Question(?) for the martial barbarian/paladin/fighter+DPR/PAM/GWM/CBX/SS/multiclass optimizers that frequent the ranger forums.
Where do other classes/subclasses fall on the spectrum (the spectrum being ranger damage = bad to PAM+GWM barbarian/paladin/fighter damage = good) of consistent and high martial combat damage output? How do the artificer, bard, cleric, druid, monk, rogue, sorcerer, wizards, and non-hexblade warlock classes and subclasses compare to the barbarian/paladin/fighter, and especially the zealot, vengeance, and rune knight? Especially at levels 11+?
Bonus question. If they don't compare, what do the other classes and subclasses do in combat other than direct, high, consistent damage.
TLDR: It’s hard to compare single target DPR (where martial classes shine) versus AoE blasting (where full casters shine). What matters most is to ensure your party will survive and thankfully this game has several ways to do it.
The common baseline was established by Warlock using Eldritch Blast with Agozining Blast, Hex on and investing all ASIs in CHA. It’s important to reinforce that this threshold is used to compare single target damage.
Martials have the amazing support of feats and some class features to increase their damage output and frequently outpace Warlock baseline. Rogues have Sneak Attack, Monks have several extra attacks and Stunning Strike, Paladins have Divine Smite, etc. Sharpshooter Crossbow Expert with Archery fighting style (usually Fighters or Rangers) is commonly regarded as the king of martial single target DPR, followed closely by Zealot Barbarian PAM GWM using Reckless Attack.
Full casters, on the other hand, are not really effective in single target DPR with the exception of Warlocks, of course. You have some niche builds that somehow try to be competent on this field like the Nuclear Hexvoker using Magic Missile with Hexblade Curse and Empowered Evocation, but the primary focus of full casters in terms of damage should be AoE blasting. I mean, you could use Dissonant Whispers against an enemy surrounded by three allies and capitalize lots of damage with the OAs you provoked. But it’s hard to compare the common baseline with AoE. If you caused 28 damage with a Fireball against two targets and 14 against two other targets who passed their save, you could say your DPR in terms of numbers was amazing, but those 4 enemies are still alive and this is bad. If your friend Fighter with a big stick using GWM, PAM and Action Surge caused 60 damage and effectively killed one strong enemy, his DPR number could be considered lower in comparisons with the AoE, but he has eliminated a threat and increased the chances of your party to survive.
Kind of. This is a different angle on the same tropic that a lot of us have discussed before (a lot).
What I want to know is how other classes, other than ranger, barbarian, fighter, and paladin, look when held up against the threshold of what is "good damage" and/or "great damage".
TLDR: It’s hard to compare single target DPR (where martial classes shine) versus AoE blasting (where full casters shine). What matters most is to ensure your party will survive and thankfully this game has several ways to do it.
The common baseline was established by Warlock using Eldritch Blast with Agozining Blast, Hex on and investing all ASIs in CHA. It’s important to reinforce that this threshold is used to compare single target damage.
Martials have the amazing support of feats and some class features to increase their damage output and frequently outpace Warlock baseline. Rogues have Sneak Attack, Monks have several extra attacks and Stunning Strike, Paladins have Divine Smite, etc. Sharpshooter Crossbow Expert with Archery fighting style (usually Fighters or Rangers) is commonly regarded as the king of martial single target DPR, followed closely by Zealot Barbarian PAM GWM using Reckless Attack.
Full casters, on the other hand, are not really effective in single target DPR with the exception of Warlocks, of course. You have some niche builds that somehow try to be competent on this field like the Nuclear Hexvoker using Magic Missile with Hexblade Curse and Empowered Evocation, but the primary focus of full casters in terms of damage should be AoE blasting. I mean, you could use Dissonant Whispers against an enemy surrounded by three allies and capitalize lots of damage with the OAs you provoked. But it’s hard to compare the common baseline with AoE. If you caused 28 damage with a Fireball against two targets and 14 against two other targets who passed their save, you could say your DPR in terms of numbers was amazing, but those 4 enemies are still alive and this is bad. If your friend Fighter with a big stick using GWM, PAM and Action Surge caused 60 damage and effectively killed one strong enemy, his DPR number could be considered lower in comparisons with the AoE, but he has eliminated a threat and increased the chances of your party to survive.
