I'm hoping to get opinions from a wide variety of people. Which are the top 5 classes in the game in your opinion.
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Oracle - it's a very versatile and mostly not overpowered class.
Bard - versatile again, and never overpowered.
Kineticist - a pain to understand at first but great for modelling some types of thematically-themed magical people.
Bloodrager - good for some types of power fantasies, and less likely to end up dumping charisma to that end. Dumping charisma is at variance with those fantasies no matter how mechanically advantageous it may be.
Druid - for a number of wilderness-themed concepts. Can be overpowered.
But seriously, class is not how I divide up ideas. Concept first, then see how rules elements including but not limited to class can support that.
In no particular order:
- Alchemist: Mechanically I think this is the most well designed class in the game. It's powerful, thematic and versatile. It's also not SO powerful as to be truly game-breaking, and there are plenty of meaningful choices built into the class to help you make a unique character no matter how many times you play.
- Bard: Probably the most useful class in the game, there are almost no circumstances where your party won't want a bard - they're useful in combat, in social encounters, and they have more skill points than they know what to do with. A super-munchkin Bard will make your less min-maxed party members feel more powerful, rather than less, and on top of that they're even fun to role-play. Bards are a force multiplier for the whole family to enjoy.
- Bloodrager: Basically everything I said about the alchemist applies here, the alchemist just edged out the bloodrager by a fraction in my mind. It's also great for Paladin players who have a slightly different character concept, or have a GM who hates paladins. I also love the CHA focus for a martial meathead.
- Magus: In case it isn't obvious yet, I love playing a Gish (martial/caster). Magus Gish is the best Gish. I really love the execution of this class. Wading into combat with a weapon in one hand hurling spells with the other is pretty much the dream. There are so many ways to try to build a martial/caster, but the Magus is exactly what I was trying to make before it came out.
- Paladin: My first love. I expect people will either agree with me here or they will never understand. Paladins got a pretty big buff between 3.5 and PF, and I was sooo happy. A shining knight who's almost impossible to kill. Your party is stronger just by standing near you, and when you get to the boss room it's Smiting Time! I kind of love playing the high-CHA/low-WIS character too. Can't always do it, but sometimes you just want to play the idealistic fool. This has been my favourite for a very long time.
Honourable mentions:
- Investigator: So far in my experience the Investigator has been more like a huge Alchemist archetype. I didn't think I should put them both in my top 5, but if there's and Alchemist concept that you can't quite get to work, try the Investigator. I'm a big fan of the Inspiration and studied combat mechanics too.
- Oracle: I'm not a huge fan of 9th level casters, but the Oracle has so much flavour. I also really like the way they made your Oracle curse scale with other class levels too, so even if you don't want to play a 9th level caster you can dip 1 level and get yourself cursed.
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Hmmm, only 5 is kind of hard, but I'd say:
Alchemist - Healing, buffing, blasting, and a large pool of really cool discoveries to choose from. Plus 4+int skills per level on an Intelligence based magic user.
Bard - Skills, and incredible buffing ability on a chassis that can still contribute a lot in combat. Plus a ton of really useful archetypes that have special abilities, like sound striker or thundercaller.
Inquisitor - Holy warrior with skills and stellar swift action buffing.
Kineticist - Probably the best designed class in the game, even if it takes you a while to figure out the mechanics. Interesting utility abilities on a class that can blast all day long, but still has important decisions round to round on how they want to affect the blast, and whether they're willing to sacrifice some health to give it some extra oomph.
Oracle - The sheer number of different character types that can be accomplished with this class is astounding. From front line melee, to healbot, to blast caster, to sneak, and more. Really only the medium and vigilante can compare in role versatility, and I'd take a team of oracles over the other two any day.
Also, an honorable mention to pretty much any class that has 9th level casting, or has 6+int skill ranks per level.
Concept/Design
- Oracle: +1 to the kudos for amazing flexibility in implementing character concepts.
- Witch: A lot of flexibility in implementing character concepts, and covers some bases that the Oracle misses. If you are the only 9/9 caster or especially the only >4/9 caster in the party, this is a go-to, although you have to sacrifice some of that flexibility to get there. A drawback is that an awful lot of the Hexes are geared towards Evil characters.
- Magus: Once you get past all the cookie-cutter Shocking Grasp builds, you have a pretty good number of other cool options.
