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Hello everyone!
So 2 years ago I made a poll to analyze the power of all of the classes (Results can be found here). I asked people to rate their class from 1 to 10, and while the results were interesting, it wasn't easy to compare them to one another.
So to make the polls slightly easier to draw conclusions from, I made a new poll!
In this one I'd like you to take the character classes in your party, and sort them from most effective to least effective (considering overall performance, in and out of combat).
I also added questions about people's ancestries and how fun their characters are, cuz why not.
The poll can be found here.
I've given everyone access to the results so you can view them WHILE THE POLL IS STILL LIVE. Here's the link.
You can use the RESULTS tab to view the raw results and filter them as you like, and then use the GRAPHS tab to see graphs relating to your filtered results table.
Please answer once per character you own, and don't skew the results on purpose.
A link to the corresponding reddit post can be found here.
Edit1: I added GM as an option so GMs can contribute
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When you say "Please sort your party's characters" do you mean the group/party you play with or a hypothetical meta party?
The one you play with. This poll is supposed to be based only on actual play experience.
There's no GM class this time?
I filled it out! Our group is on the bleeding edge of character optimization too so I'm glad I got a response in.
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There's no GM class this time?
Actually, you know - in this specific poll, there should be!
I'll add that as an option
Might need to exempt the GM responses from the Ancestry graph since there wasn't an option to ignore the ancestry question by the way, I just noticed when I filled it out for a separate campaign we ran.
Weird poll. So I rate this by party and if I GM. I have a lot of parties. I'll have to think about this some.
Some classes are equally valuable within a group. One is not often greater than another. I'm not sure if this poll will properly rate classes if effective 1, 2, 3, and the like is supposed to represent their order of effectiveness when in the actual game they are roughly equal.
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I gave this poll some thought. I didn't include the wizard because every player quit playing the the wizard early on and switched to another class they were so boring.
After reviewing my ratings, I've found the following:
1. Druids, occult and primal sorcerers, divine witches, and bards are usually the most valuable in a group. They generally do the most all around work during a campaign whether healing, AoE damage, buffing, debuffing, and controlling the battlefield.
2. Rogues are the most valuable martial. They do a lot of damage and generally offer the most versatile skill options for dealing with other aspects of the game.
3. Fighters usually fall in the middle somewhere. Consistent, accurate damage.
4. Only had one giant instinct barbarian in our groups. He hit like a truck and commanded attention every battle.
5. Monks tend to fall slightly below fighters. They do decent martial damage and have good action economy with their movement and flurry.
6. Rangers tend to fall low on the list. They usually bring damage to the table and Hunt Prey is not great action economy. They often have damage blow through on their prey. But at the same time, they are fun to play, so I've seen more than a few.
7. Wizards have been the least valuable. Their spells fail quite often in the most deadly situations. It feels like they are either forced to buff or use non-save spells or have their actions fail roughly 50% or more of the time in many fights. They occasionally do something spectacular, but often their spells fizzle.
In combats that last 3 to 5 rounds, even one round of fizzling feels pretty terrible while martials are teeing off for big damage and casters with healing can at least keep a party member fighting or get someone back up between using attack spells, buffs, and the like.
But I didn't list them. People quit playing wizards as the low level wizard experience is so much worse than every other class. I have one player who is a lvl 7 wizard that is continuing to try to make the class stand out, but even in that group the wizard has been the least valuable member of the group. I want to give it a few more levels before I rate that group as one player is inserting a magus and another player a summoner. So it will be interesting to see where the wizard rates against those two classes.
Define "effective."
Define "effective."
I defined it as able to be effective in the most situations you experience in the game. That is how I set my ratings. Not sure how the OP defines it.
It's an interesting perspective, because all my players hate the Primal list, because of how little it offers and avoid Druids like the plague, as outside of Wild Shape it does not offer much and even then wild Shape takes and entire turn to use
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It's an interesting perspective, because all my players hate the Primal list, because of how little it offers and avoid Druids like the plague, as outside of Wild Shape it does not offer much and even then wild Shape takes and entire turn to use
I'm not sure why they think that way.
