List of best-worst subclasses?

[Man_Over_Game]

What's your personal list of best-to-worst subclasses?

Rather, to make things a bit simpler, if there was a different player playing each subclass from level 1 to 20, who would have the most/least amount of fun?

[Trustypeaches]

There are a lot of subclasses.

The “best”, IMO, for each class are:

Bard: College of Lore
Cleric: Tempest Domain
Wizard: School of Divination
Druid: Circle of the Moon
Warlock: Hexblade
Ranger: Gloom Stalker / Hunter
Paladin: Oath of Devotion
Fighter: Battlemaster
Rogue: Swashbuckler
Barbarian: Path of the Totem Warrior
Monk: Way of the Open Hand
Sorcerer: Divine Soul

The worst are:

Bard: College of Whispers
Cleric: Trickery Domain
Wizard: School of Transmutation
Druid: Circle of Dreams
Warlock: Great Old One
Ranger: Beast Master
Paladin: Oath of Redemption
Fighter: Champion
Rogue: Thief
Barbarian: Path of the Berserker
Monk: Way of the Four Elements
Sorcerer: Storm Magic

That said, it’s really hard to make a bad character in 5e and these are just my opinions.

[mephnick]

The worst Fighter subclass is by far the PDK.

Worst Warlock subclass is Undying.

I'd argue they're the 2 worst subclasses in the game. SCAG was a mess and needed the crowd-sourced Xanathars treatment.

[stoutstien]

Warlocks are had due to the almost two sub class picks they make.
purple banner is hands down the worse subclass in the game.

Beast master is mechanical sound but probably the most clunky in play.

Some of the land druid options are lacking. could be updated with xan spell options to help them out. Same with PHB rangers

I haven't seen a whisper bard in play but it seems lacking compared to other options

[Dark.Revenant]

You asked for most and least fun, rather than powerful. With that in mind, here are my choices and justifications.

WORST

Barbarian: Path of the Battlerager
All other barbarians are full of flavor, impactful effects, and/or changes in play-style. You get... a clone of Polearm Master, some extra THP, some maneuverability, and some piddly damage related to being spiky. The real trouble, however: when you're not raging, you get NOTHING!

Bard: College of Valor
This college might be mechanically sound for a generalist support caster, but it's not good at doing what it should be doing: making you a valorous martial combatant. Your damage is pathetic, you have hardly any spells that assist with melee in any way, you become really MAD... and you have to juggle instruments, shields, and weapons! Now that I think about it, that last part is actually on-theme for a bard...

Cleric: Grave Domain
This is definitely the worst-written subclass in the otherwise very strong list of subclasses that clerics have access to. Between the awful domain spell list, the awkward abilities, and the dissociative failure of game design that is Sentinel at Death's Door, this is a clear loser to me.

Druid: Circle of the Land
People always compare Moon to Land to show why Moon is so good. It's the other way around: Moon is there to make Land look bad. Why? You've nothing exceptional to do with your bonus action and your subclass features after 2nd level are uninspired, situational, or just plain awful. The other subclasses give you cool features that you'll use all the time, making Land feel totally left-out.

Fighter: Purple Dragon Knight
PDK has a big problem that pushes it from merely mediocre to outright terrible: Paladins. Why would you ever be a PDK with your situational, disjointed list of abilities, when you could be a Paladin and do (almost) everything the PDK can, but better?

Monk: Way of the Four Elements
A fun idea with a wretched implementation. I think this subclass would have been fine if you had more abilities to choose from in the moment, trading Ki efficiency for greater utility. But you don't. You pick one super-situational power. Every other monk subclass has an amazing build-defining feature at third level. The four elements? You get a wet fart.

Paladin: Oath of the Crown
The one bad egg in the otherwise excellent basket. Aside from a solid spell list, all you've got are a whole host of lackluster abilities that feel like a series of limp slaps. The worst part is Champion Challenge, which is rather poor as a taunt effect because it doesn't actually encourage anyone to attack you. It has some niche use if you can use it to keep a group of creatures occupied while all your allies are further than 30 feet away from you... but you won't live very long with a strategy that insane.

Ranger: Beast Master
The most awkward, clunky subclass in the entire game, and nothing else even comes close. Congratulations, Beast Master, you really are the worst. No matter what optimizers say about its mechanical effectiveness, it'll never actually feel right.

Rogue: Inquisitive
Absolutely terrible. This is an unfortunate example of a subclass with a theme that should have been a grand slam, a freebie. You're Sherlock Holmes! Except... every feature sucks. Seriously, every single feature you get as an Inquisitive is at or near the bottom among all rogue subclass features.

Sorcerer: Draconic Bloodline
Reasonably effective, but boring. None of your features until 14th level are at all dynamic or interesting, no matter how mechanically useful they are. And I'd argue they're not even that mechanically useful. Have you seen the crazy **** the other sorcerers can do by 6th level?! People like this subclass purely because it has the word "Dragon" in it. Here's a hint: you can be a dragon-blooded sorcerer of any of the other, more interesting subclasses.

Warlock: The Undying
Awful, awful spell list with awful features that are more ribbon than special power. This subclass has very little going for it.

Wizard: School of Necromancy
Aside from the fact that you'll probably be fighting with your DM every step of the way, this subclass has two big problems. First, the creation and usage of undead creatures is awkward, at best. To make proper usage of your features, you'll need to bog down combat with extra minions and juggle the resources of minionmancy even out of combat. Second, the necromancy school is by far the weakest of the schools in 5e. You'll be disappointed time and time again.

[Misterwhisper]

Barbarian:
Best - many good ones but I will say zealot.
Worst - berserker exhaustion is just that bad

Bard:
Best - Lore, just the massive versatility
Worst - whispers. It just makes no sense

Cleric:
Best - many great ones I like nature. Great abilities
Worst - trickery, it does not flow

Druid:
Best - moon, it opens so many options
Worst - spore, it just sucks

Fighter:
Best - Battlemaster, short rest almost never wasted maneuvers are gold.
Worst - Purple Dragon Knight

Monk:
Best: many options depending on how you want to play the character I personally like drunken master, but open hand is probably better.
Worst: kensei, at least 4 elements gives you unique options, kensei can be replace by just getting a magic weapon.

Paladin:
Best: they are all pretty good, I like an Ender Wiggin mentality conquest paladin
Worst: honestly they are all good, I guess crown because it is kind of plain.

Ranger:
Best: deep stalker, it is crazy powerful and. Seems like a real ranger style
Worst: horizon walker, it only really helps thematically in a small number of play styles.

Rogue:
Best - I prefer swashbuckler, it makes sneak attacking alone so much easier, and the role playing flare.
Worst - mastermind, it just seems like an npc subclass

Sorcerer
Best: as much as I hate the subclass divine soul is amazing
Worst: wild sorcerer, I don’t like random

Warlock:
Best: so much rp to be had but hexblade is just that pain better than all the rest, I like celestial better though
Worst: undying, it is just so limited in scope

Wizard
Best: illusionist in the hands of a very creative player
Worst: transmutation is just meh

[Unk]

WORST

Bard: College of Valor
This college might be mechanically sound for a generalist support caster, but it's not good at doing what it should be doing: making you a valorous martial combatant. Your damage is pathetic, you have hardly any spells that assist with melee in any way, you become really MAD... and you have to juggle instruments, shields, and weapons! Now that I think about it, that last part is actually on-theme for a bard...



Don't take any weapons and just be a perfect full caster with AC 19 without any multiclassing

Like in treantmonk's video
youtu.be/w8D40i2gtto

[Sception]

Yeah, valor bard is a great support caster with strong ac and a brilliant bardic inspiration, but that's not really what it advertises itself as. You can have a lot of fun with a valor bard /if/ you see past the illusion of what it's pretending ti be to the reality of what it is... but in general most players who want to play a 'valor bard' don't actually want to play a valor bard. They want to play a swords bard.

[sophontteks]

As I see it bards have a 3-way tie for first, and a 2-way tie for worst.

Glamour, valor, and lore are all just fantastic. Valor and lore has been covered. Glamour has an inspiration ability that is stronger then sculpt spells before we even add the temp hp. Any bard that can cast their awesome AOEs every round without worry of friendly fire is top tier on that alone. But they also have the strongest social ability in the game to top it off.

For druids shepherd overshadows moon once they hit level 5. Dream druids struggle. Moon druids are actually less versitile then other druids. They need wildshapes for combat, which makes it harder to use them out of combat. The extra wildshapes don't add much out of combat either. Spellcasting and wildshape don't mix well. Low AC tanking = RIP concentration. Any druid can tank with conjure animals at level 5 and up.

[RickAsWritten]

Cleric: Grave Domain
This is definitely the worst-written subclass in the otherwise very strong list of subclasses that clerics have access to. Between the awful domain spell list, the awkward abilities, and the dissociative failure of game design that is Sentinel at Death's Door, this is a clear loser to me.


Hmm...I was AFB and thought for sure that your gripe was with the Circle of Mortality ability because it encourages yo-yo healing. What's wrong with cancelling a crit? Because it is too meta-knowledge-y? It takes about two sentences of fluff to undo that: As a cleric tasked with shepherding souls from life to death, you have an otherwordly ability to perceive changes in the life force of creatures. When you see an ally struck with an attack and about to take several steps down the lonely path, you can abjure them against it. [Insert Sentinel at Death's Door text here]

Purely on a fun-ness level(which is what the OP used as a qualifier), this subclass seems like a blast to play, and would be loved by its teammates. Free and ranged bonus stabilization, one of like three efficient healers in the game, set your teammate up to wreck someone, cancel crits. Seems like a lot of fun to me. The domain spells are pretty poor, but that is weighted against the relative strength of the subclass abilities.

[sophontteks]

Grave is a contenter for best cleric subclass :)

Cancelling a crit is better then the best healing spells in the game.

[ProsecutorGodot]

It's a tough scale, it's hard to rate subclasses in terms of "fun" because fun is subjective to the player. My idea of what is a fun subclass has already been shot down by several of the posters here. That doesn't mean they're wrong, just that they have fun with DND in a different way than I do. I can only really rate it on account of what I personally have the most/least amount of fun with to any certain degree.

Barbarian:
-Best: Ancestral Guardian
-Worst: Storm Herald
Bard:
-Best: Lore
-Worst: Whispers
Cleric:
-Best: Grave
-Worst: Nature
Druid:
- I just don't like Druid, can't even pick a favorite.
Fighter:
-Best: Samurai
-Worst: Arcane Archer (We all know PDK is objectively the worst, but I like the idea behind it enough that I'd almost be willing to look past the awful execution)
Monk:
-Best: Open Hand
-Worst: Long Death
Paladin:
-Best: Oath of Redemption (The truest example of my bias shining through)
-Worst: Oath of the Crown
Ranger:
-Best: Gloom Stalker
-Worst: Beast Master (Find Familiar does more for me than a Brown Bear could)
Rogue:
-Best: Inquisitive (My favorite character I've ever made was one of these)
-Worst: Scout
Sorcerer:
-Best: Divine Soul
-Worst: Wild Magic
Warlock:
-Best: Celestial (Hexblade is owed its nod for enabling many MAD builds to be SAD instead)
-Worst: Undying
Wizard:
-Best: War Magic
-Worst: Conjuration

Remember that this is purely opinion based. If your favorite subclass is here, all that means is it might not be my favorite (or it is my favorite).

[CTurbo]

Best
Zealot Barbarian
Lore Bard
Tempest Cleric
Moon Druid
Battle Master Fighter
Long Death Monk
Ancients Paladin
Gloom Stalker Ranger
Swashbuckler Rogue
Divine Soul Sorcerer
Fiend/Tome Warlock
Abjuration Wizard

Survivability, adaptability, and versatility are what I based my choices on as that's what "best" means to me.