- Investigator: The go-to if you want to be the skill monkey, and with a pretty good amount of flexibility in it. I would put Alchemist in here, but some of the Alchemist's class features (Mutagen, or Cognatogen in some archetypes) seem recklessly dangerous to the user (conceptually as well as mechanically).
- Fighter: With the Weapon Master's Handbook and the Armor Master's Handbook, this has actually gotten pretty good mechanically, and gives interesting options. Warning: Some assembly required.
- Arcanist: Combines the preparation flexibility of a Wizard with the recasting flexibility of a Sorcerer -- just watch your gas gauge carefully. Exploiter Wizard (a backcross 2nd generation hybrid of Arcanist to Wizard) is a close runner-up and even gives an advantage in when you get access to new spell levels beyond 1st.
- Witch: See entry for this above, and never run out of Hexes as long as you are trying them on new enemies. I would have put Shaman in here, but it seems to require a PhD to use well, and I only have a lousy Master's. Either way, watch your squishy Familiar/Spirit Animal.
- Kineticist: Not the most concentrated power, but if you build and play carefully, it seems that you can just keep going and going and going. Caution: May also require a PhD to use.
- Mesmerist: Staring someone down and their not even being able to tell you are doing it is just overpowered.
- Cleric: Until we get a divine Arcanist, this gets the nod. Not so easy to make interesting, but undeniably powerful, and fairly hard to kill. Was tempted to put Oracle in, but the better Fortitude Save, earlier spell access, and better summoning options on the Cleric edge out more interesting options from Mysteries/Revelations and recasting flexbility on the Oracle to be the tiebreaker, although Oracle can do some specialized jobs better.
- Oracle, they can do anything and do it really well whilst probably not breaking anything, they're mechanically amazing and also one of the fluffyist if not the fluffyist class in the game. They're incredible.
- Inquisitor, they can simultanously be incredible proficient in combat and amazing outside of combat through brilliant skills mechanics and a fun spell list. They also come with some fun fluff, although one feels people sometimes get caught up on the name.
- Alchemists, similarly versatile to the Inquisitor but with the added bonus of providing some rather more unique ways of interacting with the world than most classes do. And again they have some amazing fluff and provide some funny roleplay opportunities, they enable the mad scientist fantasy which doesn't normally get much exposure in DnD type games. They also get a tone of skills cause they're intelligence based.
- Occultist, Focus power are fun and powerful options that aren't just a numeric bonus and allow the class to do some interesting things in and out of combat, they also function separately to spells and physical combat options (like bombs and revelations, notice a theme?), plus being intelligence based means they get a glut of skills to customise their character with.
- Witch, they get the power of being a prepared arcane caster without the game braking and kind of boring numeric bonuses that wizards get from school powers, they also get a less game breaking spell list and in return they get hexes which allow them to contribute all day even at low levels, eliviating the most common weakness of the prepared caster especially at low levels
- Honoruable mentions-
- Sorcerer is the class which allowed me to build my favourite character, I have a bit of a weakness for Charisma based classes and I think Sorcs allow you to feel incredibly powerful, their lack of skills and things to do when they aren't casting spells is the reason they don't make the list.
- Bards, they're useful but I think unless you make them a sword dancer they often end up looking the same, they don't seem to have much choice built into the class
- Kineticists, I think they're interesting and have fun options but they don't have enough product support yet, there are too many crap options which means most of them end up taking the same powers because only a few are worth taking.
- Investigators may be deserving of a spot on the list but I'm unfamiliar with them.
- Mesmerists, amazing fluff, loads of skills, Charisma based with bonuses to bluff, make them amazing faces, great spell list and great ability to debuff saves, but trying to make one work in melee is not easy and often requires dipping so I don't think they're versatile enough for a 3/4 class to make the list.
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Oracle: Quite honestly, for me, at least, it's the best designed class in pathfinder. It's flavorful, it's not underpowered and allows many customization options.
Bard: Paizo gave so much love to Bards...it's pretty insane to be quite honest. From being able to have master pieces (super song) that can essentially do spells similar to full 9th level casters to a list of archetypes that allows them to do any roles in the game. The bards are quite solid.
Witch: The witch had to compete with the Wizard, as a prepared arcane caster. It didn't seem like the witch would find a niche...but surprisingly it did. The hexes offer interesting mechanics for the witch and they still have spells related to the patron that they align with.
Bloodrager: One of my favorite of the new classes, you literally transform with your rage and on top of it, it reminds of something that people have been trying to do for years back in 3.5 with ragecasters and the likes. I just want them to get more bloodlines.