Tempest surge is an excellent focus spell.
You can take two orders. So you can take an animal companion early on, then retrain to wild shape once you can pick up dragon and elemental form.
Wisdom is your main stat which boosts your perception, initiative, and will saves as well as works well with Medicine for picking up the healing skill.
You get to wear decent armor and use a shield to prevent damage as well as better weapons.
Primal list has excellent blasting spells, sustainable damage spells, healing, and wall spells. Summon Giant is actually one of the better non-celestial summoning spells in the game. Not great, but better at putting a big body in the way.
You can use wild shape very nicely for scouting, pounding through walls as the earth elemental does a lot of raw damage, great mobility, and other utility functions during exploration or non-combat phases that make life easier.
I'm surprised more people who enjoy min-maxing haven't tricked out a druid as they can do a lot. You can even build a druid with dexterity, let them do most of the lockpicking or disable device and turn them into decent stealthy scouts.
Druid has a nice chassis to build on. Primal list has some effective versatility as well as raw damaging power.
Also, this is from the perspective of often building groups with only a single hybrid caster who can heal. The druid makes a great hybrid caster who can heal and do lots of other things including a lot of damage. If you're building larger parties than 5 or 6 with multiple casters, the druid may not look as valuable. If you're a group of 4 or 5 with a druid as the main hybrid caster, they do a ton for a group.
I've also come to conclusion not building a caster to use a decent weapon in the early levels is a huge mistake that makes playing a caster less fun. You can drop the weapon later on, but early that single action weapon attack is a big deal.
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6. Rangers tend to fall low on the list. They usually bring damage to the table and Hunt Prey is not great action economy. They often have damage blow through on their prey. But at the same time, they are fun to play, so I've seen more than a few.
Lower levels are more difficult, but starting with 4 attacks with low MAP are really good for Flurry rangers. Precision also works fine due to the extra damage die, but I prefer flurry. Hunt prey is a drag early on, but at level 10 it suddenly shines, with Master Monster Hunter, WIS and Nature, giving Ranger one of the best recall knowledge actions in the game. Which only gets better at level 12 with Double Prey, which also solves the action economy for Hunt Prey (which, by the way, can be done outside combat). If you want to go all in on Recall Knowledge, you could take Additional Recollection for 4 accurate Recall Knowledge actions per Hunt Prey action. Is there a class which can do better? So very high DPS, effective actions from 10 onwards and the higher you go, the better it gets.
Additionally High Nature & WIS also gives you an option to trick magic item for useful primal spells. High WIS is good for perception, you can add Medic for usefulness.
You talk about min-maxing quite often, I'm surprised you rate the ranger this low. They are fun and very effective.
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6. Rangers tend to fall low on the list. They usually bring damage to the table and Hunt Prey is not great action economy. They often have damage blow through on their prey. But at the same time, they are fun to play, so I've seen more than a few.
Lower levels are more difficult, but starting with 4 attacks with low MAP are really good for Flurry rangers. Precision also works fine due to the extra damage die, but I prefer flurry. Hunt prey is a drag early on, but at level 10 it suddenly shines, with Master Monster Hunter, WIS and Nature, giving Ranger one of the best recall knowledge actions in the game. Which only gets better at level 12 with Double Prey, which also solves the action economy for Hunt Prey (which, by the way, can be done outside combat). If you want to go all in on Recall Knowledge, you could take Additional Recollection for 4 accurate Recall Knowledge actions per Hunt Prey action. Is there a class which can do better? So very high DPS, effective actions from 10 onwards and the higher you go, the better it gets.
Additionally High Nature & WIS also gives you an option to trick magic item for useful primal spells. High WIS is good for perception, you can add Medic for usefulness.
You talk about min-maxing quite often, I'm surprised you rate the ranger this low. They are fun and very effective.
We don't tend to cast attack spells with anything less than a maxed out spell DC. It feels too risky and underwhelming. I can see using Trick Magic Item for a haste or fly spell being useful or a see invis.
We don't use Recall Knowledge much. The few times we've used the action, it hasn't proven more useful than hitting or blasting the creature. It doesn't feel like a very good use of an action.
