Best classes to haste?

[dnd2016]

Ranger with ss is first. Need help with 2nd. I am twinning it. Druid,Paladin,Thief is our party

[Degwerks]

Paladin, due to every hit is a smite and he most likely needs the help on his reflex saves too.

[RickAllison]

Thief. Rogues get one attack to make-or-break their damage, and so Haste doubles their chance at it. Also, greater movement means they can devote bonus actions to using objects, hiding, or disengaging.

EDIT: Fun use of Haste on thieves: siege weapons. Cannons and ballistae both take an action to load, another to aim, and a third to fire. A Hasted Thief (thanks to his bonus action) can fire a cannon or ballista each turn on his own.

[Rhaegar14]

So I think you could give us a little more context about your question. Which characters IN YOUR PARTY are the best to cast haste on, or as a general optimization question? Those have different answers.

I think you mean the former, however, in which case probably the Paladin, but maybe the Druid if the Druid is Circle of the Moon. The Rogue benefits little from the benefits of Haste besides the weapon attack, as they can already do many of those things with Cunning Action, and their single-attack damage is not very good if they've already landed their sneak attack for the turn. So really the question becomes whether the Druid or the Paladin deals more damage in a single hit (not counting if the Paladin smites unless you need to burst an enemy into a thin paste very, very quickly).

Degwerks, a Paladin smiting on every attack will burn all of their spell slots in like two rounds, depending on level and hit rate, unless you mean Improved Divine Smite, which is only in play at 11th level and higher.

EDIT:


Thief. Rogues get one attack to make-or-break their damage, and so Haste doubles their chance at it. Also, greater movement means they can devote bonus actions to using objects, hiding, or disengaging.

EDIT: Fun use of Haste on thieves: siege weapons. Cannons and ballistae both take an action to load, another to aim, and a third to fire. A Hasted Thief (thanks to his bonus action) can fire a cannon or ballista each turn on his own.
Disregarding your admittedly cool siege weapon corner case, I disagree. For one, I think our op may be using Thief as a synonym for Rogue, rather than referring to the specific Thief archetype, based on the fact that op didn't give us subclasses for any of the other characters, so that would take "Use an Object" off the table if I'm correct (I may not be).

Much more importantly, any Rogue worth their salt is either two weapon fighting or using Crossbow Expert to get a bonus action attack precisely because they get all of their damage off one hit. This is why additional details about the other characters' builds would be helpful.

As for allowing them to use their bonus action for other things, I would argue that specifically because they can already get greater movement with their bonus action, it's much better to give that capability to somebody who doesn't ordinarily have it without sacrificing all of their damage.

[JellyPooga]

Thief. Rogues get one attack to make-or-break their damage, and so Haste doubles their chance at it. Also, greater movement means they can devote bonus actions to using objects, hiding, or disengaging.

EDIT: Fun use of Haste on thieves: siege weapons. Cannons and ballistae both take an action to load, another to aim, and a third to fire. A Hasted Thief (thanks to his bonus action) can fire a cannon or ballista each turn on his own.

Not to mention the opportunity to ready an attack in addition to your regular attack(s), enabling the double-Sneak-Attack-bonanza.

Smite uses resources. Sneak Attack doesn't. Haste the Rogue.

[SharkForce]

rogue hands down unless you have some other means of giving him a reaction attack reliably. sneak attack is 1/turn, not 1/round. the rogue goes, uses either two weapons or crossbow expert, gets two attacks on regular turn (one of which hopefully hits and gets sneak attack damage), then readies an action to attack an enemy on someone else's turn for another dose of sneak attack. rogue nearly gets double damage from haste, nobody else even comes close.

edit: to be clear, you use the haste action to attack, which allows off-hand or crossbow expert as your bonus action (because you did in fact use the attack action), and then use your regular action (which has no unusual restrictions on what you're going to do with it unlike the haste extra action) to ready an attack.

[Vogonjeltz]

Ranger with ss is first. Need help with 2nd. I am twinning it. Druid,Paladin,Thief is our party

Barbarian or Champion would probably be good. If the Rogue has already sneak attacked for the round their attacks would be least additional damage.

[BiPolar]

Is the paladin a great weapon master? If so, giving an extra attack could allow a 4th attack through the bonus action after a kill.

[Citan]

Ranger with ss is first. Need help with 2nd. I am twinning it. Druid,Paladin,Thief is our party
I'd say Thief, for which the benefits would probably be the greatest:
- if he's melee, +2 AC will do great to help him stick into the front line.
- he gets another chance to land hit so another chance to Sneak Attack.
- the extra move can help him place himself as best to limit risks or take advantage or an ally's position without having to use Cunning Action (so he can use any offensive bonus action he knows to quaff a potion or dual-wield bonus attack for example).
So for a melee Thief, it's usually the best choice by a significant margin imo.
If he's usually using ranged attacks though, and already has Crossbow Expert, I'd say he loses priority over Paladin, because he doesn't need as much mobility and defense as in melee, and already have a consistant second chance to land SA.

But really, it depends of the fight. In some case, you may prefer Hasting the Paladin because you want to kill a powerful enemy as fast as possible, and he is the best geared for that because of smites and will reach it much faster thanks to the added movement.