Oh. I agree about the hard to compare, and it's secretly what I'm getting at in this thread. Rangers have some damage dealing options that barbarians, fighters, paladins, and rogues just do not have. So while the ranger is constantly being compared to the single target damage from those classes, other classes are doing different things and NOT being being compared to them.
I think because it’s a way to compare apples to apples. Although in this case we are probably comparing apple with pineapple.
However, what truly differentiate full casters from martials is how easy and effective they can be in controlling the battlefield and debuffing enemies. If we want to compare Rangers with full casters, damage or DPR are not the right metric. We all love Fireball, but we know that the third level spell that wins battles is Hypnotic Pattern. We love Burning Hands, Shatter and even the new Rime’s Binding Ice, but we know that Web is the spell that turn the tides.
In this case, I believe an optimized Hunter Ranger with Horde Breaker making good use of Entangle and Hail of Thorns could play in the AoE niche and offer good battlefield control with some damage. Rangers have access to Fog Cloud. Swarmkeepers have access to the aforementioned Web. Gloomstalkers get the almighty Fear at level 9. Rangers have much more control potential than the other martials, for sure, but I don’t think they could be a match against dedicated full casters.
Yes. That is the point. Apples. Oranges. Pineapples. Functions. Roles. Strengths.
Most of what I see optimizers do is mention the “warlock baseline” (single target) and 3 classes (each with a subclass or two favored above the rest) being “the best” at damage output, apparently completely dependent on very specific feat combinations.
There are way too many variables to do this based only on class, you need to look at subclasses as Barbarians and Paladins get most of their base damage from their class, but Rangers and Fighters get a lot of it from their subclass.
If you are only looking at weapon damage and class abilities Barbarians are at the top, Fighters are next (due to action surge and better extra attack), Rangers are third and Paladins are last. If you are considering smite damage though Paladins are a lot better, probably right up there with Barbarian.
If you are counting cantrips, and only looking at single classes I think the highest DPR to a single enemy without using a leveled spell is a Gith bladesinger Wizard with GWM and wielding a Greatsword. The reason being the bladesinger version of extra attack and can combine a cantrip and an attack together. You are giving up a lot for that though, including the bladesong ability itself.
If you are allowing multiclasses a high charisma Hexblade-Bladesinger multiclass with agonizing blast is probably the highest DPR.
The thing is that not only about damage / DPR in “real life”.
You could avoid a super dangerous combat by casting Pass Without a Trace and making your entire party including the noisy heavy armor users more stealthy, sneaking out of harm and moving ahead.
The classic encounter against wolves led by a Dire Wolf in lower levels that has a high risk of TPK could potentially be avoided or strategically controlled with a simple cast of Fog Cloud in the right place.
A lucky Entangle restraining 2+ enemies could turn the tides of battle on your favor for sure.
Even if you have low Wisdom, you could still make use of a Summon Beast to give you the help action for advantage, specially if you have Sharpshooter. You could also position your Beast to generate pressure on enemies, provoke some OAs and functionally act as a meat shield to the party.
As I said in some other topics, Hunters Mark is not a bad spell, it’s ok. The problem is that because it has this tag of “it should be a class feature, it’s the only spell that helps Rangers in combat”, unfortunately the community got blind about the huge potential of other spells that can be outstanding in the hands of a super effective martial character like a Ranger.
Wizards and Druids have been well recognized as top-tier battlefield controllers since the beginning and Rangers have access to the same great spells that made the game of those classes.
I think I went a little bit off-topic, but I think the right metric should be something as “contribution in combat” and the measurement is how effectively your character ensures the party will survive and manage their resources accordingly. Kill enemies faster is probably the best way to do it (hence DPR), but it’s not the only way to do it. Goodberry to saves us all.
The thing is that not only about damage / DPR in “real life”.
You could avoid a super dangerous combat by casting Pass Without a Trace and making your entire party including the noisy heavy armor users more stealthy, sneaking out of harm and moving ahead.
The classic encounter against wolves led by a Dire Wolf in lower levels that has a high risk of TPK could potentially be avoided or strategically controlled with a simple cast of Fog Cloud in the right place.
A lucky Entangle restraining 2+ enemies could turn the tides of battle on your favor for sure.