The funny thing is even though I rate the ranger lower on effectiveness in the groups they were in, I would rate the ranger high for fun. Everyone that plays a ranger has fun playing it. Very well rounded with a lot of things to do. I think the ranger might be more effective in a group if a rogue wasn't already in the group. They sort of take up that rogue slot with the high perception, often dex-based warrior type with some additional skills.
I played a flurry ranger. They started to get better and better. I found playing the flurry ranger with his animal companion solo against equal to lower level mobs a better use of my actions. No damage blow through as a flurry ranger does a lot of damage when they are in position to do so. It messes up their rhythm to attack a non-boss target with a group as the monster goes down too quick and they get damage overkill. Better to let them solo strike a creature.
I think my rating has more to do with the group composition than the ranger class itself. I tried to keep true to the group effectiveness ratings. A ranger in a group with a rogue is often less effective in that group and somewhat redundant. A ranger in a group without a rogue would probably move up the effectiveness rankings.
Then again effectiveness in PF2 is not a very wide gap between martials. It can get pretty wide between casters, but martials are fairly tight.
We don't tend to cast attack spells with anything less than a maxed out spell DC. It feels too risky and underwhelming. I can see using Trick Magic Item for a haste or fly spell being useful or a see invis.
Vital Beacon, Ant Haul, Pet cache, Flame wisps (for fire weakness as a separate damage source), Enlarge, Instant Armor, and more. Quite some useful stuff if you can spare the cash.
We don't use Recall Knowledge much. The few times we've used the action, it hasn't proven more useful than hitting or blasting the creature. It doesn't feel like a very good use of an action.
OK, that matters. When RK is actively used, there is no better class. And for a ranger, it comes free with the Hunt Prey.
The funny thing is even though I rate the ranger lower on effectiveness in the groups they were in, I would rate the ranger high for fun. Everyone that plays a ranger has fun playing it. Very well rounded with a lot of things to do. I think the ranger might be more effective in a group if a rogue wasn't already in the group. They sort of take up that rogue slot with the high perception, often dex-based warrior type with some additional skills.I played a flurry ranger. They started to get better and better. I found playing the flurry ranger with his animal companion solo against equal to lower level mobs a better use of my actions. No damage blow through as a flurry ranger does a lot of damage when they are in position to do so. It messes up their rhythm to attack a non-boss target with a group as the monster goes down too quick and they get damage overkill. Better to let them solo strike a creature.
I think my rating has more to do with the group composition than the ranger class itself. I tried to keep true to the group effectiveness ratings. A ranger in a group with a rogue is often less effective in that group and somewhat redundant. A ranger in a group without a rogue would probably move up the effectiveness rankings.
The group I'm in has a Ranger and a Roque. Party of 5, Ranger and Rogue as DPS, free archetype. Both Ranger and Rogue are DPS, Rogue can peak, Ranger is more consistent due to a lot of attacks. Ranger has a Dex AC, and is a STR char, with plate, WIS secondary. Rogue is a Thief Duelist with high Cha. Different roles. Works well together.
I gave this poll some thought. I didn't include the wizard because every player quit playing the the wizard early on and switched to another class they were so boring.
After reviewing my ratings, I've found the following:
1. Druids, occult and primal sorcerers, divine witches, and bards are usually the most valuable in a group. They generally do the most all around work during a campaign whether healing, AoE damage, buffing, debuffing, and controlling the battlefield.
2. Rogues are the most valuable martial. They do a lot of damage and generally offer the most versatile skill options for dealing with other aspects of the game.
3. Fighters usually fall in the middle somewhere. Consistent, accurate damage.
4. Only had one giant instinct barbarian in our groups. He hit like a truck and commanded attention every battle.
5. Monks tend to fall slightly below fighters. They do decent martial damage and have good action economy with their movement and flurry.
6. Rangers tend to fall low on the list. They usually bring damage to the table and Hunt Prey is not great action economy. They often have damage blow through on their prey. But at the same time, they are fun to play, so I've seen more than a few.