It's harder to pick the "worst" for each class, but some of them ARE obvious
Battleranger Barbarian
Satire Bard
War or Trickery Cleric
Banneret Fighter
4e Monk
Redemption Paladin
Monster Hunter or Horizon Walker Ranger
Mastermind or Inquisitive Rogue

"worst" means different things to me. Some of them, like Banneret, Battlerager, and 4e Monk are just bad in most ways(IMO), but some of the others, like Monster Hunter, Horizon Walker, Mastermind, and Inquisitive are probably not BAD per say, they just have nothing about them that even remotely interest me. I actually think the Redemption Paladin is really strong, but I would hate to have one in my party as it's playstyle seems counterintuitive to how D&D usually works lol. Just not familiar enough with Druids to pick. I think the Sorcerers are pretty even. I used to hate Wild Magic, but now that I understand it better, I like it a lot more.

[sophontteks]

Here's an unpopular opinion. Divine sorcerers are contenders for worst sorcerer subclass.

Adding another spell list to a class with the least spell slots does not help them much, and I haven't seen many good metamagic to cleric spell combos. Empowered healing is pretty weak, since healing doesn't use many hit die. It's just a nightmare trying to pick so few spells from two spell lists.

Compare this to draconic getting solid buffs to hp, AC, and damage. Or shadow sorcerers getting a juiced up darkness and a heighten spell summon.

Of course storm sorcerers are also pretty bad single class, and wild sorcerers, while potentially good, are terribly written. All wild surges are made at DM descresion, that's awful.

[Skyblaze]

Here's an unpopular opinion. Divine sorcerers are contenders for worst sorcerer subclass.

Adding another spell list to a class with the least spell slots does not help them much, and I haven't seen many good metamagic to cleric spell combos. Empowered healing is pretty weak, since healing doesn't use many hit die. It's just a nightmare trying to pick so few spells from two spell lists.

Compare this to draconic getting solid buffs to hp, AC, and damage. Or shadow sorcerers getting a juiced up darkness and a heighten spell summon.

Of course storm sorcerers are also pretty bad single class, and wild sorcerers, while potentially good, are terribly written. All wild surges are made at DM descresion, that's awful.

Least spells known*

And I agree mostly about the divine sorcerer, two spell lists + the same limited selection doesn't help. Best ones from cleric spell list (that I remember off the top of my head) are Bestow curse, spiritual weapon, spirit guardians...and most of those only go for empower metamagic.

[Lube]

Here's an unpopular opinion. Divine sorcerers are contenders for worst sorcerer subclass.

Adding another spell list to a class with the least spell slots does not help them much, and I haven't seen many good metamagic to cleric spell combos. Empowered healing is pretty weak, since healing doesn't use many hit die. It's just a nightmare trying to pick so few spells from two spell lists.
.

Free fly.

I beg to disagree, a single Spell can change the world around the Divine Soul Sorcerer. A Sorcerer with Flexible casting create level 5 converting low level spell slots and sorcery points.
Upcasted 4~5th Animated Dead is just broken. It allows him to control a army of the undead.

A single spell from cleric list casted by a Sorcerer dominates low/mid levels.

Stealth and Subtle Glyph of Warding allows him to concentrate on multiple spells before an ambush.

[ProsecutorGodot]

Free fly.

I beg to disagree, a single Spell can change the world around the Divine Soul Sorcerer. A Sorcerer with Flexible cast create level 5 converting low level spell slots and sorcery points.
Upcasted 4~5th Animated Dead is just broken. It allows him to control a army of the undead.

A single spell from cleric list casted by a Sorcerer dominates low/mid levels.

Stealth and Subtle Glyph of Warding allows him to concentrate on multiple spells.

This sure sounds familiar, hmm.

[Lube]

This sure sounds familiar, hmm.

3~4 upcasted level 5 Animate Dead doesn't dominate ?

[Merudo]

The best for each class are:

Barbarian: Ancestral Guardian / Totem Warrior
Bard: Lore/Valor/Glamour
Cleric: Life/Tempest
Druid: Moon/Shepard
Fighter: Battlemaster
Monk: Open Hand
Paladin: Ancients/Devotion
Ranger: Gloom Stalker
Rogue: Arcane Trickster
Sorcerer: Divine Soul/Shadow
Warlock: Hexblade
Wizard: Abjuration/Divination

The worst are:

Barbarian: Berserker
Bard: Swords
Cleric: War
Druid: Spores
Fighter: Purple Dragon Knight
Monk: Four Elements
Paladin: Crown
Ranger: Beast Master
Rogue: Mastermind
Sorcerer: Storm
Warlock: Great Old One / The Undying
Wizard: Conjuration / Transmutation

[Sception]

For me, "best" subclasses often come down to a melding of theme and mechanical implementation, while "worst" is usually more about poor implementation of great ideas. Even if another subclass might be less mechanically useful, one that got my hopes up with a great idea then botched the implementation so much that it's just bad or frustrating to play is always going to be worse in my mind, especially since the devs have been very reluctant to cover the same ground twice this edition, so a bad implementation can ruin a great idea basically for all of 5e.


BEST

Barbarian: Ancestral Guardian, though Zealot's also pretty great
Bard: Glamour, though I love lore and valor as well (once you understand that valor is a dedicated support caster, not a gish).
Cleric: I really like Forge
Druid: Moon, though be sure to have your one or two favorite forms printed in advance, don't go hunting through monster books mid fight. I also really like Shepard
Fighter: Battlemaster, so versatile, so reliably good. I also really like cavalier.
Monk: Shadow. Open hand may be mechanically better, but shadow monk is just so fun and fluffy.
Paladin: Oath of Conquest - probably the best integration of theme and mechanics of any subclass in the game, though admittedly edgelord dark knights aren't what everyone is looking for in a paladin. Pretty much all of the paladin subclasses are great, so there's still plenty of good options for more classical knight-in-shining-armor types.
Ranger: Gloom Stalker - so cool! I love this guy!
Rogue: Arcane Trickster. A small handful of wizard spells adds a ton of flavor and versatility to the rogue. Grabbing a familiar is especially nice.
Sorcerer: Shadow Sorcerer. Super fun, super fluffy. Slightly let down by a shortage of on-theme spells on the sorcerer spell list, but that minor flaw should improve with time.
Warlock: A bit tricky, because my favorite *mechanically* is overwhelmingly Hexblade - a cool, creepy caster with a dark magic theme that emphasizes cursing your foes? Actually makes blade-locks functional while still working just as well with tome or chain? Yeah, fantastic, everything the warlock class wants to be mechanically. BUT the thematic angle is extremely under-baked, missing out on that 'power borrowed or stolen from a particular patron with distinct goals and personality' that is supposed to drive the narrative identity of the class. If you completely rewrite the patron's fluff (mechanically it's a great implementation of grim reaper/shinigami type patrons, or in Ravnica for pacts with members of Orzhov's ghost council), or even if you just flesh out the lore for the hexblades themselves, then it easily becomes my favorite warlock subclass. Otherwise, purely as written, I'd have to say any of the other patrons, they've all got their selling points. Well, any of them except for undying.
Wizard: Divination, it's just everything you want a wizard to be - deeply knowledgeable, always prepared, & brimming with arcane power.


WORST

Barbarian: Berserker. great, class defining concept, almost entirely unworkable execution.
Bard: I don't dislike any bard subclass outright, though Whispers is pretty niche.
Cleric: Why would anyone play a nature cleric, when the druid exists?
Druid: EDIT: Spore. Great concept, tragic execution.
Fighter: Purple Dragon Knight. Great concept, botched execution. So frustrating.
Monk: Tie between Elemental and Kensei. Great concepts, botched executions. So frustrating.
Paladin: Oath of the Crown - stands out as the only kind of lackluster paladin oath, though even this isn't bad, spirit guardians in particular is nice, iit just falls short of the rest.
Ranger: Beast Master. Fabulous concept, botched execution.
Rogue: Tie between Inquisitive and Mastermind, which both struggle with mechanical implementations that fall a bit short of their brilliant concepts. That said, like the whisper bard, they're still decent if a bit niche in my mind, no where near as frustrating to play as beast master rangers or elemental monks.
Sorcerer: Wild Magic *IF* the DM doesn't make frequent use of wild magic surge. Yeah, it can slow down combat a bit, but it's a lot of goofy fun and it's kind of what the subclass is all about, so if it just doesn't happen then the subclass isn't worth playing. But if wild magic surge does come up frequently, then wild sorcerer's fine. Otherwise, there aren't any sorcerer bloodlines I dislike.
Warlock: Undying. All the problems of Hexblade's wishy-washy, half-baked patron fluff, only attached to by far the worst warlock subclass mechanics instead of easily the best.
Wizard: Eh, none are really bad, but if I had to pick one? Necromancy can be a bit of a let down outside of the level range where animate dead is relevant (5 to 10ish) due to the somewhat lacking selection of higher and lower level necromancy spells, and can be a bit awkward even in that level range due to the hassles of minion management. Still not outright bad, though, and could easily improve with future releases if we get more and better necromancy spells.

[Citan]

What's your personal list of best-to-worst subclasses?

Rather, to make things a bit simpler, if there was a different player playing each subclass from level 1 to 20, who would have the most/least amount of fun?


There are a lot of subclasses.

The “best”, IMO, for each class are:

Bard: College of Lore
Cleric: Tempest Domain
Wizard: School of Divination
Druid: Circle of the Moon
Warlock: Hexblade
Ranger: Gloom Stalker / Hunter
Paladin: Oath of Devotion
Fighter: Battlemaster
Rogue: Swashbuckler
Barbarian: Path of the Totem Warrior
Monk: Way of the Open Hand
Sorcerer: Divine Soul

The worst are:

Bard: College of Whispers
Cleric: Trickery Domain
Wizard: School of Transmutation
Druid: Circle of Dreams
Warlock: Great Old One
Ranger: Beast Master
Paladin: Oath of Redemption
Fighter: Champion
Rogue: Thief
Barbarian: Path of the Berserker
Monk: Way of the Four Elements
Sorcerer: Storm Magic

That said, it’s really hard to make a bad character in 5e and these are just my opinions.
I like this format. :)


The “best”, IMO, for each class are:

Bard: College of Lore (Glamour very close)
Cleric: Tempest|Nature Domain (Life and Trickery just a tad behind)
Wizard: School of Bladesong (Abjurer, Evoker, Diviner damn close, honorable mention to Transmuter for potential perma-Polymorph and resurrection ability).
Druid: Circle of the Shepherd <20, Moon = 20 (just for synergy capstone+bonus action and extra forms).
Warlock: Tome pact, Hexblade|GOO
Ranger: Gloom Stalker (Beast master close behind)
Paladin: Oath of Ancients|Conquest (Crown for CD and Spirit Guardians & Devotion for CD and aura not far behind)
Fighter: Eldricht Knight|Battlemaster
Rogue: Arcane Trickster
Barbarian: Path of the Totem Warrior
Monk: Way of the Four Elements
Sorcerer: Divine Soul

The worst are:

Bard: College of Valor (proficiencies can be gotten otherwise, alternative BI is lesser than for other archetypes imo, "spell&weapon" too situational unless you build around)
Cleric: War Domain (most spells you can acquire otherwise, WIS-based bonus action is just not enough, the only interesting thing here is the +10 if you build around with a multiclass or at least weapon cantrip).
Wizard: School of Necromancy: mechanically can be extremely powerful, but it's just all about undead army: limitative, kinda bland, and lots of complications RP-wise.
Druid: Circle of Dreams (healing bested by Shepherd, fluff-wise not interested, I know I should give this a chance but priorities...)
Warlock: Celestial: benefits are nice but if I really want some heal I prefer going another way, you can reproduce most abilities with spells or feats.
Ranger: Hunter, maybe? Mechanics are good enough but it lacks something really distinctive unless you really want to play the "archer" trope 100%.
Paladin: Oath of Vengeance: CD is not that good (very close range to activate, just gives advantage), reaction is too situational to my taste, lvl 20 is nice but too far. ^^
Fighter: Champion: mechanically good, but too simple to my taste.
Rogue: Mastermind: can be great if DM really exploits all three pillars, or for a very "manipulative" character, but imo even more niche than Assassin.
Barbarian: Path of the Berserker: mostly usual critics: not that it's bad really, I just think all other options are better for me.
Monk: Way of the Open Hand? Like Ranger, there is no real bad archetype, but only the level 3 (very good) and 17 (awesome) are really interesting to me. And Quivering Palm is sadly very hard to reach so...
Sorcerer: Storm Magic: same, mechanics are strong but kinda force you to think "around them" which I don't like very much. Plus, while it's usually a good thing in my eyes, this time it's just a tad "too much", like you're screaming "I'm a LIGHTNING MAN" every minute.