Even if you have low Wisdom, you could still make use of a Summon Beast to give you the help action for advantage, specially if you have Sharpshooter. You could also position your Beast to generate pressure on enemies, provoke some OAs and functionally act as a meat shield to the party.
As I said in some other topics, Hunters Mark is not a bad spell, it’s ok. The problem is that because it has this tag of “it should be a class feature, it’s the only spell that helps Rangers in combat”, unfortunately the community got blind about the huge potential of other spells that can be outstanding in the hands of a super effective martial character like a Ranger.
Wizards and Druids have been well recognized as top-tier battlefield controllers since the beginning and Rangers have access to the same great spells that made the game of those classes.
I think I went a little bit off-topic, but I think the right metric should be something as “contribution in combat” and the measurement is how effectively your character ensures the party will survive and manage their resources accordingly. Kill enemies faster is probably the best way to do it (hence DPR), but it’s not the only way to do it. Goodberry to saves us all.
To be honest, I've chosen to forego Hunter's Mark on most of my more recent Rangers. Like, yeah. It's a nice failsafe. But in my experience, it's best used as a tracking tool than a combat tool. And Rangers have so many other cool 1st-level spells they can be casting instead. Fog Cloud and Entangle, as you mentioned. But also Zephyr Strike, Ensnaring Strike, Hail of Thorns, Goodberry, and so on.
There are a lot of best in class optimized damage builds available. What I’m curious about is “real life” damage output across the other classes.
So far as I know, as has been mentioned in this thread already, it's just not expected for full casters to compete for DPR. People routinely discuss DPR for non-casters (most Fighters, Rogues, Monks, and Barbarians) and half-casters (Artificers, Paladins, and Rangers) and Warlocks, but the only full casters (Bard, Cleric, Druid, Sorcerer, Wizard) where anyone cares about DPR are when they have a subclass specifically designed (apparently) around physical combat (Moon Druids, Bladesinger Wizards).
I haven't run the numbers myself, but I am under the impression Fighter and Paladin DPR is considered good, Warlock and Rogue are considered middle (with Rogue worse than Warlock), and Barbarian, Monk, and Ranger are considered bad in the level range you asked about in the OP (11+). I don't know of a consensus on Artificers, but since Alchemists are so bad and Battle Smiths are so good, I would expect the answer to be subclass-reliant (Artificers are well-known as being the lords of AC regardless of subclass, which is usually what I see being discussed about them). I know from past experience with looking at the CR calculation tables that WOTC offers no guidance for making assumptions about Opportunity Attacks, and without a consensus on that DPR is harder to account for.
There are a lot of best in class optimized damage builds available. What I’m curious about is “real life” damage output across the other classes.
So far as I know, as has been mentioned in this thread already, it's just not expected for full casters to compete for DPR. People routinely discuss DPR for non-casters (most Fighters, Rogues, Monks, and Barbarians) and half-casters (Artificers, Paladins, and Rangers) and Warlocks, but the only full casters (Bard, Cleric, Druid, Sorcerer, Wizard) where anyone cares about DPR are when they have a subclass specifically designed (apparently) around physical combat (Moon Druids, Bladesinger Wizards).
I haven't run the numbers myself, but I am under the impression Fighter and Paladin DPR is considered good, Warlock and Rogue are considered middle (with Rogue worse than Warlock), and Barbarian, Monk, and Ranger are considered bad in the level range you asked about in the OP (11+). I don't know of a consensus on Artificers, but since Alchemists are so bad and Battle Smiths are so good, I would expect the answer to be subclass-reliant (Artificers are well-known as being the lords of AC regardless of subclass, which is usually what I see being discussed about them). I know from past experience with looking at the CR calculation tables that WOTC offers no guidance for making assumptions about Opportunity Attacks, and without a consensus on that DPR is harder to account for.
Full Casters do not need damage is the thing...their spells provide ways of ending fights without damage.
Polymorph, Force Cage, Wall of Force, Sickening Radiance.....all of these kill/incapacitate without having to deal any damage. Heck even Soul Jar basically lets you steal a body.
DPR is usually calculated as single target damage for a reason too....its the best strategy 99% of the time to focus fire down targets thanks to the way action economy works.
If you get more actions sooner than the enemy you are going to win....its just that simple. So when people want to show how a fighter can put out 100+ damage its important to note that if they do that to a single target its pretty likely that target won't be around much longer after that.