7. Wizards have been the least valuable. Their spells fail quite often in the most deadly situations. It feels like they are either forced to buff or use non-save spells or have their actions fail roughly 50% or more of the time in many fights. They occasionally do something spectacular, but often their spells fizzle.
...
That matches my experience, except that none of my players has tried a barbarian, fighter, or wizard.
All of our one-class casters--druid, fey-blooded sorcerer, and NPC beast-eidolon summoner--use the primal spell list. This is due to the primal setting, the Fangwood forest in Nirmathis, home of many druids and fey. One rogue with scoundrel racket multiclassed to arcane-based draconic-bloodline sorcerer, but he can cast only two cantrips on his own because the bloodline feats fit the character concept better. He has acquired a few arcane wands, though.
The other rogue, with thief racket, is a sniper. She Hides, shoots with her shortbow, and hides again. Catching her target flatfooted has led to a lot of crits, so the deadly d10 of the shortbow makes her a strong damage dealer. The versatility of the rogues and their out-of-combat utility makes them the best martial class.
The monk is another good damage dealer. He shines best, however, with his mobility. The sorcerer often casts Haste on him to enhance these two strengths.
The champion tried a clever character concept: highly defensive liberator with a velociraptor animal companion for offense. It worked, but it stands out only when the party needs defense.
The ranger was the only martial before the champion and monk joined the party, and thus had an important role, but he has a poor design for PF2. He is a classic switch-hitter, starting with longbow and switching to dual melee weapons. But the Interact actions for switching weapons cost too many actions, even with a houserule that he can draw both melee weapons on the same Interact. And Hunt Prey is also a big action tax when opponents drop quickly--the party fights armies rather than higher-level enemies. His snare crafting operates differently than I expected. He would plant the snares before battle as part of an ambush. That has great action economy.
I asked my wife which classes in the party are the most effective, and she says they are equally effective. My players believe in teamwork, and if someone, such as the sniper rogue, needs special circumstances to function exceptionally well, then the party will work together to create those circumstances. Judging the classes separately is difficult in such a party.
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Looking forward to people continuing to fill this out and seeing the final results!
I could probably help design a visualization for the results as well, assuming OP doesn't already have plans.
I may have missed it, but this is definitely worth posting in the subreddit as well.
Looking forward to people continuing to fill this out and seeing the final results!
I could probably help design a visualization for the results as well, assuming OP doesn't already have plans.
I may have missed it, but this is definitely worth posting in the subreddit as well.
I didn't have anything specific planned yet, so I'd love to hear your thoughts!
I already posted on the subreddit, but I made another post right now to get a few extra responses before I close it all.
It feels surreal being an alchemist player, but putting myself at the top of the effectiveness chart
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It feels surreal being an alchemist player, but putting myself at the top of the effectiveness chart
lol I mean, Alchemist Power and all *raises fist in solidarity*, but the OP did ask us not to intentionally skew the polls and I can't in good conscience rate an alchemist the most effective class.
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I can't really participate here, as I play PFS and I don't have a party to compare to, really.
Still, I will state for the record that I've never played a PFS game where I felt my Alchemist (Bomber) wasn't effective. There've been a couple where he was the most effective character in it.
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Same for my. My party alchemist rapidally noticed that bomb are usually unblockable and the Blight Bomb + Acid Flask can stack he is one of the mostly effective damage dealers of the party.
The alchemist is even more versatile than a spellcaster in raw damage and super effective against monsters with some weakness, specially swarms.
Obs.: Alchemist also is his first 2e class.
The only problem he reports is that elixir action economy isn't good and mutagens in general are forgettable.
Same for my. My party alchemist rapidally noticed that bomb are usually unblockable and the Blight Bomb + Acid Flask can stack he is one of the mostly effective damage dealers of the party.
The alchemist is even more versatile than a spellcaster in raw damage and super effective against monsters with some weakness, specially swarms.
Obs.: Alchemist also is his first 2e class.
The only problem he reports is that elixir action economy isn't good and mutagens in general are forgettable.
The funny thing is, mutagens existing changed how my group buys items.