[mephnick]

Guess I'll actually do mine then. Note that I play fairly traditional DnD

Barbarian: Zealot
Bard: Valor (what a bard should be)
Cleric: Life
Druid: Shepard
Fighter: Samurai
Monk: Open Hand
Paladin: Devotion
Ranger: Gloom Stalker
Rogue: Arcane Trickster
Sorcerer: Divine Soul
Warlock: Hexblade
Wizard: Divination

The worst are:

Barbarian: Storm (easily)
Bard: Glamour
Cleric: Trickery
Druid: Moon (yeah I said it, most overrated class in 5e since day 1)
Fighter: Purple Dragon Knight
Monk: Four Elements
Paladin: Redemption
Ranger: Beast Master (very easy to fix, and I personally like it, but RAW is the worst)
Rogue: Assassin
Sorcerer: Storm (they must have used up all their good storm ideas for Tempest Cleric)
Warlock: The Undying
Wizard: Necromancy

[Merudo]

The “best”, IMO, for each class are:

Warlock: Tome pact, Hexblade|GOO
Ranger: Gloom Stalker (Beast master close behind)

[...]

The worst are:

Bard: College of Valor (proficiencies can be gotten otherwise, alternative BI is lesser than for other archetypes imo, "spell&weapon" too situational unless you build around)
Monk: Way of the Open Hand? Like Ranger, there is no real bad archetype, but only the level 3 (very good) and 17 (awesome) are really interesting to me. And Quivering Palm is sadly very hard to reach so...


I don't understand these choices:

GOO: Why is it the best? All of its abilities are underwhelming. I don't see how it measures up to the Hexblade, or even Archfey/Fiend

Beast Master: It's the first time I ever see someone claiming it's close to being the best Ranger subclass.

Valor: The proficiencies can be gotten otherwise, but at the cost of an ASI or multiclass (both are very step prices for the Bard). The extra use of BI to increase AC is actually quite powerful. College of Swords is almost strictly worse because it doesn't give Shield proficiency & it doesn't improve BI any.

Monk: I'm amazed you think Way of the Four Elements is better than Open Hand...

[Daphne]

BEST:

Barbarian: Bear Totem
Bard: not a fan of Bards
Cleric: Grave, Life, Light, Order, Tempest and War. I really like Clerics this edition
Druid: Moon
Fighter: Arcane Archer, Battle Master, Cavalier and Samurai. hard to decide between one of them, all are good
Monk: Drunken Master
Paladin: Conquest. it changes the way you play a Paladin
Ranger: Gloom Stalker
Rogue: Arcane Trickster, Inquisitive and Swashbuckler
Sorcerer: none, I don't like playing Sorcerers
Warlock: Celestial, Fiend (fireball!) and Hexblade
Wizard: War Magic


WORST:

Barbarian: Berserker
Bard: not a fan of Bards
Cleric: Nature and Trickery
Druid: Shepherd. anything that involves summoning creatures that will slow down combat is bad in my book
Fighter: Purple Dragon Knight
Monk: Kensei
Paladin: Redemption the subclass art on XGE offends me
Ranger: Beast Master
Rogue: Assassin
Sorcerer: Wild Mage
Warlock: The Undying
Wizard: Conjuration and Necromancy. see Shepherd

[carrdrivesyou]

Here's my take:

The best:

Bard: College of Lore - sheer versatility makes this OP
Cleric: Grave Domain - the party will simply not die
Wizard: School of Divination - Portents are important!
Druid: I don't play them so no entry here.
Warlock: Celestial - They can do just about everything anyone else can do, more times per day (given short rests), AND they aren't too MAD
Ranger: Gloom Stalker - Early access Nova ability plus darkvision shenanigans make this wonderful
Paladin: Oath of Vengeance - The oath spells make this fantastic!
Fighter: Battlemaster - This really gives the fighter the "feel" of a fighter.
Rogue: Arcane Trickster - you get to do all the things you want to, and then some.
Barbarian: Path of the Zealot - you refuse to die, and deal MASSIVE damage. Nice, refreshing take on the class
Monk: Way of the Shadow - Unlimited teleportation makes this unrivaled by other options, despite it losing in the raw damage department
Sorcerer: Divine Soul - Twinned Cure Wounds? Yes, please!

The worst:

Bard: College of Valor - Grand idea, poor execution
Cleric: Life Domain - Unpopular opinion, The abilities granted by the life domain are mostly in excess and over the top. No real need for this much healing.
Wizard: School of Necromancy - Minionmancy is subpar in 5e, plus its always clunky and not very useful overall.
Druid: Again, no opinion since I don't play them
Warlock: VERY UNPOPULAR OPINION - HEXBLADE - overdone, overused, and just plain boring. Sure you can use CHA for everything, but it really doesn't excel in any other areas. Paladins can smite better, and have other abilities that suit them. They also have a rather limited list of spells and abilities. The only thing this really offers to make it unique are the invocations, but most of those are going to be spent on pact weapon enhancements
Ranger: Beast Master - Whoever designed this needs to be sent back to school.
Paladin: Oath of Ancients - Just play a druid for crying out loud
Fighter: Champion - Become Mr. Bland and Boring, with no real abilities to speak of.
Rogue: Assassin - The 3rd level ability is great, but it really doesn't offer anything else that's not done better somewhere else
Barbarian: Path of the Storm Herald - Basically, this is the ribbon barbarian. There is no real draw to this other than flavor and minor abilities. Why use your action on the subpar abilities it grants when you could just as easily chop those enemies in half?
Monk: Way of the Four Elements - Great flavor, but terrible writing. C'mon WotC, you can do better than this
Sorcerer: I was tempted to say Wild Mage, but at least it has some flavor and fun to it. Truthfully, draconic is my least well liked. Its boring and has no real unique identity to it until later levels.

[Sception]

I'm changing my 'worst druid subclass' nomination to Spore, which I momentarily forgot existed earlier. Land's only real failing is that it's a bit bland and lacking in pizzazz. Spore, in its final form, is another one of those tragic "fantastic concept, botched execution" deals that frustrate me to no end.

[Citan]

I don't understand these choices:

GOO: Why is it the best? All of its abilities are underwhelming. I don't see how it measures up to the Hexblade, or even Archfey/Fiend

Beast Master: It's the first time I ever see someone claiming it's close to being the best Ranger subclass.

Valor: The proficiencies can be gotten otherwise, but at the cost of an ASI or multiclass (both are very step prices for the Bard). The extra use of BI to increase AC is actually quite powerful. College of Swords is almost strictly worse because it doesn't give Shield proficiency & it doesn't improve BI any.

Monk: I'm amazed you think Way of the Four Elements is better than Open Hand...
GOO
To be honest my only certitude about Warlock Patrons is "which is the worst", which is actually Undying for me (and not Celestial... But I had just forgotten about Undying).

I like very much Fiend's spells and abilities and I really hesitated to put it as best too. If were talking about "try to rate the archetypes that bring the best benefits mechanically without any provided context" then it's certainly the best: all its spells are usable in whatever situation (mostly), and its benefit while completely geared toward hostile encounters are certainly great too.
In fact, I'll probably go and edit to add it as a tie. ^^

I love Archfey's spells and their abilities are overall nice.

But I really prefer GOO because...
- Telepathy is plain awesome in many, many situations.
- Their additional spells are among the best one could hope for as far as "short-rest usable spells" go.
- Their level 10 ability is situational for most campaigns, but extremely precious when you actually face caster-based nemesis, especially Wizards or Warlocks.
- Their level 14 is also extremely underrated in how it allows you to get long-range information instantly. Be it for trading, negociating, spying on enemy moves to plan a strategy, or just send a naive innocent as a sacrificial pawn, it has all kind of uses.

Beast Master
It's one of the strongest, if not, mechanically, in the long run, without even special build except for spell choice.
People just dislike (justifiably) the way they translated the concept into mechanics with a "robotic" pet. I made peace with it myself. So I can enjoy it without trouble. :)
It's also the one that, for me, makes the most distinguishable Ranger compared to other martials. Case could be made maybe for Gloomstalker, but Hunter and Monster Slayer are not very different from "Fighter with spells".

Gloomstalker brings solid benefits to the party (especially Rope Trick), so in doubt about party composition and I want to play a Ranger with focus on teamwork I may favor it. If I want to play the archer trope, I may pick Hunter.
But my default will always be Beastmaster, even if it does have a few annoying quirks. :)

Valor
Proficiencies: well, I disagree on your assessments, strongly. Bard does not need many feats, he's a caster: Resilient Constitution , max CHA and possibly Inspiring Leader or Actor to really maximize fluff&mechanic synergy is all he needs. So picking a Moderately Armored feat is largely possible.
Furthermore, any single dip into Warlock or Sorcerer brings so much it's not at all a "very steep price", but rather an investment with added interests: you may dislike how much it amounts to while you reached level 15+, but it allowed you to enjoy good offensive cantrips, defense and additional spells all along the way.

Also, as far as personal AC goes, Swords is strictly *better*. The only benefit of Valor's alternative BI is that you can buff someone else's AC, but there are other ways to help allies, plus as you progress you face enough creatures imposing saves imx to spend at least half BI on regular uses already.

Monk
It depends on what level you are talking about. Give me a 18+ Monk for a one-shot, for a solo player, I'll certainly pick Open Hand and wreak havoc on the world with "Invisible Quivering Palm" shenanigans.
Give me a Monk for a 3-5 campaign, I would probably pick Shadow because at those levels it is the archetype with the best cost/duration ratio for abilities, or Kensei to play a tanky Monk.
Ask me whichever Monk I'd pick by default for a campaign that goes at least up to level 14. Definitely Four Elements.

I love versatility and creativity: Four Elements is by far the best in that regard, followed not too far by Shadow then at a decent distance by Kensei (best ranged attack) and Long Death (Fear for small crowds). But even those last two, as well as the others, don't really change the way you play Monk. Nor the kind of situation you can manage reliably alone.


I'm changing my 'worst druid subclass' nomination to Spore, which I momentarily forgot existed earlier. Land's only real failing is that it's a bit bland and lacking in pizzazz. Spore, in its final form, is another one of those tragic "fantastic concept, botched execution" deals that frustrate me to no end.
My... I completely forgot about it too. I guess it's already a good sign of how to qualify it. XD

[Trustypeaches]

WORST

Bard: College of Valor
This college might be mechanically sound for a generalist support caster, but it's not good at doing what it should be doing: making you a valorous martial combatant. Your damage is pathetic, you have hardly any spells that assist with melee in any way, you become really MAD... and you have to juggle instruments, shields, and weapons! Now that I think about it, that last part is actually on-theme for a bard...It's not particularly MAD unless you're trying to maximize both weapon and magic at the same time, when most Valor bards will likely just leave their attacking Stat (DEX) at 16. Keep in mind that Valor doesn't necessarily mandate you play in melee. Ranged Valor Bards are fairly common.

Also even with just a 14 or 16 in DEX, Weapon Attacks are 100% a large boost for Bard's at-will damage output for Tiers I and II, which is one of the Bard's biggest flaws. Even if you ignore using weapons altogether Medium Armor + Shields is a god damned enormous boost to survivability, and Combat Inspiration is criminally underrated. It makes your inspiration far more versatile in the hands of your allies, since they can use it to raise their Attack or Damage Roll as part of an attack or their AC in reaction to an attack.



Cleric: Grave Domain
This is definitely the worst-written subclass in the otherwise very strong list of subclasses that clerics have access to. Between the awful domain spell list, the awkward abilities, and the dissociative failure of game design that is Sentinel at Death's Door, this is a clear loser to me.I don't necessarily disagree with this assessment (although I'd argue Trickery Domain fails harder at capturing it's fantasy), could you explain what you mean by "dissociative failure of game design" that is Sentinel at Death's Door? The damage prevention it affords can be gamechanging.

