In 5E monks and rangers started out as the weak classes. Rangers got fixed eventually and the play test of the monk looks a lot stronger then it’s 2014 version. So, given what we know about the one dnd from the playtest, is there an obvious weak class?
I don’t know if I would say it’s a weak class but even with the changes to Druid I don’t know if it is enough to change it from being the least played class.
Druid definitely, while they have boosted up Land to be playable now, there still isn't anything "Wow" about Druid, and in fact their one thing that was special about them - conjuring - has been taken away.
It certainly wasn't power that kept people from playing druids. It was either complexity or the belief that they lose out in dungeons and urban environments. Or a combination of the two. It can be a lot of work to play a druid without being a burden to the rest of the table. You should ideally have stats prepped for Wild Shape and any commonly used summons, and have the changes figured out for any modifications to the baseline created by any subclass features as well.
Back when my old group was larger and meeting in person rather than over Discord, no GM liked seeing a summoning heavy character in the party. Either the person didn't know what they were doing and slowed the game to a crawl, or they knew too much and wrecked encounters. There wasn't a happy medium where neither extreme happened.
Warlock is my biggest worry as they haven't really fixed anything regarding its short rest dependency and lack of low level spell slots. I'll also be really sad if they don't bring back Int Warlocks as a possibility. But they're not a weak class by any stretch and the subclasses got some massive buffs; I'm actually excited to play Archfey and Great Old One now, which I never thought I'd say.
I'm also concerned about Ranger due to lack of clarity on how they plan to handle Favored Enemy/Terrain. But they got some very strong buffs (notably their spellcasting, Weapon Mastery, expertise and Nature's Veil) so ultimately I think they'll be fine.
I'm much more concerned about some of the subclasses, chief among them Moon Druid which still has terrible scaling. If it goes to print as written I'll probably avoid it in favor of the other three.
It certainly wasn't power that kept people from playing druids. It was either complexity or the belief that they lose out in dungeons and urban environments. Or a combination of the two. It can be a lot of work to play a druid without being a burden to the rest of the table. You should ideally have stats prepped for Wild Shape and any commonly used summons, and have the changes figured out for any modifications to the baseline created by any subclass features as well.
Back when my old group was larger and meeting in person rather than over Discord, no GM liked seeing a summoning heavy character in the party. Either the person didn't know what they were doing and slowed the game to a crawl, or they knew too much and wrecked encounters. There wasn't a happy medium where neither extreme happened.
I can attest that I've also avoided Druid partly because I don't want to keep track of animals for wildshape, on top of animals for summons, on top of being a prepared spellcaster with a pretty large spell list. It's a lot to track. Something else tied to Wildshapes... if you're playing with minis, do you have a fresh mini for every wildshape you could turn into? I know it's wholly unnecessary... but it's still something that runs through your mind.
Warlock is my biggest worry as they haven't really fixed anything regarding its short rest dependency and lack of low level spell slots. I'll also be really sad if they don't bring back Int Warlocks as a possibility. But they're not a weak class by any stretch and the subclasses got some massive buffs; I'm actually excited to play Archfey and Great Old One now, which I never thought I'd say.
I'm also concerned about Ranger due to lack of clarity on how they plan to handle Favored Enemy/Terrain. But they got some very strong buffs (notably their spellcasting, Weapon Mastery, expertise and Nature's Veil) so ultimately I think they'll be fine.
I'm much more concerned about some of the subclasses, chief among them Moon Druid which still has terrible scaling. If it goes to print as written I'll probably avoid it in favor of the other three.
I think if they bring back the first playtest subclass and combine it with the second version of Warlock many of the issues will be, if not fixed, certainly mitigated. A couple free spells per long rest from the subclass list would certainly help the lack of slots with less risk of becoming too many that more pact slots might have.
I understand wanting flexible casting to return, I just hated that they removed Cha from Pact of the Tome initially. Although I admit that is probably due to having a party face Tomelock that would be rendered either nerfed or illegal by the change.