Because I can craft them so readily, they usually just use mutagens for item bonuses and spend their money on other gear, and almost everyone carries a smokestick on hand
I've also gotten a lot of milage from Infiltrator's Elixir being only 10 min durarion. Bad for long impersonation, but great for making a false guise, doing a crime, and watching the authorities chase a ghost
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Bomber Alchemist was very useful in one of our campaigns. Bombs are not magical, so they generally did damage to everything. That splash damage added up. Some of the elixirs like cheetah and mist were very nice for combats. The fright bomb that came later on turned out to be cool as well.
No class has been low in effectiveness in our campaigns except the wizard up to around lvl 9. Even the wizard has had a few moments here and there that were decent. But the number of fizzles has been high too.
I'd rather have an alchemist than a wizard personally.
Despite this, survey has shown that the wizard is the most played. Personally I don't quite understand why since in my opinion the wizard is one of the most difficult and frustable classes in the game, especially at the lower levels. My theory is that a lot of these wizard players are people who chose because the felling that "wizards still are undeterred" from earlier versions.
Despite this, survey has shown that the wizard is the most played. Personally I don't quite understand why since in my opinion the wizard is one of the most difficult and frustable classes in the game, especially at the lower levels. My theory is that a lot of these wizard players are people who chose because the felling that "wizards still are undeterred" from earlier versions.
Wizard was one of the most played classes in PF1 and every edition of D&D I've ever played. My players still try to play them. It's just as you said, a frustrating experience compared to what they were in every edition of D&D other than PF2.
Wizard is usually one of the first classes I try in every new edition of D&D. Myself and one other player love wizards. One player loves monks. One loves some kind of martial, preferably a ranger. One guy tends to try different things depending on what he reads he can exploit in some way.
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Yeah, it's because it's such a staple of the genre. The name of the class itself invokes a lot of images that people want to experience.
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If you wanna be prepared and you wanna have 4 slots wizard is the way to go. Its not the most exciting niche but it's a niche. Plenty of feats to augment spellcasting too. Honestly a smattering of choice wizard feats while mostly leaning on feats from the new spell trickster archetype seems like it would make for a pretty fun character.
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My suspicion is--and this can't be but a suspicion, as I haven't seen one in play, let alone play one myself--that if you are careful about choosing staple spells as a default (that is, have a standard set of prepped spells that are widely useful) and only swap out when you have advanced information about what's coming, a wizard will probably feel okay (unless you're someone who thoroughly internalized the expectation that arcanists should be as overpowered as they've frequently been in the past).
The problem, of course, is that's a big "if". I doubt most people playing them do that, because they're hung up on the rotation versatility.
There is only one thesis that allows swapping in 10 minutes. So switching spells to prepare for a battle takes a day. I can't imagine most parties would wait that long to take on an encounter. Then wait another day for the next encounter. Then another day for the next one. So the only way the wizard is doing any swapping is if they purchased the spell needed, put it in their book, and took the thesis that allows swapping in 10 minutes.
Whereas if I make an occult sorcerer and take Occult Evolution I believe it is called, I can search every mental occult spell and take it within a minute. That has been an immensely useful ability in a module like Agents of Edgewatch. It's once per day, but I keep the spell for the entire day.
I agree with Thomas. Maybe some players may choose wizard and
Spell Substitution thesis to allow them to prepare basically all-round spells (like fireballs and magic-missiles) in mostly their spell levels and reprepare if they need some in special cases (like Water Breathing) this wont's take all day because these situation usually are fair rare and none spellcaster want to loose a spellslots with situational magic that you may never need that day so this thesis maybe useful.
But ends here because the rest I agree with DF I don't see many players chosing wizard because of this once they still may do an arcane sorcerer instead and choose the spell on the fly. Probably most players only choose the wizard because the flavor not the mechanics.
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I play a very effective melee Wizard (champ ded, cleric ded). I can confirm that I chose spell sub thesis and prepare combat spells in my slots at the beginning of the day without any foreknowledge of what the day will bring. I also chose universalist for the 1/spell level/day DBI. The spell sub has been very effective in both flavor and mechanics.