Also, I don't know what's awkward about their abilities unless you play in a very low-lethality campaign where you never get to use features such as Circle of Mortality.


Druid: Circle of the Land
People always compare Moon to Land to show why Moon is so good. It's the other way around: Moon is there to make Land look bad. Why? You've nothing exceptional to do with your bonus action and your subclass features after 2nd level are uninspired, situational, or just plain awful. The other subclasses give you cool features that you'll use all the time, making Land feel totally left-out.Land has the most lackluster features but it's plum the BEST pure spellcaster druid. Natural Recovery is just amazing and the expanded spell lists that don't require preparation massively improves the Druid's versatility with how many spells they have available and access to new, amazing spells such as Haste, Lightning Bolt, Invisibility / Greater Invisibility, Mirror Image, Misty Step, etc.

Their class features are lackluster, but not useless. Their level 6 feature actually has great synergy with two of the druid's absolute best spells, Plant Growth and Spike Growth. As for bonus actions, Druid's don't necessarily need MORE to do with their bonus action with great spells that make use of it such as Healing Word, Flaming Sphere, Dust Devil, Gust of Wind, Heat Metal, etc.


Sorcerer: Draconic Bloodline
Reasonably effective, but boring. None of your features until 14th level are at all dynamic or interesting, no matter how mechanically useful they are. And I'd argue they're not even that mechanically useful. Have you seen the crazy **** the other sorcerers can do by 6th level?! People like this subclass purely because it has the word "Dragon" in it. Here's a hint: you can be a dragon-blooded sorcerer of any of the other, more interesting subclasses.Draconic Sorcerers get Free Mage Armor and their sixth level feature is a fantastic boost to damage output. A +4-5 to damage rolls is often a 20% damage boost for spells, and Fire Sorcerers (or other damage types if your DM is flexible) have the best at-will damage of any sorcerer with boosted Fire Bolt, Fireball and Wall of Fire. Lighting Draconic are also solid with Shocking Grasp, Lighting Bolt, Stormy Sphere, etc.

I think the claim people only like this subclass because it has the word "Dragon" in it disingenuous. It is mechanically solid and flavorful, and you don't need to spend Sorcery Points to make use of their features.

[stoutstien]

I also forgot about spore. I had such high hopes for it. At least we got order domain out of the deal. Why are some many people not talking about this guy!
Imo it in the running for best domain. Divine strike is weak and so is the lv 17 feature but the rest is so good.

[Trustypeaches]

Here's my take:

The worst:

Bard: College of Valor - Grand idea, poor execution
Cleric: Life Domain - Unpopular opinion, The abilities granted by the life domain are mostly in excess and over the top. No real need for this much healing.
Wizard: School of Necromancy - Minionmancy is subpar in 5e, plus its always clunky and not very useful overall.
Druid: Again, no opinion since I don't play them
Warlock: VERY UNPOPULAR OPINION - HEXBLADE - overdone, overused, and just plain boring. Sure you can use CHA for everything, but it really doesn't excel in any other areas. Paladins can smite better, and have other abilities that suit them. They also have a rather limited list of spells and abilities. The only thing this really offers to make it unique are the invocations, but most of those are going to be spent on pact weapon enhancements
Ranger: Beast Master - Whoever designed this needs to be sent back to school.
Paladin: Oath of Ancients - Just play a druid for crying out loud
Fighter: Champion - Become Mr. Bland and Boring, with no real abilities to speak of.
Rogue: Assassin - The 3rd level ability is great, but it really doesn't offer anything else that's not done better somewhere else
Barbarian: Path of the Storm Herald - Basically, this is the ribbon barbarian. There is no real draw to this other than flavor and minor abilities. Why use your action on the subpar abilities it grants when you could just as easily chop those enemies in half?
Monk: Way of the Four Elements - Great flavor, but terrible writing. C'mon WotC, you can do better than this
Sorcerer: I was tempted to say Wild Mage, but at least it has some flavor and fun to it. Truthfully, draconic is my least well liked. Its boring and has no real unique identity to it until later levels.Life Domain Cleric: If you're trying to be a pure healer, Life Domain is pretty much the only way to do it while being somewhat as efficient as just killing the enemies outright. The extra healing output is only really overkill at early levels.

Hexblade Warlock: While they can't smite as often as Paladins, their smite is stronger and automatically prones with no save. Also there's nothing forcing Hexblades to be melee combatants or take Pact of the Blade. They function as well as any other Patron as a standard Eldritch Blast turret, with the benefit of dramatically better AC with medium armor / shields and Hexblade's curse, an insanely strong feature that makes them the strongest Patron for single-target damage.

[strangebloke]

Some of these are very hard to evaluate. Its easy to say that undying or banneret are the worst in their class, but what is the worst paladin?? Maybe vengeance, just because it's so inflexible and has bonus action blues, but it's still very very strong. Spore druid is the worst, and dreams is maybe second worst, but who comes after that? After level five, the best is shepherds. Before level five is moon.

Arcane trickster is to my mind an obvious pick for 'best rogue'.

Whispers doesn't deserve to be rated lowest. Psychic daggers is a very powerful ability. None of the bards are that weak. Personally I'd say swords.

Trickery cleric is also unfairly maligned. What, is free advatage in melee not good? Is pass without Trace not good?? It's not the best, but it's pretty much strictly better than war IMO.

People rag on Hunter, but a free attack one a round is a free attack. The gloomstalker has higher damage output on the first round, but a Hunter will have higher damage on every other round. My pick for worst here would be horizon Walker. It pushes you into melee without giving you anything particularly strong to do there.

@citan, I notice that almost all your picks are the "more of the same" classes. Berzerker, open hand, etc etc. Methinks you're just bored with simple archetypes.

[BigPixie]

Grave is a contender for best cleric subclass :)

Canceling a crit is better than the best healing spells in the game.

Then again you can always get adamantine armor, although that ability would be great for tier 1.

[Man_Over_Game]

Some of these are very hard to evaluate. Its easy to say that undying or banneret are the worst in their class, but what is the worst paladin?? Maybe vengeance, just because it's so inflexible and has bonus action blues, but it's still very very strong. Spore druid is the worst, and dreams is maybe second worst, but who comes after that? After level five, the best is shepherds. Before level five is moon.

Arcane trickster is to my mind an obvious pick for 'best rogue'.

Whispers doesn't deserve to be rated lowest. Psychic daggers is a very powerful ability. None of the bards are that weak. Personally I'd say swords.

Trickery cleric is also unfairly maligned. What, is free advatage in melee not good? Is pass without Trace not good?? It's not the best, but it's pretty much strictly better than war IMO.

People rag on Hunter, but a free attack one a round is a free attack. The gloomstalker has higher damage output on the first round, but a Hunter will have higher damage on every other round. My pick for worst here would be horizon Walker. It pushes you into melee without giving you anything particularly strong to do there.

@citan, I notice that almost all your picks are the "more of the same" classes. Berzerker, open hand, etc etc. Methinks you're just bored with simple archetypes.

I agree with most of what you said, but just as a side note on the Horizon Walker, you do have access to a lot of smite-like abilities that work wonders in melee combat. Zephyr Strike comes to mind, as does Absorb Elements.

[Scripten]

Then again you can always get adamantine armor, although that ability would be great for tier 1.

That's not really a reliable strategy, and what about all of the classes that don't get armor proficiencies? An Archer NPC critting against the (mid-tier) party wizard in the first round can easily become a TPK.

[kenGarff]

I've been thinking about about wizards lately and I'd have to say transmutator is probably the worst. It does have some decent features such as panacrea, restore life, and con save. But I don't think it's enough. As for the best, I'm mainly into high-level campaigns since that's what my group tends to play. And I'd have to say the illusionist is just stupidly good! malleable illusion is good. But illusory reality is ridiculous, even with a mechanically-restrictive DM like mine. My not-too-imaginative illusionist player is still doing insane things with it. For lower levels, I'd assume illusionists aren't very good though..esp for parties with restrictive DMs.

Additional note: I am seeing some people considering the conjuration school as the worst. Is conjuration really that bad? I would've assumed focused conjuration, with how good many high-level conjuration spells are, and durable summon to make conjurers amazing. I have no direct experience with conjurers though.

[Man_Over_Game]

That's not really a reliable strategy, and what about all of the classes that don't get armor proficiencies? An Archer NPC critting against the (mid-tier) party wizard in the first round can easily become a TPK.

A mid-tier Wizard (level 8) has about 40 HP. Assuming half of your damage is from dice, you'd have to deal about 28 damage on a single, average attack for that to take the Wizard out. That Archer would basically had to have landed the equivalent of a Rogue's Sneak Attack Critical.


I'm not saying I disagree with your overall statement. The solution shouldn't be "Well, there's some expensive armor you can get that can do that!" Yeah, and there are boots that make you fly; that doesn't make Fly a bad spell.

I don't agree that saying "It's technically possible for the weakest character to get critted on by the highest burst damage ranged character possible in the first turn of combat" is solid supporting evidence, though.

[patchyman]

Here's an unpopular opinion. Divine sorcerers are contenders for worst sorcerer subclass.

Compare this to draconic getting solid buffs to hp, AC, and damage. Or shadow sorcerers getting a juiced up darkness and a heighten spell summon.

I am 100% on the opposite side of this. I hate the draconic buffs to AC and hp, because if I wanted to play a d8 HD full spellcaster class with light armour I would just play a bard or a warlock.

On the other hand, I love divine soul. Finally, a priest class that isn’t proficient in medium armour for no reason! Also, a lot of really good cleric spells are Touch and benefit from the distant Metamagic.

[Sception]

I honestly don't think there's a bad sorcerer subclass (unless your dm refuses to use wild magic surge). They all do pretty useful things, they all have strong thematic characterizations that come across pretty well in their mechanics. Some are slightly more awkward than others, but in general, yeah, I think the sorcerer subclasses, like the paladin subclasses or the bard subclasses (provided you don't play a valor bard to hit things with a sword) are largely without notable duds.

A given player may like or dislike a given one, but imo that's more about personal taste than any particular failures in design.

[MilkmanDanimal]

I refuse to acknowledge the existence of the Purple Dragon Knight or Undying Warlock, so I won't include them.

Bard
Best: Lore. Easily the best support class in the game, and can do little bits of everything. IMO, this is the singly-best subclass in the entire game.
Worst: Whispers. It's not terrible, it's just not great. Considering all the other useful things you can do with Inspiration, a Psychic attack seems underwhelming.

Barbarian
Best: Totem, particularly Bear. So damn tanky.
Worst: Storm Herald or Battlerager.

Cleric
Best: Tempest, though Forge, Life, and Grave all are candidates.
Worst: Arcana feels like cheating, as the SCAG subclasses largely should just be forgotten. Honestly, Cleric is just solid. All of them.

Druid
Best: Moon. I realize Wild Shape drops off in terms of effectiveness a bit as you level, but it never stops being fun as hell.
Worst: Land. While there's a lot of variation on spell lists based on terrain, I find the abilities just blah.

Fighter
Best: Battlemaster
Worst: The PDK does not exist in my reality, so Arcane Archer. Are the abilities cool? Sure, the two times you can use them. Yes, it scales. It's still not enough. Love the idea of it, terrible implementation.

Monk:
Best: Open Palm, Shadow, or Drunken Master, depending on whether you want to be a flanker, ninja, or in the middle of everything.
Worst: The reason there was a Last Airbender in the first place is nobody wants to play a @#$!! Four Elements Monk. Because it's garbage.

Paladin:
Best: Ancients, Vengeance, Devotion. Such a solid class.
Worst: SCAG classes being ignored, so no Crown. I guess Redemption, even though it's still good?

Ranger:
Best: Horizon Walker, maybe? It's still a Ranger, and the fundamental problem with the class is you're great in your favored terrain, and not great when you're not. Too situational.
Worst: The Beastmaster is so, so, so bad. I'm catching up on Critical Role campaign 1; I'm 15 episodes in, and Laura Bailey's animal companion has literally not done one single thing other than be inconvenient. This class is hot garbage.

