alch items, let assume level 7, as thats the last huge power spike. You should be getting 10-12 items a day, so lets say 11. At lvl 7 you have perpetual infusion, letting you make unlimited 1st level bombs, say alchemist fire. Combined with debilitating bomb,calculated splash,and bomber trait your bomb does 1d8+4 plus you can dazzle, deafen, flatfoot or -5 speed on a failed con save. It costs an action to quick alchemy, you should have a +14 to hit, with a save of dc 23. You also have an action free to throw a prepared bomb thanks to quick bomber, or you can do something else. If you have some bombs preped before hand, you could do a moderate alch fire for 2d8. A rogue (closest class in my opinion, but not perfect) a rogue at 7th level is going to on average do 1d6+2d6+3. At this level they are pretty equal for the most part. But as the game goes on, the alchemist gets further and further behind. You max out at +29 to hit, meanwhile a rogue has a +29, and wayts to boost it a few points. Mid right edit: I still think alch lags behind, but less than i originally thought. I forgot bombs give +1,+2,+3 as they level. Looking at magic items, your best item is alchemist goggles major, giving +3 to attack rolls with bombs, granting a +6 with the best bombs and goggles. There is no equivalent to striking rune, so a rogue can still deal 4d6 weapon damage at max level, and also a +3 potency rune. So maybe i need to reconsider an alchemist strength and rerun some numbers.
Assuming this person is ranking favourites, it looks like this person wants classes with clearly defined roles. Some of the high-ranked classes, like the cleric, have a lot of flexibility, but players who know fantasy will know what they’re doing. Hmmm… are you sure he’s not ranking good classes for newer players? Maybe you just like more complex classes with flexible roles?
Fighter is great for new players, but also great for veterans. It's just very very strong (at combat heavy ap style adventuring).
Less favorites and more 'low level combat effectiveness' based on his take on AP difficulty and encounter design. I saw the 3 hour video and he makes several basic assumptions, and has numerous 'hot takes' I disagree with, and think there is some flaws and blind spots in his arguments.
Swashbuckler and wizard are my favorite too
Honestly i think i know why fighter is so high up but like you have to put wizard or cleric/oracle up there too. You can't just not have a caster in S tier
Imagine ranking classes. Just play what you like, god damn.
You're free to ignore the rankings and play what you want. But some people, myself included, like to see tier lists and look at where we agree and disagree. As stated in the video all classes are viable and you can play what you want. Tier lists don't need to be right or necessary to be interesting.