I think the "solo monster" is a situation that is more heavily weighted than it deserves, and many smaller enemies are more common than people make note of. I would argue that taking down an enemy is powerful, yes, but taking down an enemy with 25 hit points by dealing 26 damage is a better strategy than taking down the same enemy by dealing 50 damage. I think these are different tools for different jobs.
We could setup a couple of specific white rooms and then match certain classes against it. Then create a kind of golf card situation to compare overall preformance.
Kill 100 ?hp slugs in a room ( Mesure aoe)
kill a large HP target that is not going to hurt the pc.(basically single target DPR)
Fight a 1 hit kill PC creature that needs to be kited or slowed (mesure Field control)
escape a skill challenge room (mesure skills)
capture an escaping target (measure non leathal)
fight a High AC/ saves target. (mesure accuracy only)
escape without being seen (measure movement and stealth tricks)
more?
Then again I am probably over thinkning and creating too much work.
I'd also like to talk about what those same top tier damage dealers, fighters and paladins (and barbarians to a lessor degree I guess) require to do this damage, and what they give up to do so. Namely, they need two feats. Technically optional, but beyond that, taking a feat you are giving up stat increase(s). Fighters have the least negative impact by choice this, as they get more of these increases and they are, for the most part, single ability dependent. Paladins lose both strength and precious charisma increases, keeping spells down in number and effectiveness, as well as a weaker save aura. Barbarians are left with an AC that is woefully low. All of this to increase something done by one PC that could be easily done by 2 or 3 PCs. Is that the most effective route or strategy?
Zealot Barbarian PAM GWM is a top-tier single enemy DPR, probably more consistent than Paladin. Mainly because of Reckless Attack.
Some calculation have showed that ASI stat increase is effectively inferior than any game-breaking feat like CBE, SS, PAM and GWM.
CBE + SS Rangers and Fighters have access to Archery fighting style, so they don’t need to worry that much to increase their DEX. If you assume vHuman or Custom Lineage, you are fully online by level 4. At some occasions I even got Alert or Resilient WIS before increasing my DEX at 6 or 8. That’s why Gloomstalker is awesome since they get WIS save prof at 7, it saves you a needed feat. Dread Ambusher and Umbral Sight are tremendous force multipliers in this build as well.
PAM + GWM doesn’t have the support of a good fighting style like Archery, so you need to rely more on things like Reckless Attack as I said above or Precision Strike maneuver from Battlemaster. Good thing is that PAM users can cram more attacks into their routines thanks to the OA mechanics of the feat. It was not uncommon for my character to step out, eat some OAs and move back 2 squares in order to provoke free OA against an enemy. An outstanding force multiplier into those builds is Sentinel. The combination of these 3 feats is amazing.
And what those characters give up by heavily investing in these feats? Potentially nothing. Maybe a little bit AC or some versatility here or there. But in practical combat terms, they are the most optimized ones. My recommendation is to not forget to protect your mental saves, so I always try to find some alternatives to boost saving throws, whether racial or class abilities, like the aforementioned Zealot get at level 6. Resilient and Lucky are top picks for Fighters who have more feats to squeeze in.
Zealot Barbarian PAM GWM is a top-tier single enemy DPR, probably more consistent than Paladin. Mainly because of Reckless Attack.
Some calculation have showed that ASI stat increase is effectively inferior than any game-breaking feat like CBE, SS, PAM and GWM.
CBE + SS Rangers and Fighters have access to Archery fighting style, so they don’t need to worry that much to increase their DEX. If you assume vHuman or Custom Lineage, you are fully online by level 4. At some occasions I even got Alert or Resilient WIS before increasing my DEX at 6 or 8. That’s why Gloomstalker is awesome since they get WIS save prof at 7, it saves you a needed feat. Dread Ambusher and Umbral Sight are tremendous force multipliers in this build as well.
PAM + GWM doesn’t have the support of a good fighting style like Archery, so you need to rely more on things like Reckless Attack as I said above or Precision Strike maneuver from Battlemaster. Good thing is that PAM users can cram more attacks into their routines thanks to the OA mechanics of the feat. It was not uncommon for my character to step out, eat some OAs and move back 2 squares in order to provoke free OA against an enemy. An outstanding force multiplier into those builds is Sentinel. The combination of these 3 feats is amazing.