I don’t know if I would say it’s a weak class but even with the changes to Druid I don’t know if it is enough to change it from being the least played class.
According to the information they just released, druids are not least played. There are fewer sorcerers, monks and artificers. Though it’s almost unfair to mention artificers since they’re not in the PHB.
I actually disagree about Ranger. I don't think it is fixed at all. All ranged combat has been heavily nerfed by the removal of Sharpshooter, and XbowXpert is still providing a BA attack, and they went back on scaling for Hunter's Mark so we are back to really poor damage scaling for Ranger, and there is even more incentive to be a hand-crossbow wielding ranger. TBH I expect to see Strength-based rangers to become much more the norm since Strength-based weapons are much better than Dex ones now - especially with the revisions to Conjure Minor Elementals turning it into off-brand spirit shroud.
I actually disagree about Ranger. I don't think it is fixed at all. All ranged combat has been heavily nerfed by the removal of Sharpshooter, and XbowXpert is still providing a BA attack, and they went back on scaling for Hunter's Mark so we are back to really poor damage scaling for Ranger, and there is even more incentive to be a hand-crossbow wielding ranger. TBH I expect to see Strength-based rangers to become much more the norm since Strength-based weapons are much better than Dex ones now - especially with the revisions to Conjure Minor Elementals turning it into off-brand spirit shroud.
Bow rangers have been nerfed somewhat but the new rules for two weapon fighting, extra hunters mark on top of some new spell choices more then makes up for this. I’m still not sure why favoured enemy and favoured terrain have been brought back, but overall I think that the ranger for One dnd is noticeably stronger then the Tasha’s optional Ranger.
I actually disagree about Ranger. I don't think it is fixed at all. All ranged combat has been heavily nerfed by the removal of Sharpshooter, and XbowXpert is still providing a BA attack, and they went back on scaling for Hunter's Mark so we are back to really poor damage scaling for Ranger, and there is even more incentive to be a hand-crossbow wielding ranger. TBH I expect to see Strength-based rangers to become much more the norm since Strength-based weapons are much better than Dex ones now - especially with the revisions to Conjure Minor Elementals turning it into off-brand spirit shroud.
This is a fair point, Sharpshooter/ranged in general needs a damage buff (and I said as much back in the UA2 survey.)
I don’t know if I would say it’s a weak class but even with the changes to Druid I don’t know if it is enough to change it from being the least played class.
According to the information they just released, druids are not least played. There are fewer sorcerers, monks and artificers. Though it’s almost unfair to mention artificers since they’re not in the PHB.
I was unaware of this information. I was just going by what, iirc JC mentioned in a UA video. Is there a link to this inform? I appreciate you bringing it up.
I SO disagree with Agilemind. The druid is very much improved and at my table, I have really enjoyed the enthusiasm with which my player is having fun with this class. He is playing a land druid and with the Land's Aid, and ability to wear medium armor including Half Plate, he is doing well.
I SO disagree with Agilemind. The druid is very much improved and at my table, I have really enjoyed the enthusiasm with which my player is having fun with this class. He is playing a land druid and with the Land's Aid, and ability to wear medium armor including Half Plate, he is doing well.
The Druid has had improvements and Agilemind pointed out Land Druid’s improvement so it is in a better spot. I’m playing a 2014 Land Druid now, and for the past several years, so I like the UA changes to that subclass. But I haven’t playtested the UA Druid so can’t say for certain if they improved enough compared to all the other classes in the UAs. Or enough to pull it out of the lower ranks of use.
I actually disagree about Ranger. I don't think it is fixed at all. All ranged combat has been heavily nerfed by the removal of Sharpshooter, and XbowXpert is still providing a BA attack, and they went back on scaling for Hunter's Mark so we are back to really poor damage scaling for Ranger, and there is even more incentive to be a hand-crossbow wielding ranger. TBH I expect to see Strength-based rangers to become much more the norm since Strength-based weapons are much better than Dex ones now - especially with the revisions to Conjure Minor Elementals turning it into off-brand spirit shroud.