Investigator: "Why can't just people think?" Sherlock.
"Why can't just people think?" Sherlock.
Only the unjust people think ;)
Wizard, Oracle, Witch, Bard, Vigilante
Note Vigilante is only here if treating them as a set. Full caster classes are more versatile and for the most part more powerful but I would call Vigilante best in class
Top 6: It is too hard to pick between these 6 as being the best 5 as they very powerful and use much of the same spell list.
Wizard
Arcanist
Cleric
Druid
Shaman
Witch
Edit: P.S. I do not play with Occult classes and have not even cared to read them. So Psychic and Kineticist were not even considered by me. THo they are Very powerful in their own rights as I have seen them in play.
Psychics aren't really any stronger than Sorcerers, what did you see the kineticist doing that made you think it was so strong?
Also I'm not sure the OP meant powerful when they said best.
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Oracle - this class is so well designed. You can make any build work, each one bring something unique and powerful to the table.
Investigator - best skill monkey in the game many great builds, and a great class to the dip with and find fun combinations. It's as accurate as a full Bab class with alchemy and mutagens.
Bard - I'm going to say bard but mostly because they have some of the best archtype support in the game. Any build strong combat great day support.
Mesmerist - if you like chess this is the class for you. You plan ahead, get tones of free actions and watch your skilled planning sway the fight. The casting power despite being a 6th level caster and all the other abilities are amazing.
Druid - can do any one thing amazingly well or
do many things very well.
Honerable mention to:
Shaman: same reasons as the oracle.
Bloodrager: amazing martial with a nice bit of casting thrown in.
Future honerable mention to:
The up coming shifter class.
Psychics aren't really any stronger than Sorcerers, what did you see the kineticist doing that made you think it was so strong?
Also, I'm not sure the OP meant powerful when they said best.
Was just how strong the class seemed. Huge HP could fling abilities all day long. Good mix of Abilities. Just was an overall strong character that could keep pace with an optimized Bloodrager so I thought it was a pretty strong class.
Not really sure what he meant by Best. So I tend to default to overall power and utility.
Psychics aren't really any stronger than Sorcerers, what did you see the kineticist doing that made you think it was so strong?
Also, I'm not sure the OP meant powerful when they said best.
Was just how strong the class seemed. Huge HP could fling abilities all day long. Good mix of Abilities. Just was an overall strong character that could keep pace with an optimized Bloodrager so I thought it was a pretty strong class.
Not really sure what he meant by Best. So I tend to default to overall power and utility.
Yep by best I meant overall power and utility.
Oh well I don't think thats what people thought you meant.
Strongest =/= best in a lot of people's minds, lots people think the chained summoner is bad, for example but its not weak.
What Grandlounge said is basically true.
If you want my personal favorites, paizo only, then:
Alchemist (I like tossing bombs)
Monk/unchained monk (Thematically one of my favorites, also, I like playing hard mode sometimes)
Unchained Rogue (for when I want to play hard mode, and didn't roll enough decent stats for a monk)
Fighter (for when doing single-ish target damage without complexity is all i care about, and then making up for everything else with RP)
Barbarian/Unchained Barbarian (damage and tanking, but with more number shifting than I generally care for)
If 3pp is open:
Aegis (my single favorite melee class)
Soulknife (while mechanically weak without archetypes, still one of my favorites)
Monk/unchained monk (same reason as above)
Daevic (I love the concept of slowly merging with another being or becoming something else/more. transformative classes are always high on my list)
Stalker or Harbinger (I love fighten' magik)
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To expand I what I said earlier, the tier list for classes is reasonably accurate if you want pure power. Unless you plan on playing a super high power game I would not worry about power too much. I love powerful options but not because they are powerful but because they have the power to spare.
I love options like fate's favored, humans extra feat, high level casting, buff stacking on alchemists, dipping for rage or feats, better than average archtypes not because I can make a character that break the game but because I can make a character the is good with under optimized choices. Good things in the game allow you to over come other non-optimal choices in your build. Choices like a strength penalty on you halfling barbarian or have low Dex on a MAD build (reactionary and a ref trait are boring but help compensate for playing a harder build).
I like to tell players, "learn how to break the game, then learn how not to."
You can scry and fry all day but can you surprise me, can you do something I have not seen before.
I prefer classes with versatility so my 5 would be:
Druid, Inquisitor, Bard, Investigator, and Alchemist.