And what those characters give up by heavily investing in these feats? Potentially nothing. Maybe a little bit AC or some versatility here or there. But in practical combat terms, they are the most optimized ones. My recommendation is to not forget to protect your mental saves, so I always try to find some alternatives to boost saving throws, whether racial or class abilities, like the aforementioned Zealot get at level 6. Resilient and Lucky are top picks for Fighters who have more feats to squeeze in.
Yeah I mean they are directly supporting what the classes they are in do best for the most part...Damage.
Damage is their game and their main way to control the situation. The best defense, most often, is a quick decisive offense against the biggest threat and work your way down.
If you can do enough damage to kill the big bad in the encounter then you are set to win as the economy shifts in your favor hard.
That is a lot of assumptions for me. Meaning, feats and variant human, and custom lineage.
I guess from both of your perspectives, dealing damage is a "main function"? And the things given up are inferior to the thing gained. Is that fair to say?
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
Question(?) for the martial barbarian/paladin/fighter+DPR/PAM/GWM/CBX/SS/multiclass optimizers that frequent the ranger forums.
Where do other classes/subclasses fall on the spectrum (the spectrum being ranger damage = bad to PAM+GWM barbarian/paladin/fighter damage = good) of consistent and high martial combat damage output? How do the artificer, bard, cleric, druid, monk, rogue, sorcerer, wizards, and non-hexblade warlock classes and subclasses compare to the barbarian/paladin/fighter, and especially the zealot, vengeance, and rune knight? Especially at levels 11+?
Bonus question. If they don't compare, what do the other classes and subclasses do in combat other than direct, high, consistent damage.
Didn't I already do this? Or maybe I just don't understand the question.
TLDR: It’s hard to compare single target DPR (where martial classes shine) versus AoE blasting (where full casters shine). What matters most is to ensure your party will survive and thankfully this game has several ways to do it.
The common baseline was established by Warlock using Eldritch Blast with Agozining Blast, Hex on and investing all ASIs in CHA. It’s important to reinforce that this threshold is used to compare single target damage.
Martials have the amazing support of feats and some class features to increase their damage output and frequently outpace Warlock baseline. Rogues have Sneak Attack, Monks have several extra attacks and Stunning Strike, Paladins have Divine Smite, etc. Sharpshooter Crossbow Expert with Archery fighting style (usually Fighters or Rangers) is commonly regarded as the king of martial single target DPR, followed closely by Zealot Barbarian PAM GWM using Reckless Attack.
Full casters, on the other hand, are not really effective in single target DPR with the exception of Warlocks, of course. You have some niche builds that somehow try to be competent on this field like the Nuclear Hexvoker using Magic Missile with Hexblade Curse and Empowered Evocation, but the primary focus of full casters in terms of damage should be AoE blasting. I mean, you could use Dissonant Whispers against an enemy surrounded by three allies and capitalize lots of damage with the OAs you provoked. But it’s hard to compare the common baseline with AoE. If you caused 28 damage with a Fireball against two targets and 14 against two other targets who passed their save, you could say your DPR in terms of numbers was amazing, but those 4 enemies are still alive and this is bad. If your friend Fighter with a big stick using GWM, PAM and Action Surge caused 60 damage and effectively killed one strong enemy, his DPR number could be considered lower in comparisons with the AoE, but he has eliminated a threat and increased the chances of your party to survive.
Kind of. This is a different angle on the same tropic that a lot of us have discussed before (a lot).
What I want to know is how other classes, other than ranger, barbarian, fighter, and paladin, look when held up against the threshold of what is "good damage" and/or "great damage".
Oh. I agree about the hard to compare, and it's secretly what I'm getting at in this thread. Rangers have some damage dealing options that barbarians, fighters, paladins, and rogues just do not have. So while the ranger is constantly being compared to the single target damage from those classes, other classes are doing different things and NOT being being compared to them.
I think because it’s a way to compare apples to apples. Although in this case we are probably comparing apple with pineapple.
However, what truly differentiate full casters from martials is how easy and effective they can be in controlling the battlefield and debuffing enemies. If we want to compare Rangers with full casters, damage or DPR are not the right metric. We all love Fireball, but we know that the third level spell that wins battles is Hypnotic Pattern. We love Burning Hands, Shatter and even the new Rime’s Binding Ice, but we know that Web is the spell that turn the tides.