Rogue
Best: Arcane Trickster. It's just so damn useful in every way.
Worst: Assassin, but largely because I like a bunch of non-combat utility, and Assassin is stab-stab-stab. All the Rogues are good, though.

Sorcerer
Best: Shadow. Just because I can make a spooky dog.
Worst: Wild Magic, because it's like the Chaotic Neutral alignment in rules form. Will I do a good thing? Will I kill the entire party? It's just annoying as hell.

Warlock:
Best: Hexblade. I mean, it's Hexblade.
Wosrt: ArchFey. While I like the RP possibilities and the spell list is decent, the ArchFey class abilities are save-or-suck; you either charm someone, or nothing happens. Hexblades get valuable abilities, Fiendlocks get THP on every kill, GOO gets telepathy, and they all happen consistently. When your subclass relies on hoping someone doesn't fail a save, that sucks.

Wizard:
Best: Divination. Portent. Done.
Worst: Conjuration. Not notably useful.

[RedMage125]

There are a lot of subclasses.

The “best”, IMO, for each class are:

Bard: College of Lore
Cleric: Tempest Domain
Wizard: School of Divination
Druid: Circle of the Moon
Warlock: Hexblade
Ranger: Gloom Stalker / Hunter
Paladin: Oath of Devotion
Fighter: Battlemaster
Rogue: Swashbuckler
Barbarian: Path of the Totem Warrior
Monk: Way of the Open Hand
Sorcerer: Divine Soul

The worst are:

Bard: College of Whispers
Cleric: Trickery Domain
Wizard: School of Transmutation
Druid: Circle of Dreams
Warlock: Great Old One
Ranger: Beast Master
Paladin: Oath of Redemption
Fighter: Champion
Rogue: Thief
Barbarian: Path of the Berserker
Monk: Way of the Four Elements
Sorcerer: Storm Magic

That said, it’s really hard to make a bad character in 5e and these are just my opinions.

I largely agree with this list, so I'll only make note of differences.

Best subclasses:

Cleric: While Tempest is great, Life deserves mention if one WANTS to be the best healer possible.
Paladin: Oath of the Ancients, hands-down.
Barbarian: Zealot
Monk: Kensei, in my book, is tied with Open Hand


Worst subclasses:

Warlock: Pact of the Undying
Fighter: Purple Dragon Knight (Banneret)
Rogue: Inquisitive
Sorcerer: Wild Magic, that table is a self-inflicted TPK waiting to happen.

[Scripten]

A mid-tier Wizard (level 8) has about 40 HP. Assuming half of your damage is from dice, you'd have to deal about 28 damage on a single, average attack for that to take the Wizard out. That Archer would basically had to have landed the equivalent of a Rogue's Sneak Attack Critical.

I'm not saying I disagree with your overall statement. The solution shouldn't be "Well, there's some expensive armor you can get that can do that!" Yeah, and there are boots that make you fly; that doesn't make Fly a bad spell.

I don't agree that saying "It's technically possible for the weakest character to get critted on by the highest burst damage ranged character possible in the first turn of combat" is solid supporting evidence, though.

A single Archer is only CR 3, so at that level, you're facing several of them for even a Medium-difficulty combat. The possibility of that burst damage happening is fairly high in such cases. Maybe the Wizard has Shield or maybe there's some other mechanic that minimizes the risk, but that's not really the point, right?

To make Sentinel at Death's Door viable, you really only need an appreciable risk, which I argue the Archer, at the very least, offers. And really, it's just an example. A leveled spell attack getting a crit is another reasonable example. I don't understand the point of arguing against these example, I guess?

[Citan]

Some of these are very hard to evaluate. Its easy to say that undying or banneret are the worst in their class, but what is the worst paladin?? Maybe vengeance, just because it's so inflexible and has bonus action blues, but it's still very very strong. Spore druid is the worst, and dreams is maybe second worst, but who comes after that? After level five, the best is shepherds. Before level five is moon.

Arcane trickster is to my mind an obvious pick for 'best rogue'.

Whispers doesn't deserve to be rated lowest. Psychic daggers is a very powerful ability. None of the bards are that weak. Personally I'd say swords.

Trickery cleric is also unfairly maligned. What, is free advatage in melee not good? Is pass without Trace not good?? It's not the best, but it's pretty much strictly better than war IMO.

People rag on Hunter, but a free attack one a round is a free attack. The gloomstalker has higher damage output on the first round, but a Hunter will have higher damage on every other round. My pick for worst here would be horizon Walker. It pushes you into melee without giving you anything particularly strong to do there.

@citan, I notice that almost all your picks are the "more of the same" classes. Berzerker, open hand, etc etc. Methinks you're just bored with simple archetypes.
You may be right. :)

Note though, it gives this impression also because OP asked for the "best and worst" without specifying any particular criteria (which was imo a very good idea, since that way people actually express ideas behind their preferences, this has been very instructive at least for me ^^).
So I viewed it as "which one you find best and worst FOR YOU" (and thread makes me think I was not the only one ^^).

So the impression you have probably holds true for classes like Fighter or Monk...
But I'm not sure it's equally true for Cleric (Life is very archetypal no?) Paladin or Warlock to give a few examples. I didn't put Thief as worst Rogue either, although this is also the "I AM A ROGUE" archetype like Open Hand for Monk. ;)
Difference probably lies in versatility: I don't dislike having enhancements on what my class do, but I do love options so tend to favor the ones expanding in several directions. ^^


In truth, my frank opinion is that *every* archetype of *every* class is worth playing
There, I said it. :)
...
...
Ok... maybe not Spore Druid and Undying Warlock... XD
Rather, for those, I make the predjudgement that they are balanced and powerful enough mechanically, but they are just so far from my taste I admit I don't even want to make the effort of giving them a chance.

Anyways. OP needed choices for best/worst, so I made them.
No worries though, I love all Monks, even Open Hand. ^^
ANd I love all Barbarians, even Berserker (I just tack CHA-based feats on it, might as well try and synergize ^^). :)

[Merudo]

Thank you @Citan for elaborating on your answers.


GOO
But I really prefer GOO because...
- Telepathy is plain awesome in many, many situations.
- Their additional spells are among the best one could hope for as far as "short-rest usable spells" go.
- Their level 10 ability is situational for most campaigns, but extremely precious when you actually face caster-based nemesis, especially Wizards or Warlocks.
- Their level 14 is also extremely underrated in how it allows you to get long-range information instantly. Be it for trading, negociating, spying on enemy moves to plan a strategy, or just send a naive innocent as a sacrificial pawn, it has all kind of uses.


- My understanding is that the Telepathy is one way, which severely limits its applications
- I agree on the spells, they are strong.
- My problems with Thought Shield: (1) psychic damage is rare, (2) single target psychic abilities can just be used on someone else, and (3) psychic abilities are dangerous because they inflict conditions, not because of damage
- It's nice but often could be replaced by a pair of Sending Stones or by a simple Sending spell.



Beast Master
It's one of the strongest, if not, mechanically, in the long run, without even special build except for spell choice.


I'm still utterly confused by this. I assume you use Beast Bond together with some bonus action spells? Even then the Beastmaster has to choose between a mediocre Attack action for himself or mediocre Multi-Attack for its CR 1/4 beast...



Valor
Proficiencies: well, I disagree on your assessments, strongly. Bard does not need many feats, he's a caster: Resilient Constitution , max CHA and possibly Inspiring Leader or Actor to really maximize fluff&mechanic synergy is all he needs. So picking a Moderately Armored feat is largely possible.

It is possible, but it takes a long time to get there.

Assuming a Half-Elf Bard with Point Buy 27, you'll likely spend your first two ASI on Charisma - meaning you'll only get Moderately Armored at level 12. That's very late.

I do agree though that the Valor Bard is lackluster if you rolled 18+ Charisma or if you play a high level campaign, but those scenarios are the exception - not the norm.

[Citan]

I refuse to acknowledge the existence of the Purple Dragon Knight or Undying Warlock, so I won't include them.

Monk:
Best: Open Palm, Shadow, or Drunken Master, depending on whether you want to be a flanker, ninja, or in the middle of everything.
Worst: The reason there was a Last Airbender in the first place is nobody wants to play a @#$!! Four Elements Monk. Because it's garbage.

Ranger:
Best: Horizon Walker, maybe? It's still a Ranger, and the fundamental problem with the class is you're great in your favored terrain, and not great when you're not. Too situational.
Worst: The Beastmaster is so, so, so bad. I'm catching up on Critical Role campaign 1; I'm 15 episodes in, and Laura Bailey's animal companion has literally not done one single thing other than be inconvenient. This class is hot garbage.

Rogue
Best: Arcane Trickster. It's just so damn useful in every way.
Worst: Assassin, but largely because I like a bunch of non-combat utility, and Assassin is stab-stab-stab. All the Rogues are good, though.


I'll have to disagree on those points. :)

Monk: 4E is not garbage at all. Few number of Discipline is kinda annoying but you can change as you level, and it's steadily good from level 3 onwards, the big difference with others being you actually (need to?) change how you play as you level, when most other archetypes give you a heads-up on how you'll base most tactics from level 3 onwards.

Ranger: if you don't feel any interest for Beastmaster, then so be it. If you had initial interest for it though, I strongly advise not to make an opinion solely on theorycraft or one only experience from someone else. If you don't want to level a character from ground, try and get a one-shot of level 6-9, gives a decent enough feeling. :)


Assassin: it's absolutely not just about stabbing. Quite on the contrary in fact: higher level abilities are the most awesome any Rogue could hope for, but require players and DM to actually play into an evolving world to let a chance for player to actually use them.
Which is not that often for reasons (especially when following official modules).
That's imo the true killer (pun intended) of the Assassin.

Thank you @Citan for elaborating on your answers.



- My understanding is that the Telepathy is one way, which severely limits its applications
- I agree on the spells, they are strong.
- My problems with Thought Shield: (1) psychic damage is rare, (2) single target psychic abilities can just be used on someone else, and (3) psychic abilities are dangerous because they inflict conditions, not because of damage
- It's nice but often could be replaced by a pair of Sending Stones or by a simple Sending spell.



I'm still utterly confused by this. I assume you use Beast Bond together with some bonus action spells? Even then the Beastmaster has to choose between a mediocre Attack action for himself or mediocre Multi-Attack for its CR 1/4 beast...



It is possible, but it takes a long time to get there.

Assuming a Half-Elf Bard with Point Buy 27, you'll likely spend your first two ASI on Charisma - meaning you'll only get Moderately Armored at level 12. That's very late.

I do agree though that the Valor Bard is lackluster if you rolled 18+ Charisma or if you play a high level campaign, but those scenarios are the exception - not the norm.
Thank you for motivating me to detail a bit, because I was too lazy in the first place. XD
GOO
Telepathy:
Yeah, telepathy is one-way (barring a duo of GOO Warlocks XD). It does make it somewhat situational. A few array of situations when it was (is) useful ime.
- Playing poker: your friend is playing poker, you just go and watch others from an angle, giving information to your friend to best play his hands. Works for all similar activities, obviously require some setup (with absolute minimum being "don't enter like pals XD").
- Negociating (in broader sense): while a pal focuses on actual argumentation, you could focus on Insight checks and tell when he can close the deal, or you could analyse some texts and provide arguments on the fly, things like that.
- Playing sentinel: you don't necessarily play with allies that have darkvision (to communicate by handwaves). Additionally hand waves can be perceived by enemies.
- Communicating through walls: variant of the previous one: you're in prison, you're advance scout, you've been gagged... To ensure message has been received, you could advice your partner to make an appropriate "natural" noise: knocking on wall, imitating an animal, things like that...

In short, nothing fabulous, nothing fancy, but plenty of little things that range from "added confort" to "real difference".

Tought Shield: agreed with you, it's situational. IMO the main merit though is precisely to shield your own thoughts. TBH I'm not very familiar with those kind of information-prying tactics, but the few times I had read about them it impressed me. So if I knew I had a grand objective against someone using those... ^^
Maybe there are some spells that can reach the same effect though, don't know.