This is a fair point, Sharpshooter/ranged in general needs a damage buff (and I said as much back in the UA2 survey.)
Warlock is my biggest worry as they haven't really fixed anything regarding its short rest dependency and lack of low level spell slots. I'll also be really sad if they don't bring back Int Warlocks as a possibility. But they're not a weak class by any stretch and the subclasses got some massive buffs; I'm actually excited to play Archfey and Great Old One now, which I never thought I'd say.
^^ this.
Their solution to the spell casting problem was essentially half a magic item (rod of the pact keeper). That's simply not good enough. For all it's uniqueness, pact magic is not good. It CAN be solid, *IF* the DM adheres to the short rest formula that the designers expect. In most of the games I've played in, with 3 different DMs...they don't. What I have heard about adventurers league is, they don't. And that's not a DM problem, that's a design flaw. The class should be fully functional to work in the game the DM chooses to prep for. What's more; we had a fix. But people rebelled, and I am fairly confident that most of those people never played warlocks in a campaign. The only time I ever got my short rests was when I was primary healing with a celestial/bard lock. Phrasing it "I can recover 2 third level cure wounds if we short rest" motivated people to stop for lunch a lot more often. My current warlock? Nobody cares about my spell slots. "Just use eldritch blast". At this point, I think the only thing you can do for warlocks are homebrew some invocations to give them more spell slots. At third level, you take an invocation to give you 2 1sts/day. At fifth, you can take an invocation to give you 2 2nd/day, etc. We shouldn't have to pay an invocation tax to actually cast some spells, but that's about the only avenue open to us.
Ranger? I am not concerned about. They are mathematically in a better place now. The ribbon stuff, I am not concerned about. Monk? I've never been interested in them as anything other than a dip (mostly for dex staves) so I don't have an appreciation of their issues or the fixes. Druid? Generally in a good place I think. Moon might suck, but, the class as a whole I think is OK. A bad subclass is not good, but it's not a killer for an otherwise strong baseclass.
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Ranged already took a hit natively by having fewer weapon mastery choices than melee (especially archery.)
Note that I'm not saying they should bring old Sharpshooter back - I'm saying the new one could get a more modest 1/round damage increase like GWM did. The UA2 Sharpshooter is just gutted. Note also that a 1/round damage boost would also make XBE weaker since the bonus action attack is far less likely to benefit.
Ranged already took a hit natively by having fewer weapon mastery choices than melee (especially archery.)
Note that I'm not saying they should bring old Sharpshooter back - I'm saying the new one could get a more modest 1/round damage increase like GWM did. The UA2 Sharpshooter is just gutted. Note also that a 1/round damage boost would also make XBE weaker since the bonus action attack is far less likely to benefit.
Maybe but it should do a decent bit less damage than melee. I guess time will tell but I think its about in the right spot now.
I don’t know if I would say it’s a weak class but even with the changes to Druid I don’t know if it is enough to change it from being the least played class.
According to the information they just released, druids are not least played. There are fewer sorcerers, monks and artificers. Though it’s almost unfair to mention artificers since they’re not in the PHB.
I was unaware of this information. I was just going by what, iirc JC mentioned in a UA video. Is there a link to this inform? I appreciate you bringing it up.
I actually think I remember JC saying the same thing. They could both be true, maybe Druids are least over all 10 years, but they snuck up a couple ranks this year?
JC's statement was likely true at the time he said it. Prior to the 2023 Unrolled, the most recent class play data we had was from 2020, and Druids were indeed at the back of the pack (heh) then, not counting Artificers of course. Them overtaking Sorcerers and Monks seems to be a recent thing, and this new data is the first we've gotten since WotC's acquisition of Beyond. As this data was pre-acquisition, it might be the only data JC had access to at the time too, the memory of which he could have been going off of when he made the UA comment.