In this case, I believe an optimized Hunter Ranger with Horde Breaker making good use of Entangle and Hail of Thorns could play in the AoE niche and offer good battlefield control with some damage. Rangers have access to Fog Cloud. Swarmkeepers have access to the aforementioned Web. Gloomstalkers get the almighty Fear at level 9. Rangers have much more control potential than the other martials, for sure, but I don’t think they could be a match against dedicated full casters.
Yes. That is the point. Apples. Oranges. Pineapples. Functions. Roles. Strengths.
Most of what I see optimizers do is mention the “warlock baseline” (single target) and 3 classes (each with a subclass or two favored above the rest) being “the best” at damage output, apparently completely dependent on very specific feat combinations.
There are way too many variables to do this based only on class, you need to look at subclasses as Barbarians and Paladins get most of their base damage from their class, but Rangers and Fighters get a lot of it from their subclass.
If you are only looking at weapon damage and class abilities Barbarians are at the top, Fighters are next (due to action surge and better extra attack), Rangers are third and Paladins are last. If you are considering smite damage though Paladins are a lot better, probably right up there with Barbarian.
If you are counting cantrips, and only looking at single classes I think the highest DPR to a single enemy without using a leveled spell is a Gith bladesinger Wizard with GWM and wielding a Greatsword. The reason being the bladesinger version of extra attack and can combine a cantrip and an attack together. You are giving up a lot for that though, including the bladesong ability itself.
If you are allowing multiclasses a high charisma Hexblade-Bladesinger multiclass with agonizing blast is probably the highest DPR.
There are a lot of best in class optimized damage builds available. What I’m curious about is “real life” damage output across the other classes.
The thing is that not only about damage / DPR in “real life”.
You could avoid a super dangerous combat by casting Pass Without a Trace and making your entire party including the noisy heavy armor users more stealthy, sneaking out of harm and moving ahead.
The classic encounter against wolves led by a Dire Wolf in lower levels that has a high risk of TPK could potentially be avoided or strategically controlled with a simple cast of Fog Cloud in the right place.
A lucky Entangle restraining 2+ enemies could turn the tides of battle on your favor for sure.
Even if you have low Wisdom, you could still make use of a Summon Beast to give you the help action for advantage, specially if you have Sharpshooter. You could also position your Beast to generate pressure on enemies, provoke some OAs and functionally act as a meat shield to the party.
As I said in some other topics, Hunters Mark is not a bad spell, it’s ok. The problem is that because it has this tag of “it should be a class feature, it’s the only spell that helps Rangers in combat”, unfortunately the community got blind about the huge potential of other spells that can be outstanding in the hands of a super effective martial character like a Ranger.
Wizards and Druids have been well recognized as top-tier battlefield controllers since the beginning and Rangers have access to the same great spells that made the game of those classes.
I think I went a little bit off-topic, but I think the right metric should be something as “contribution in combat” and the measurement is how effectively your character ensures the party will survive and manage their resources accordingly. Kill enemies faster is probably the best way to do it (hence DPR), but it’s not the only way to do it. Goodberry to saves us all.
It’s not off topic. And I agree with all of this. And these are functions have that paladins, barbarians, fighters, and rogues just don’t.
To be honest, I've chosen to forego Hunter's Mark on most of my more recent Rangers. Like, yeah. It's a nice failsafe. But in my experience, it's best used as a tracking tool than a combat tool. And Rangers have so many other cool 1st-level spells they can be casting instead. Fog Cloud and Entangle, as you mentioned. But also Zephyr Strike, Ensnaring Strike, Hail of Thorns, Goodberry, and so on.
So far as I know, as has been mentioned in this thread already, it's just not expected for full casters to compete for DPR. People routinely discuss DPR for non-casters (most Fighters, Rogues, Monks, and Barbarians) and half-casters (Artificers, Paladins, and Rangers) and Warlocks, but the only full casters (Bard, Cleric, Druid, Sorcerer, Wizard) where anyone cares about DPR are when they have a subclass specifically designed (apparently) around physical combat (Moon Druids, Bladesinger Wizards).