Thrall: true theorically, but apart from the side it's consuming 3rd level slots and that it forces you to plan away communications (as always, getting permanent is rarely mandatory, but damn comfortable ^^)...
Sending is not on Warlock list, so there is that. ^^

Beastmaster
Share Spell is certainly the best feature of the archetype and one big reason to stay up to 15, so we can safely say that mechanically Ranger is a bit more of a late bloomer than others. ^^

There is no doubt either your companion is frail for a few levels unless you take particular care of it (or have a friend that can help you with Mage Armor and/or Aid).

But it's also a beast that can be mounted if you picked an adequate race, that can be used as a perfectly innocent-looking scout while you get all information of it with Beast Sense, that can be used for distractions, befriending (or intimidating) some people, that can take guard for you, etc...
If you consider it as "just extra damage", of course if will feel useless. ^^
If you consider it as "just a familiar", it will equally feel underwhelming or at least unimpressive compared to a regular familiar
It's when you think about how to use it in synergy with the rest of Ranger abilities that you can start enjoying it. :)

Note though, to be fair: I never went "Ranger 20" with Beastmaster. Or rather I should say "I would never go" because I never actually played any levl 20 Ranger ^^.
When I can have help from party, I start pure Ranger straight up to 11.
If I'm "alone", I'll usually pick a level of Life Cleric because it's just far too good to pass (or Magic Initiate for Mage Armor if I really have something else in mind, or Divine Soul Sorcerer if I know I have a chance to aim for the very long run).

Then Shared Spells bring a new kind of joy especially with the recent addition of Xanathar's spells.
Also I don't restrict to bonus action spells even if those are bread and butter indeed: some action spells can be worth too (like Longstrider).

Bard
See, that's probably the reason we disagree. Barring the fact all Bards are not Half-Elves (I agree it's mechanically the best by default, but variant Human or more exotic work well too), I don't consider as mandatory to push CHA to 20 immediately. Even though it affects DC. Even though it gives another precious BI. :)

It will depend on party and archetype: if I feel BI is just "comfort level" but not "mandatory level" for party, I'll gladly pick Moderately Armored at level 4: after all a ~+3 AC at that level is much more interesting for my resilience (and concentration) than at level 12. Why?

At level 4, few monsters yet have multiattack, and the bonus to hit is usually between +4 and +6. Pushing AC from 13-14 to 17 (or possibly 19 depending on armor) will make a comparatively big increase in chance to miss for them.
As for saves, rare are creatures having any bonus barring maybe Constitution or Strength. So a +1 right now won't make that big of a difference usually. And if i'm really wary of wasting a slot, I can just use spells that don't rely on a save to really shine: Heat Metal, Silence to pair with a Grappler friend, Pyrotechnics, Greater Invisibility on a friend, a Hypnotic Pattern which should affect a few creatures, or I could poach spells like Fireball/Slow (Lore) to ensure I deal some effect, or spells like Conjure Animals that can be used in various ways.

Comparatively at level 12, the bonus to hit is around +8, multiattacks are common, I'd be more hesitant to pick Moderately Armored at that moment because I'd probably consider if I survived so far (either thanks to my wits or teamwork), I can probably get by later, especially knowing that past level 16 having 14 or 19 AC makes little difference in the face of high-CR creatures.

Of course, this is my style, may not work for everyone. :)
(Also, if I have a chance to know party at session 0 and one have Mage Armor in toolkit, I'll set a trade of mutual interest: caster wards me with Mage Armor -I never have less than 14 DEX, usually 16- and I'll buff him with Inspiring Leader every short rest after the time I get it. Rarely refused. ;))

[Dark.Revenant]

Yeah, valor bard is a great support caster with strong ac and a brilliant bardic inspiration, but that's not really what it advertises itself as. You can have a lot of fun with a valor bard /if/ you see past the illusion of what it's pretending ti be to the reality of what it is... but in general most players who want to play a 'valor bard' don't actually want to play a valor bard. They want to play a swords bard.

Don't take any weapons and just be a perfect full caster with AC 19 without any multiclassing

Like in treantmonk's video
youtu.be/w8D40i2gtto

It's not particularly MAD unless you're trying to maximize both weapon and magic at the same time, when most Valor bards will likely just leave their attacking Stat (DEX) at 16. Keep in mind that Valor doesn't necessarily mandate you play in melee. Ranged Valor Bards are fairly common.

Also even with just a 14 or 16 in DEX, Weapon Attacks are 100% a large boost for Bard's at-will damage output for Tiers I and II, which is one of the Bard's biggest flaws. Even if you ignore using weapons altogether Medium Armor + Shields is a god damned enormous boost to survivability, and Combat Inspiration is criminally underrated. It makes your inspiration far more versatile in the hands of your allies, since they can use it to raise their Attack or Damage Roll as part of an attack or their AC in reaction to an attack.

I specifically acknowledged that Valor Bard makes a good generalist support caster. I mentioned it as the worst, because it's the worst of the Bard subclasses at playing to the theme it represents.



Hmm...I was AFB and thought for sure that your gripe was with the Circle of Mortality ability because it encourages yo-yo healing. What's wrong with cancelling a crit? Because it is too meta-knowledge-y? It takes about two sentences of fluff to undo that: As a cleric tasked with shepherding souls from life to death, you have an otherwordly ability to perceive changes in the life force of creatures. When you see an ally struck with an attack and about to take several steps down the lonely path, you can abjure them against it. [Insert Sentinel at Death's Door text here]

Purely on a fun-ness level(which is what the OP used as a qualifier), this subclass seems like a blast to play, and would be loved by its teammates. Free and ranged bonus stabilization, one of like three efficient healers in the game, set your teammate up to wreck someone, cancel crits. Seems like a lot of fun to me. The domain spells are pretty poor, but that is weighted against the relative strength of the subclass abilities.

Grave is a contenter for best cleric subclass :)

Cancelling a crit is better then the best healing spells in the game.

I don't necessarily disagree with this assessment (although I'd argue Trickery Domain fails harder at capturing it's fantasy), could you explain what you mean by "dissociative failure of game design" that is Sentinel at Death's Door? The damage prevention it affords can be gamechanging.

Also, I don't know what's awkward about their abilities unless you play in a very low-lethality campaign where you never get to use features such as Circle of Mortality.

Yes, Grave is *powerful*, but it's my least favorite. There are no bad cleric subclasses, I just like Grave the least. As for Sentinel at Death's Door, it's definitely a very powerful ability, but it doesn't seem to actually represent anything in particular. It doesn't explain any kind of relationship between crits and the threshold between death and life. Crits work the same no matter how close you are to death, after all.



Land has the most lackluster features but it's plum the BEST pure spellcaster druid. Natural Recovery is just amazing and the expanded spell lists that don't require preparation massively improves the Druid's versatility with how many spells they have available and access to new, amazing spells such as Haste, Lightning Bolt, Invisibility / Greater Invisibility, Mirror Image, Misty Step, etc.

Their class features are lackluster, but not useless. Their level 6 feature actually has great synergy with two of the druid's absolute best spells, Plant Growth and Spike Growth. As for bonus actions, Druid's don't necessarily need MORE to do with their bonus action with great spells that make use of it such as Healing Word, Flaming Sphere, Dust Devil, Gust of Wind, Heat Metal, etc.
See LudicSavant's great post (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=23809998&postcount=14) on Land Druids. It's important to remember that you don't have all those great spells at the same time, and that your chief competition is Clerics and Wizards. I think as a whole Land Druids are just less interesting overall compared to the other four subclasses. They're bad in the sense that they don't really feel evocative in the way that something like Shepard or Moon are.



Draconic Sorcerers get Free Mage Armor and their sixth level feature is a fantastic boost to damage output. A +4-5 to damage rolls is often a 20% damage boost for spells, and Fire Sorcerers (or other damage types if your DM is flexible) have the best at-will damage of any sorcerer with boosted Fire Bolt, Fireball and Wall of Fire. Lighting Draconic are also solid with Shocking Grasp, Lighting Bolt, Stormy Sphere, etc.

I think the claim people only like this subclass because it has the word "Dragon" in it disingenuous. It is mechanically solid and flavorful, and you don't need to spend Sorcery Points to make use of their features.
I admit being overly harsh and facetious. But I stand by my assessment that the Draconic subclass is pretty boring, even though it is mechanically effective. I acknowledge this. My rubric is "subjective fun for myself" - and Draconic comes up short compared to the other four options. In terms of actual effectiveness, I'd rank them Storm < Wild < Divine < Draconic < Shadow.

[Merudo]

GOO
Telepathy:
Yeah, telepathy is one-way (barring a duo of GOO Warlocks XD). It does make it somewhat situational. A few array of situations when it was (is) useful ime.
- Playing poker: your friend is playing poker, you just go and watch others from an angle, giving information to your friend to best play his hands. Works for all similar activities, obviously require some setup (with absolute minimum being "don't enter like pals XD").
- Negociating (in broader sense): while a pal focuses on actual argumentation, you could focus on Insight checks and tell when he can close the deal, or you could analyse some texts and provide arguments on the fly, things like that.
- Playing sentinel: you don't necessarily play with allies that have darkvision (to communicate by handwaves). Additionally hand waves can be perceived by enemies.
- Communicating through walls: variant of the previous one: you're in prison, you're advance scout, you've been gagged... To ensure message has been received, you could advice your partner to make an appropriate "natural" noise: knocking on wall, imitating an animal, things like that...


Thank you for these! That my help my Ghostwise Halfling friend :).

Side note: I actually play Poker in public settings. Nearly all of us look at our cards in a way that doesn't expose our hand to anyone else. The trick is to cup one hand over the cards and lift the corners with the other hand just enough so that they can be seen. I'd assume Poker in D&D is played the same way.



Thought Shield: agreed with you, it's situational. IMO the main merit though is precisely to shield your own thoughts. TBH I'm not very familiar with those kind of information-prying tactics, but the few times I had read about them it impressed me. So if I knew I had a grand objective against someone using those... ^^
Maybe there are some spells that can reach the same effect though, don't know.


I could definitely see the use of the ability in campaigns where information is power.

My main problem is that it stops very few effects: to my knowledge, Detect Thoughts is the only spell blocked by it. Stuff like Divination, Commune, Scrying, Zone of Truth, etc. are not blocked by the Thought Shield.

Plus, Detect Thought can simply be cast on other party members. So unless you have dangerous secrets you keep from your own party, I don't really see the point.



Beastmaster
Share Spell is certainly the best feature of the archetype and one big reason to stay up to 15, so we can safely say that mechanically Ranger is a bit more of a late bloomer than others. ^^


I made a list of Ranger spells you can duplicate with Share Spells:


Absorb Elements
Barkskin
Cure Wounds
Darkvision
Detect Magic
Detect Poison and Disease
Ensnaring Strike
Freedom of Movement
Guardian of Nature
Hail of Thorns
Jump
Lesser Restoration
Longstrider
Nondetection
Pass without Trace
Protection from Energy
Protection from Poison
Speak with Animals
Speak with Plants
Stoneskin
Tree Stride
Water Breathing
Water Walk
Zephyr Strike


Spells that don't really benefit are in Italics.

There are a few nice abilities there: Absorb Elements, Ensnaring Strike, Guardian of Nature, Protection from Energy, Stoneskin, Tree Stride. I think Ensnaring Strike is especially intriguing as a way to restraint two enemies with one spell.



But it's also a beast that can be mounted if you picked an adequate race, that can be used as a perfectly innocent-looking scout while you get all information of it with Beast Sense, that can be used for distractions, befriending (or intimidating) some people, that can take guard for you, etc...


Interesting! A mounted Beastmaster with a Mastiff/Mule/Pony & yielding a lance might actually be the optimal way to play the character.

The natural comparison is with the Find Steed and Find Greater Steed spells. The Beastmaster's beast has the advantage of being much more resilient (and dramatically more so if the Paladin goes for a Medium mount).

I like it.