NPC: "I need you to escort this caravan all the way to X-opolis. The terrain is rough and you'll be the caravan's scouts."
Me: *thumbs up* "Give me 30 min."
**30 min later**
Me: "Alright team(4 of us)! Level 4 Phantom Steeds for everyone for the next 8 hours! Speed of 40 and ignore difficult terrain!"
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information gathered: "The bbe is a spellcaster that has summoned minions who also cast spells."
Me: *thumbs up* "Give me 10 min."
**10 min later**
Me: "Ready!"
**A little later combat starts**
Me: "Globe of Invulnerability!"
I didn't have anything specific planned yet, so I'd love to hear your thoughts!
I already posted on the subreddit, but I made another post right now to get a few extra responses before I close it all.
Thanks for putting in the work to pull this together. If I've got the gist of the poll right, it's asking about two themes:
1) Rate a class by Valuable (1-4) and Fun (1-4)
2) Create a descending relative effectiveness list for your party
#2 has too many factors influencing it for each survey participant's values to be quantitatively relevant. An average effective class in a party of low effective classes rates just as high as a high effective class in a normal distribution party. I wouldn't use this data.
For #1, your current reports don't tie any of this data together: Class + Value score + Fun score. Showing these separately is interesting only for Class to see what the spread is, but Fun and Value aren't standalone.
I would try a Stacked Bar chart with Class on your X and Value/Fun stacked on your Y as average ratings. Thus Y goes from 0 to 4. X goes from A to Z through the classes.
Cheap trick, you could also add a Class Slicer to your existing report to automatically associate the Fun and Value scores with 1 class at a time. That would be quick to add, but it's less interesting. At a glance, there's no way to tell who's top and who's bottom.
Lastly, you may want to consider another question format for your next poll. This is already a subjective perception. Why limit your poll to the participant's class? I would list all the classes and let people enter a Value/Fun value for each one based on their perception of the class. You're not really getting the actual "valuable"-ness of a class with this poll anyway. You're getting a participant's perception, so why not capture much more data? Something to consider.
Looking forward to your results.
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I agree with Thomas. Maybe some players may choose wizard and
Spell Substitution thesis to allow them to prepare basically all-round spells (like fireballs and magic-missiles) in mostly their spell levels and reprepare if they need some in special cases (like Water Breathing) this wont's take all day because these situation usually are fair rare and none spellcaster want to loose a spellslots with situational magic that you may never need that day so this thesis maybe useful.
Spell Substition is one of the worst played Thesis in the game. What you are describing is a non-spell substitution Wizard. Normal wizards prepare only all-round spells as they need their spell list to be usable all day long. And they have a few scrolls for the moment where you need a specific spell.
Spell Substition Wizards only prepare a few all-round spells and a lot of very specific spells (Dispel Magic, Fly, etc...) that can be very potent but that you can't take as a normal Wizard as they would just clutter your spell list.And then, after every fight, when others are healing, you modify your spell list so you always have a few all-round spells for the next combat.
That's the way to get the most of Spell Substitution (and the only way for it to be worth a Thesis).
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It's not a Wizard discussion (even if these kind of discussion often end up as Wizard discussions), but another common Wizard/Witch mistake I see is players buying low level utility/specific scrolls and put them right away into their spell books. Writing a formula costs half the price of the scroll, if you're not sure you'll use a spell ever, don't write it, just keep the scroll. And if you ever need to prepare it, write it before preparing it as it takes only a few hours. You'll save on writing spells that you'll never prepare.
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It's not a Wizard discussion (even if these kind of discussion often end up as Wizard discussions), but another common Wizard/Witch mistake I see is players buying low level utility/specific scrolls and put them right away into their spell books. Writing a formula costs half the price of the scroll, if you're not sure you'll use a spell ever, don't write it, just keep the scroll. And if you ever need to prepare it, write it before preparing it as it takes only a few hours. You'll save on writing spells that you'll never prepare.
While I won't deny this point, for me it is more a question of flavor over function. I write them in my spellbook to have an expansive spellbook. It may be skewed slightly in that in PFS you don't need to buy a scroll to get it into your book, though.