I haven't run the numbers myself, but I am under the impression Fighter and Paladin DPR is considered good, Warlock and Rogue are considered middle (with Rogue worse than Warlock), and Barbarian, Monk, and Ranger are considered bad in the level range you asked about in the OP (11+). I don't know of a consensus on Artificers, but since Alchemists are so bad and Battle Smiths are so good, I would expect the answer to be subclass-reliant (Artificers are well-known as being the lords of AC regardless of subclass, which is usually what I see being discussed about them). I know from past experience with looking at the CR calculation tables that WOTC offers no guidance for making assumptions about Opportunity Attacks, and without a consensus on that DPR is harder to account for.
Full Casters do not need damage is the thing...their spells provide ways of ending fights without damage.
Polymorph, Force Cage, Wall of Force, Sickening Radiance.....all of these kill/incapacitate without having to deal any damage. Heck even Soul Jar basically lets you steal a body.
DPR is usually calculated as single target damage for a reason too....its the best strategy 99% of the time to focus fire down targets thanks to the way action economy works.
If you get more actions sooner than the enemy you are going to win....its just that simple. So when people want to show how a fighter can put out 100+ damage its important to note that if they do that to a single target its pretty likely that target won't be around much longer after that.
I think the "solo monster" is a situation that is more heavily weighted than it deserves, and many smaller enemies are more common than people make note of. I would argue that taking down an enemy is powerful, yes, but taking down an enemy with 25 hit points by dealing 26 damage is a better strategy than taking down the same enemy by dealing 50 damage. I think these are different tools for different jobs.
We could setup a couple of specific white rooms and then match certain classes against it. Then create a kind of golf card situation to compare overall preformance.
Then again I am probably over thinkning and creating too much work.
I like it!
I'd also like to talk about what those same top tier damage dealers, fighters and paladins (and barbarians to a lessor degree I guess) require to do this damage, and what they give up to do so. Namely, they need two feats. Technically optional, but beyond that, taking a feat you are giving up stat increase(s). Fighters have the least negative impact by choice this, as they get more of these increases and they are, for the most part, single ability dependent. Paladins lose both strength and precious charisma increases, keeping spells down in number and effectiveness, as well as a weaker save aura. Barbarians are left with an AC that is woefully low. All of this to increase something done by one PC that could be easily done by 2 or 3 PCs. Is that the most effective route or strategy?
Zealot Barbarian PAM GWM is a top-tier single enemy DPR, probably more consistent than Paladin. Mainly because of Reckless Attack.
Some calculation have showed that ASI stat increase is effectively inferior than any game-breaking feat like CBE, SS, PAM and GWM.
CBE + SS Rangers and Fighters have access to Archery fighting style, so they don’t need to worry that much to increase their DEX. If you assume vHuman or Custom Lineage, you are fully online by level 4. At some occasions I even got Alert or Resilient WIS before increasing my DEX at 6 or 8. That’s why Gloomstalker is awesome since they get WIS save prof at 7, it saves you a needed feat. Dread Ambusher and Umbral Sight are tremendous force multipliers in this build as well.
PAM + GWM doesn’t have the support of a good fighting style like Archery, so you need to rely more on things like Reckless Attack as I said above or Precision Strike maneuver from Battlemaster. Good thing is that PAM users can cram more attacks into their routines thanks to the OA mechanics of the feat. It was not uncommon for my character to step out, eat some OAs and move back 2 squares in order to provoke free OA against an enemy. An outstanding force multiplier into those builds is Sentinel. The combination of these 3 feats is amazing.
And what those characters give up by heavily investing in these feats? Potentially nothing. Maybe a little bit AC or some versatility here or there. But in practical combat terms, they are the most optimized ones. My recommendation is to not forget to protect your mental saves, so I always try to find some alternatives to boost saving throws, whether racial or class abilities, like the aforementioned Zealot get at level 6. Resilient and Lucky are top picks for Fighters who have more feats to squeeze in.
Yeah I mean they are directly supporting what the classes they are in do best for the most part...Damage.
Damage is their game and their main way to control the situation. The best defense, most often, is a quick decisive offense against the biggest threat and work your way down.
If you can do enough damage to kill the big bad in the encounter then you are set to win as the economy shifts in your favor hard.
That is a lot of assumptions for me. Meaning, feats and variant human, and custom lineage.
I guess from both of your perspectives, dealing damage is a "main function"? And the things given up are inferior to the thing gained. Is that fair to say?