In addition, note that the 2023 data uses a non-linear (not quite logarithmic?) scale. While the size of the bars makes it look like monks are only slightly below druids, in reality there are roughly twice as many druids in active campaigns as monks now.
In 5E monks and rangers started out as the weak classes. Rangers got fixed eventually and the play test of the monk looks a lot stronger then it’s 2014 version. So, given what we know about the one dnd from the playtest, is there an obvious weak class?
I don’t know if I would say it’s a weak class but even with the changes to Druid I don’t know if it is enough to change it from being the least played class.
Druid definitely, while they have boosted up Land to be playable now, there still isn't anything "Wow" about Druid, and in fact their one thing that was special about them - conjuring - has been taken away.
It certainly wasn't power that kept people from playing druids. It was either complexity or the belief that they lose out in dungeons and urban environments. Or a combination of the two. It can be a lot of work to play a druid without being a burden to the rest of the table. You should ideally have stats prepped for Wild Shape and any commonly used summons, and have the changes figured out for any modifications to the baseline created by any subclass features as well.
Back when my old group was larger and meeting in person rather than over Discord, no GM liked seeing a summoning heavy character in the party. Either the person didn't know what they were doing and slowed the game to a crawl, or they knew too much and wrecked encounters. There wasn't a happy medium where neither extreme happened.
Warlock is my biggest worry as they haven't really fixed anything regarding its short rest dependency and lack of low level spell slots. I'll also be really sad if they don't bring back Int Warlocks as a possibility. But they're not a weak class by any stretch and the subclasses got some massive buffs; I'm actually excited to play Archfey and Great Old One now, which I never thought I'd say.
I'm also concerned about Ranger due to lack of clarity on how they plan to handle Favored Enemy/Terrain. But they got some very strong buffs (notably their spellcasting, Weapon Mastery, expertise and Nature's Veil) so ultimately I think they'll be fine.
I'm much more concerned about some of the subclasses, chief among them Moon Druid which still has terrible scaling. If it goes to print as written I'll probably avoid it in favor of the other three.
I can attest that I've also avoided Druid partly because I don't want to keep track of animals for wildshape, on top of animals for summons, on top of being a prepared spellcaster with a pretty large spell list. It's a lot to track. Something else tied to Wildshapes... if you're playing with minis, do you have a fresh mini for every wildshape you could turn into? I know it's wholly unnecessary... but it's still something that runs through your mind.
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I think if they bring back the first playtest subclass and combine it with the second version of Warlock many of the issues will be, if not fixed, certainly mitigated. A couple free spells per long rest from the subclass list would certainly help the lack of slots with less risk of becoming too many that more pact slots might have.
I understand wanting flexible casting to return, I just hated that they removed Cha from Pact of the Tome initially. Although I admit that is probably due to having a party face Tomelock that would be rendered either nerfed or illegal by the change.
According to the information they just released, druids are not least played. There are fewer sorcerers, monks and artificers. Though it’s almost unfair to mention artificers since they’re not in the PHB.
I actually disagree about Ranger. I don't think it is fixed at all. All ranged combat has been heavily nerfed by the removal of Sharpshooter, and XbowXpert is still providing a BA attack, and they went back on scaling for Hunter's Mark so we are back to really poor damage scaling for Ranger, and there is even more incentive to be a hand-crossbow wielding ranger. TBH I expect to see Strength-based rangers to become much more the norm since Strength-based weapons are much better than Dex ones now - especially with the revisions to Conjure Minor Elementals turning it into off-brand spirit shroud.
Bow rangers have been nerfed somewhat but the new rules for two weapon fighting, extra hunters mark on top of some new spell choices more then makes up for this. I’m still not sure why favoured enemy and favoured terrain have been brought back, but overall I think that the ranger for One dnd is noticeably stronger then the Tasha’s optional Ranger.