[Nhorianscum]

Worst:

Barb: All of these are great. Totem(Bear) offers the least in terms of what barb really needs here though.
Bard: Swords is really bad at what it does without a multi.
Cleric: The life spell list is awful and the subclass capstone is a thing grave clerics get at first level.
Druid: Spore (UA) is ok, the RTR version is painful
Fighter: PDK isn't even bad.
Ranger: Horizon walker is essentially no sub ranger.
Rouge: There's a bad rouge sub? Swashbuckler gets my vote here for being straight up worse than Inq I guess?
Sorc: Wild magic with no wild magic.
Paladin: There's a bad paladin? Venge I guess? It just adds damage.
Warlock: Undying in a heavy horror campaign is insane so my vote goes to full progression hexblade it's just damage.
Wizard: Conjuration has some late game slump.

Best:

Barbarian: Zealot is way too good
Bard: Valor isn't made of paper
Cleric: Grave/Order/Forge are all insane. Arcana at 17 joins the club. Knowledge is nuts in social games.
Druid: Land gives more spells on my spells. Sheaperd gives more spell from my spells.
Fighter: EK is EK
Ranger: 3rd attack subclass of choice.
Rouge: AT is AT
Sorc: Wild magic with wild magic on every roll.
Paladin: CQ/Redemption are like every other Din, but with oodles of BC.
Warlock: Feylock has a dominant tier 1. Celestial is just sexy in tier 2+. UA racenlock is untouchable past 7.
Wizard: War/Abjurer. Like a wizard. But fat and fast.

[hwem]

Worst:

Barb: All of these are great. Totem(Bear) offers the least in terms of what barb really needs here though.
Bard: Swords is really bad at what it does without a multi.
Cleric: The life spell list is awful and the subclass capstone is a thing grave clerics get at first level.
Druid: Spore (UA) is ok, the RTR version is painful
Fighter: PDK isn't even bad.
Ranger: Horizon walker is essentially no sub ranger.
Rouge: There's a bad rouge sub? Swashbuckler gets my vote here for being straight up worse than Inq I guess?
Sorc: Wild magic with no wild magic.
Paladin: There's a bad paladin? Venge I guess? It just adds damage.
Warlock: Undying in a heavy horror campaign is insane so my vote goes to full progression hexblade it's just damage.
Wizard: Conjuration has some late game slump.

Best:

Barbarian: Zealot is way too good
Bard: Valor isn't made of paper
Cleric: Grave/Order/Forge are all insane. Arcana at 17 joins the club. Knowledge is nuts in social games.
Druid: Land gives more spells on my spells. Sheaperd gives more spell from my spells.
Fighter: EK is EK
Ranger: 3rd attack subclass of choice.
Rouge: AT is AT
Sorc: Wild magic with wild magic on every roll.
Paladin: CQ/Redemption are like every other Din, but with oodles of BC.
Warlock: Feylock has a dominant tier 1. Celestial is just sexy in tier 2+
Wizard: War/Abjurer. Like a wizard. But fat and fast.

I thought conjuration actually gets better in higher level and is pretty bad earlier on compared to other wizards especially?

[Bjarkmundur]

See a lot of people are having a hard time making the distinction between "best" and "personal favourite".

I really love how many different Paladins are on these lists. I mean, many of the other classes seem to have a pretty popular favourite subclass, but paladin seems to have a lot of people loving each of their oaths.

Maybe it has to do with how much a subclass brings to a class. Some classes are simply less affected by subclasses than others.

I haven't played a single session as a player in 5e. But if I where to join a game, these are the subclasses I'm most excited about trying, first hand.

Most Excited
Battlemaster Fighter
Divine Soul Sorcerer
Valor Bard
Sword Bard
Moon Druid
Light Domain Cleric
Artificer
And the Expert from the UA: Sidekicks (https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://media.wizards.com/2018/dnd/downloads/UA_Sidekicks.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwiHnL_6pKjhAhUOGuwKHaL5AwkQFjAAegQIBBAB&usg=AOvVaw1ombQrANqnOJfNKDrs1oxO)

[Nhorianscum]

I thought conjuration actually gets better in higher level and is pretty bad earlier on compared to other wizards especially?

Their level 2 ability is stellar with a bit of creativity.

Shepherd druid is just better at summoning. You're still a wizard though so conj is by no means bad.

An often overlooked perk of low level conj/tm is how many greatmazing spells they can scribe at half time and cost.

[TheUser]

Best

Barbarian: Totem - after seeing bear totem barbarians in groups with non-totem barbarians the value of resisting non-physical damage is huge. Barbarians are supposed to tank damage and bear totem is in keeping with that mantra. Zealot is a close second though.

Bard: Valor - The value of medium armor and shield AC combined extra attack is great. Anyone complaining about how they don't do as much damage as martials is missing the point. Being this resillient and combat capable while being a full support caster is tremendous.

Cleric: Life - Wow. Just wow. The amount of sustain that double channel divinity at level 6 brings to the table is staggering. Coupled with all the other sustain it boosts your party's overall ability to recover from harm. And it keeps getting better and better (omg Regeneration is amazing with life cleric).

Druid: Moon - Shepherd is a close second but enhanced wildshapes interacting with feats like sentinel are not to be overlooked. The autograpples that every CR of beast has access to is unparalled control in encounters as well.

Fighter: Eldritch Knight - Absorb Elements, Shield, Blur, Haste, Greater Invisibility. Sorry but the other archetypes don't have the flexibility or the potential the EK has. Battlemaster is a close second but Misty Step, Dispel Magic...Counter Spell. Heck Eldritch Strike is down right scary if you decide to crank intelligence with all those bonus feats.

Monk: Shadow - The few spells they get access to early are all very impactful. Silence and Pass Without Trace in particular come in handy. The ability to teleport 60ft with a bonus action is loads of fun and since you get to choose when you travel (at night) and are able to block light sources easily enough (Darkness) it's almost aleays available and costs no ki. Kensai is a close runner up though.

Paladin: Varies - The paladin subclasses are unique in that no subclass stands head and shoulders above the rest. Conquest tanks extraordinarily well, devotion and vengeance tear through bosses and ancients make great anti-mages. Pick your pleasure really.

Ranger: Gloomstalker without a doubt. Invisibility and +Wis mod to initiative along with a host of other sweet features. It's frontloaded as all hell though and this endorsement should carry the disclaimer that 99% of my rangers multi-class to rogue after level 5....(it just makes for a better ranger to be honest)

Rogue: Arcane Trickster - virtually the same reason as the EK. It should be noted that haste at level 13 carries the potential to double up on sneak attack dice by using the hasted attack on your turn and readying an attack for another with your main action. Mirror Image also interacts with sentinel as early as level 7 to for the same effect. Magical Ambush is busted with spells like Web and Hypnotic Pattern. Not a subclass to be taken lightly.

Sorcerer: Shadow for disables, Draconic for blasting, Divine Soul for high level gamebreaking shenanigans and Wild Mage for unparallelled fun - Sorcerer is such a complex class and it defines itself mostly by its metamagic choices with subclasses being ways to further enhance the niche you are trying to fill. Shadow has some truly exceptional features for controlling fights; shadow pup being better than heightened spell is a good start. Draconic blasts everything so hard in tier 2 that it's damage is still very relevant in tier 3. Coupled with extra AC and Hp it's simple but effective. A Divine Soul is very hard build; the extra spell list sounds great but the spells known is so limited already it's hard to capitalize on (I am thoroughly convinced that once you can combine Synaptic Static and Bane you become top tier). And Wild Surges are so random and hilarious that if you just want to inject some fun into a campaign I highly reccommend Wild Mage.

Warlock: Hexblade - Who designed this thing? Holy **** it's way too strong.

Wizard: Necromancer - This is probably my most controversial pick, but I have maintained that, especially in tier 2, the Necromancer outclasses every other archetype. Animate Dead, a 3rd level spell slot, can be used to maintain control of 4 skeleton archers that each do 1d6+5 damage at range (eventually becoming 1d6+8). As your power set grows and things like Finger of Death become available, your legion grows and grows. Even when enemy AC becomes too high for minion damage to remain relevant they can all provide help actions or administer potions or start grappling for you. The one weakness the wizard has is being grappled into a silence field/gagged or what have you...not the case for a necromancer. They are so strong my home group DM has specifically requested I never play one again because it makes the other characters feel trivial and he has to ramp up encounter difficulty/design challenges that specifically **** on my necromancer PC. Make no mistake, there are loads of other ridiculiously strong archetypes. Illusionist is better after they get Mirage Arcane and is a beast later with Illusory Reality but that's 13 levels where the Necromancer has been dominating. Abjurer is a very safe wizard option and has really strong antimagic. Bladesinger has ridiculous AC and Gish potential but an army is an army is an army.

Worst
Please note, many of these archetypes strike me as SO terrible I've simply never decided to play one.
Barbarian: Storm Herald - shouldn't need explaining.

Bard: College of Swords - needs multi-classing to get shield proficiency otherwise it gets torn up in melee.

Cleric: War - Relies on multi-classing a lot.

Druid: Dreams - Everything about it is mediocre. Spores feels like a close second.

Fighter: Purple Dragon Knight followed closely by Arcane Archer.

Monk: I loathe the Sun Soul monk because it's so boring. I actually love Four Elements after level 11 because the Fly spell gains monk bonus movement for ranges of 80-90ft per round. Double dash flying 270ft is pretty cool right?

Paladin: Crown.

Ranger: Beastmaster - nonaction economy boost means find familiar spell is better.

Rogue: Assassin - Super niche level 3 ambush by RAW. Disguise gimicks and just generally unappealing and uniconic features.

Sorcerer: Storm - Eugh....

Warlock: Undying

Wizard: Conjuration. Now that their level 2 feature is dispelled by damage it sucks.

[Citan]

My main problem is that it stops very few effects: to my knowledge, Detect Thoughts is the only spell blocked by it. Stuff like Divination, Commune, Scrying, Zone of Truth, etc. are not blocked by the Thought Shield.

Well, I get what you mean but I'm not sure it's relevant.
I mean, Zone of Truth it's fairly obvious but one has to make you come into it. Plus it's a Charisma save, you have a decent chance of avoiding the effect. :) And you have some leeway in how to answer as long as it's not a direct lie.
Divination, being a direct question to god, fair enough (DM dependent on actual information though, and player dependent on actual question in the first place though ^^), can be made into getting secret information from your mind.
But Scrying is, like completely irrelevant: it allows you to see and hear the creature, not its mind.
And Commune would certainly be orthogonal to the feature, but considering it's a yes/no question system, it's not really helpful. If you can formulate questions that precise, you probably got up to a point where antagonist has no point indeed protecting his mind.

But that's precisely it: pair it with Non-detection, you are hardly detectable through magical ways.

Face enemies that use and abuse subtle ways of getting information like Detect Thoughts (which per RAW just says "creature is aware you are probing", which does not necessarily mean it knows it's "you" or that it marks your true nature: one could Disguise/Alter Self, so that even knowing it's "him" does not help if you cannot capture/kill it right now).






Plus, Detect Thought can simply be cast on other party members. So unless you have dangerous secrets you keep from your own party, I don't really see the point.

True, but I'd say it's actually one of the main uses my character has. He is a man of secrets, and doesn't consider his companions as more than just that (not "friends"). And he's a bit paranoid that anyone would try and get into his mind. ^^
(Yeah, I'm picking a very non-representative, niche example, just wanted to push the concept to the max here ^^).




I made a list of Ranger spells you can duplicate with Share Spells:


Absorb Elements
Barkskin
Cure Wounds
Darkvision
Detect Magic
Detect Poison and Disease
Ensnaring Strike
Freedom of Movement
Guardian of Nature
Hail of Thorns
Jump
Lesser Restoration
Longstrider
Nondetection
Pass without Trace
Protection from Energy
Protection from Poison
Speak with Animals
Speak with Plants
Stoneskin
Tree Stride
Water Breathing
Water Walk
Zephyr Strike


Spells that don't really benefit are in Italics.

There are a few nice abilities there: Absorb Elements, Ensnaring Strike, Guardian of Nature, Protection from Energy, Stoneskin, Tree Stride. I think Ensnaring Strike is especially intriguing as a way to restraint two enemies with one spell.



Interesting! A mounted Beastmaster with a Mastiff/Mule/Pony & yielding a lance might actually be the optimal way to play the character.