I'm a bit more reserved about the utility of Hasting Druid, unless he's a Moon Druid who has a habit of casting Spike Growth and grappling an enemy around. ;) But there are certainly situations where it would be the better choice, I'm just not enough familiar with it to imagine such. ;)

[RickAllison]

I'd say Thief, for which the benefits would probably be the greatest:
- if he's melee, +2 AC will do great to help him stick into the front line.
- he gets another chance to land hit so another chance to Sneak Attack.
- the extra move can help him place himself as best to limit risks or take advantage or an ally's position without having to use Cunning Action (so he can use any offensive bonus action he knows to quaff a potion or dual-wield bonus attack for example).
So for a melee Thief, it's usually the best choice by a significant margin imo.
If he's usually using ranged attacks though, and already has Crossbow Expert, I'd say he loses priority over Paladin, because he doesn't need as much mobility and defense as in melee, and already have a consistant second chance to land SA.

But really, it depends of the fight. In some case, you may prefer Hasting the Paladin because you want to kill a powerful enemy as fast as possible, and he is the best geared for that because of smites and will reach it much faster thanks to the added movement.

I'm a bit more reserved about the utility of Hasting Druid, unless he's a Moon Druid who has a habit of casting Spike Growth and grappling an enemy around. ;) But there are certainly situations where it would be the better choice, I'm just not enough familiar with it to imagine such. ;)

A Moon Druid with Haste can actually be quite potent. There are several forms (Dire Wolf, Rhinoceros, Ankylosaurus, Elephant, triceratops, Mammoth, for a progression for each CR) that rely on single, but powerful attacks. Haste then adds to their power significantly because the one attack from Haste doubled their normal amount.

[JellyPooga]

If he's usually using ranged attacks though, and already has Crossbow Expert, I'd say he loses priority over Paladin, because he doesn't need as much mobility and defense as in melee, and already have a consistent second chance to land SA.

Sneak Attack only applies 1/turn, so Crossbow Expert doesn't help a Rogue get a second Sneak Attack beyond having two chances of getting one to land. Haste, however, does as described by SharkForce.

The only reason to Haste the Paladin over the Rogue is if you need to put something down fast;
- Haste lasts 10 rounds.
- With a Rogue getting 2 Sneak Attacks a round, that's potentially 20 Sneak Attacks over the entire duration of Haste.
- At level 5 (the lowest level we're playing with Haste at), that's up to 60d6 of Sneak Attack damage (average: 210). This obviously goes up with higher levels.
- At level 5, a Paladin has 2x2nd level slots and 4x1st level slots. Assuming he has three attacks per round (2 from Extra Attack +1 from Haste), all of those slots are gone in two rounds, after which he has no bonus damage from Smites. His total bonus damage from Smites (assuming he blows the lot) is 14d8 (average:63).

Now, this doesn't factor in any bonuses from the likes of Great Weapon Master, Dueling Fighting Style, weapon choice or anything else, but the difference in potential is staggering. The actual results will be much less significant, but still noticeable.

Crits are an odd topic; Rogues have more chances to get a Significant Crit, because every attack that Crits will double those Sneak Attack dice, but the Paladin could try and "save" his Smites for a Crit and his Crits hurt more than the Rogues, at the risk of not getting all his Smites off.

The advantage the Paladin has is that he can offload all 14d8 Smite damage in two Rounds, compared to only 12d6 from the Rogue in the same time-frame. After the second round, however, the Rogue swiftly pulls ahead in terms of bonus damage.

All of this assumes a largely level playing field, which of course it isn't. If the Paladin is toting a Greatsword and GWM, then just the extra weapon damage, plus GWM bonus might make giving Haste to him far more worthwhile, especially if he's a Devotion Paladin and offsetting his GWM penalty to hit with his Sacred Weapon CD.

[BigONotation]

- With a Rogue getting 2 Sneak Attacks a round, that's potentially 20 Sneak Attacks over the entire duration of Haste.

The rogue can only sneak attack once per turn unless they get to use their Reaction to attack.

[RickAllison]

The rogue can only sneak attack once per turn unless they get to use their Reaction to attack.

Exactly. They use the attack from Haste on their turn, then Ready an attack using their main action. Two attacks on different turns, two sneak attacks.

[JellyPooga]

The rogue can only sneak attack once per turn unless they get to use their Reaction to attack.

SharkForce explains it in full above, but the gist is you attack on your turn using the Haste attack, then use your regular action to Ready an attack with an easy trigger and attack on the other guys turn with your Reaction. Assuming you hit, it's a guaranteed 2 Sneak Attacks a round.

edit: Ninja! :smallfurious:

[Citan]

Sneak Attack only applies 1/turn, so Crossbow Expert doesn't help a Rogue get a second Sneak Attack beyond having two chances of getting one to land. Haste, however, does as described by SharkForce.

The only reason to Haste the Paladin over the Rogue is if you need to put something down fast;

Nop. ;)
You're perfectly right in your demonstration, and it's a very crafty idea for a ranged Rogue to get another Sneak Attack in a round.
But there can be situations where you still prefer hasting the Paladin, because +2 AC and Dex saves or the added speed will make a difference in how he holds the front (Paladin taking less damage means less chance of down so more freedom to act for everyone in the party). Even when taking in account the fact that hasting the Rogue could help kill things quicker.

On the sustained damage aspect though, I 100% agree that Rogue brings much more added value than Paladin, provided he can hit reliably (which should not be too hard), although there are some points in leveling when Paladin closes the gap a bit. ;)