This is a fair point, Sharpshooter/ranged in general needs a damage buff (and I said as much back in the UA2 survey.)
I was unaware of this information. I was just going by what, iirc JC mentioned in a UA video. Is there a link to this inform? I appreciate you bringing it up.
I SO disagree with Agilemind. The druid is very much improved and at my table, I have really enjoyed the enthusiasm with which my player is having fun with this class. He is playing a land druid and with the Land's Aid, and ability to wear medium armor including Half Plate, he is doing well.
The Druid has had improvements and Agilemind pointed out Land Druid’s improvement so it is in a better spot. I’m playing a 2014 Land Druid now, and for the past several years, so I like the UA changes to that subclass. But I haven’t playtested the UA Druid so can’t say for certain if they improved enough compared to all the other classes in the UAs. Or enough to pull it out of the lower ranks of use.
Ranged should be weaker as its well ranged.
^^ this.
Their solution to the spell casting problem was essentially half a magic item (rod of the pact keeper). That's simply not good enough. For all it's uniqueness, pact magic is not good. It CAN be solid, *IF* the DM adheres to the short rest formula that the designers expect. In most of the games I've played in, with 3 different DMs...they don't. What I have heard about adventurers league is, they don't. And that's not a DM problem, that's a design flaw. The class should be fully functional to work in the game the DM chooses to prep for. What's more; we had a fix. But people rebelled, and I am fairly confident that most of those people never played warlocks in a campaign. The only time I ever got my short rests was when I was primary healing with a celestial/bard lock. Phrasing it "I can recover 2 third level cure wounds if we short rest" motivated people to stop for lunch a lot more often. My current warlock? Nobody cares about my spell slots. "Just use eldritch blast". At this point, I think the only thing you can do for warlocks are homebrew some invocations to give them more spell slots. At third level, you take an invocation to give you 2 1sts/day. At fifth, you can take an invocation to give you 2 2nd/day, etc. We shouldn't have to pay an invocation tax to actually cast some spells, but that's about the only avenue open to us.
Ranger? I am not concerned about. They are mathematically in a better place now. The ribbon stuff, I am not concerned about. Monk? I've never been interested in them as anything other than a dip (mostly for dex staves) so I don't have an appreciation of their issues or the fixes. Druid? Generally in a good place I think. Moon might suck, but, the class as a whole I think is OK. A bad subclass is not good, but it's not a killer for an otherwise strong baseclass.
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Tasha
Ranged already took a hit natively by having fewer weapon mastery choices than melee (especially archery.)
Note that I'm not saying they should bring old Sharpshooter back - I'm saying the new one could get a more modest 1/round damage increase like GWM did. The UA2 Sharpshooter is just gutted. Note also that a 1/round damage boost would also make XBE weaker since the bonus action attack is far less likely to benefit.
Maybe but it should do a decent bit less damage than melee. I guess time will tell but I think its about in the right spot now.
It was in their year-end wrap up.
2023 Unrolled: A Look Back at a Year of Adventure - Posts - D&D Beyond (dndbeyond.com)
I actually think I remember JC saying the same thing. They could both be true, maybe Druids are least over all 10 years, but they snuck up a couple ranks this year?
JC's statement was likely true at the time he said it. Prior to the 2023 Unrolled, the most recent class play data we had was from 2020, and Druids were indeed at the back of the pack (heh) then, not counting Artificers of course. Them overtaking Sorcerers and Monks seems to be a recent thing, and this new data is the first we've gotten since WotC's acquisition of Beyond. As this data was pre-acquisition, it might be the only data JC had access to at the time too, the memory of which he could have been going off of when he made the UA comment.
In addition, note that the 2023 data uses a non-linear (not quite logarithmic?) scale. While the size of the bars makes it look like monks are only slightly below druids, in reality there are roughly twice as many druids in active campaigns as monks now.