The natural comparison is with the Find Steed and Find Greater Steed spells. The Beastmaster's beast has the advantage of being much more resilient (and dramatically more so if the Paladin goes for a Medium mount).

I like it.
----------
First, a few comments on your italics. :)

- Speak with animals: depends on DM. If for DM "beast langage is all beasts", yeah, it's useless. If it's not, then it's still useful, on the premise above that you extensively use your beast to scout.

- Speak with Plants: kinda disagree here, although not 100% sure I'm RAW (just 95% ^^): spell affect "self" then speaks of an area around "you". IMO, you is both Ranger and beast as a consequence.
Now read the part about making ordinary terrain difficult for the duration: that part is probably useless as part of a ritual cast (or rather, too situational to be quoted) but when you use it as a way to hinder/block pursuers you can double the effective area.
This does not change the situational nature of the spell (one could argue you can simply use Plant Growth for the same cost for a larger area -a very valid argument for a Ranger who cannot ritual cast by default-).
But *if* you learn it, that area extension is nice.
Suggested houserule to make that spell much better if a Ranger player wants to take it, whithout even considering Share feature: make it so that it lasts 10mn but always affects the plants directly within 30 feet of you at all times -> when you move you affect new plants.

I ruled as this first time a player used it, was stupidly broken -just imagine how much area you can cover in 10mn XD-. I realized I certainly something wrong, reread it, found it very bland in comparison.
So I decided when plants "leave" your area of effects they last until start of next round if you're in combat.

Makes it somewhat similar to Spirit Guardians, yet different: no damage but bigger radius and can be made to leave a trail of difficult terrain, making it very very good in enclosed areas. ;)

- Detect spells: same logic: it's not a big boon, but whenever you want to quickly secure an area, you can "parse" it twice as fast. It also allows a limited split up of party. Both situation probably rare though, no doubt about it. ^^

- Barkskin: overall agreed. Only case I'd see is wanting to get off armor to hide better in forest, which, at that level, seems a very old trick. ^^

It seems you didn't include some spells like Guardian of Nature, is it because lack of source? Or simple miss?

----------
Then, a reminder: you may have missed it, but I said I would probably never go full Ranger 20.
Because, while indeed Zephyr's Strike, Longstrider or Freedom of Movement are nice...

There are just so (too?) many great spells to "autotwin" either for power crunch, fluff, fun, or a mix of those, in other classes.
Obvious first: Mage Armor. Since many Rangers are DEX based.
Obvious second: Bless (seems redundant, but it means lesser need of upcast since you buff companion "for free", much like Pass Without Trace), Invisibility (same), Aid (same).

Even more obvious third(s): Mirror Image, Blur, Greater Invisibility (although this one if off-range unless friend with Ring of Spell Storing), Warding Wind, Protection spells, See Invisibility, Armor of Agathys, Enhance Ability (make it good at Grappling), Enlarge.
But also Shield (cast for you, but free buff for your pet), Absorb Elements (same), Misty Step (same), smite spells*, Melf Meteors**, Vampiric Touch*, Detect Thoughts ***, Tongues ****
Yet also Thunder Step (same with added damage), Thunderwave, AOE "self" cantrip (doesn't remember name), and similar spells.
Best for last: Dragon's Breath (quickly clean up crowds ^^)**, Vampiric Touch** (finally your beast can sustain itself easier), Haste (no need to explain right?), Fly (same), frigging Spirit Guardians o/

* & ** All those spells act on "when you" something, but logical since spell targets "self". I always (and always will) rule that those are "separate" effects and/or actions that both you and beast can take separately. I could understand a different case for smite spells maybe, and I have a vague memory that some twitter rulings had been made on those. But I'm pretty confident on my understanding for all spells that require a repeating action or bonus action. :)

***Detect Thoughts is an oddball, I just thought about it because we were discussing it. I'm too tired right now to wrap my head around any way to rule it that seem logical enough. XD

****Tongues: first part is obvious, and follows the "I spy through my companiion" idea. But the part about "when creature speaks anyone that can understand at least one language understands it"? Saying that per that spell a wolf or eagle can speak and humans understand is a houserule, right? Or would that be possible per RAW? XD


------
Now for the final touch: Ring of Spell Storing.
This is by essence a vast YMMV (you need to loot some, you need to make party agree it's you the best suited for it, and you need casters to fill it, and ideally you'd want one that can host 4th or even 5th level spell).

Provided those conditions are met: Circle of Power is my obvious choice, with Greater Invisibility close behind together with Banishing Smite, Fire Shield and Far Step (teleport every turn, both man and beast you gotta love that tag team) following, and Aura spells (Vitality, Life, Crusader) close.

And I certainly forget about quite a few nice other ones. :)

[mephnick]

I can't believe Storm Herald is getting such a pass. Berserker is costly but at least it's *effective*. In a game without feats it is one of the better subclasses.

Storm Herald is laughable without tweaks.

[stoutstien]

I can't believe Storm Herald is getting such a pass. Berserker is costly but at least it's *effective*. In a game without feats it is one of the better subclasses.

Storm Herald is laughable without tweaks.
Storm is bad but not unplayable. Since you can switch element every time you level allows the most experimental style Barbarian.
If your party doesn't have a source of thp tundra can be nice in early game. Then storm is a like a small ranged twf attack that is guaranteed for half damage at the worst. Fire is bad I give that
The 6 and 10 feature are situational but When they shine they shine.
14 feature are strange but tundra wins as far as action economy. Couples with sentinel to lock down two targets is rare.

I agree it's weak and I wish you could mix and match the element picks but I think it could be fun in an elemental focused campaign

[sithlordnergal]

Heh, I have a few odd choices for this stuff:


Best: Lore Bard, everything about it works wonderfully. You gain extra spells sooner, and your Bardic Inspiration can be used as one of the best debuffs in the game. You can use it to lower an attack roll, ability check, or damage. The only way to make it better is if you lowered their save.

Worst: College of Valor, sadly the only thing you get here is the access to better armor. It likes to pretend it can be a melee fighter, or maybe an archer, but they really lack anything to allow that. They don't have smite, they don't have sneak attack, rage, or even a Fighting Style. They're best used as a normal full Caster, but their extra attack and other features would make you think otherwise. All in all, its only good for getting better armor and shields.


Best: Grave Cleric, their ability to heal when someone is down is excellent. While Life is technically the better combat healer, I prefer Grave. Plus its a pretty cool subclass.

Worst: ...I'm not sure? I've only ever played two Clerics, a Life and Grave Cleric, and both were pretty ok. And by looking over the subclasses, none of them seem subpar?


Best: Divination, or as I have the tendency to call them, "Portent Wizards". No, seriously, I often forget Divination is the subclass and just call them Portent Wizards. They were made better by the fact that Xanathar's added Mind Spike, which a 2nd level Divination spell with decent range, great damage typing, decent damage, ok scaling, and an excellent rider when it comes into play. Jut always remember, part of the Invisible condition is that "An invisible creature is impossible to see without the aid of magic or a Special sense.", and Mind Spike says " if [the target is] invisible, it gains no benefit from that condition against you". Meaning you can see them just fine.

Worst: Conjuration. It just...you gain a slightly better Presdigitation effect with Minor Conjuration, you can eventually teleport 30 feet as an action which is ok, you eventually gain advantage on concentration saves with conjuration spells, and eventually your summons get 30 extra hp. Which is...not great...at all. I guess you have the ability that Conjuration spells only cost half to copy into your spell book, but again...so what? Most of your best abilities are done better by other classes or you can gain a better effect with a feat. And as for scroll copying prices, well...

I have plenty of Wizards in AL, do you know how many times I bothered doing the math to halve spell price when copying down spells? None. Never. Not even once. I would rather pay double for a spell, and pay double the downtime, then bother with figuring out which spells are for which school, and halve everything...and I'm a math tutor who loves helping people with math!



Best: Moon Druid or Shepard Druid. This is a hard one for me. On the one hand, you have the uber tank known as the Moon Druid, with more versatility then you can believe. You just gotta be creative with your stuff. And on the other hand, you have the best Summoning Class, and personally my choice for best Minionmancer, in the game, the Shepard Druid. I think my vote will ultimately go to the Moon Druid, because their Wild Shape ability is just so strong, especially when you mix it with casting, while Shepards lose out since DMs get to choose what's summoned for some stupid reason...but its a close race.

Worst: Gonna be shocking, but I'm gonna say Land Druid. Why? Cause if I wanted to play a caster like that, I'd go Nature Cleric or Wizard with a focus on elemental spells. I'm just not a fan of them. All the other Druids do something really awesome and unique...Land just casts more spells.


Best: This is split between Hexblade and Great Old One Warlocks. The Hexblade is really powerful for combat situations, and their level 6 ability is great for both combat and scouting purposes. The Great Old One is just plain old cool. You can talk to anyone you want, you can impose disadvantage on an attack that grants you advantage, you gain psychic resistance, and you can give yourself a charmed thrall? That's pretty dang neat.

Worst: The Fiend. Here's an idea, lets make a Warlock focused on Blasting! It'll be great! we can give them fireball, two spell slots, and Eldritch Blast! Oh wait, you only have two spell slots from level 2 to level 11. Better make them Fireballs count, and if you get Counterspelled? Well too bad. Your slot is gone. You can have it back when you short rest after the next encounter. Cause most DMs won't, and should not, allow short rests to happen whenever the warlock feels like it. The other Short Rest classes do just fine without Short Resting after every encounter/every five minutes.




Best: Gloomstalker and, surprisingly, Horizon Walker. I know, shocking right? While the Gloomstalker is pretty obvious, I've been able to see the use of the Horizen Walker. I'm playing Prince's of the Apocalypse, and their ability to detect portals has been invaluable.

Worst: Beast Master...as much as I want to love it, it just isn't good. If you want to have pets, you go Necromancer. The Beast Master just doesn't have enough going for it.

Best: Ancients bar none. When my party and I can face tank a Meteor Swarm at level 10 and TWO meteor swarms in a row at level 17 because of my Charisma bonus and resistance to spells, you know you have something strong. Sure, their Channel Divinity sucks, but they more then make up for it with that level 7 ability. Now I just need to make a Yuan-ti Ancients/Wild Magic Soradin, and laugh whenever I accidentally fireball myself.

Worst: Out of the ones I played, Devotion. It just lacks anything special for me. You can what? Add charisma mod to attack rolls for 1 minute, and you and your allies get immunity to charm. That's kinda boring, especially now that Hexblade is a thing you can multiclass into.


Best: Battlemaster, I love their maneuvers. I just wish they had more options, and more maneuvers that worked with ranged and melee attacks.

Worst: Champion. I don't like subclasses that just hit things and do nothing else. They are boring, give me something fun to do. If you wanna do fun stuff with crits, play a Hexblade and Eldritch Blast things. I assure you that you will be doing the same thing as the Champion Fighter, only better because at least you have Invocations and two spell slots to use.


Best: Arcane Trickster, Thief, or Swashbuckler. Another class with multiple subclasses that I can't choose from. All three are fun for different things. The Arcane Trickster nets you some fun illusions and wizard spells, as well as access to staffs that require spell casters to use. The Thief can use objects as a Bonus Action, which includes using a Healter's Kit to bring a person to 1 hp if they are down, and they eventually gain the ability to attune to ANY item regardless of the requirements. And Swashbuckler is just a beast when going 1v1 on things, plus Panache is an awesome skill.

Worst: Assassin. Here, I have an idea! Lets make a Subclass that works best when they're not in a party and play like a Murderhobo! What's that? Still sounds great? Well then, lets make the best features of this class require the use of one of the MOST CLUNKY mechanics in 5e, clunky enough that some DMs just ignore the RAW rules for it all together! Still good? Ok, lets make it so you LOSE part of your class' KEY FEATURES and your 17'TH LEVEL SUBCLASS ABILITY if you roll poorly on initiative. Have fun.

Seriously though, the Assassin sucks hard, which is sad. On paper it looks amazing! Auto-Crit on surprised creatures, advantage on things that haven't taken their turn yet, the ability to double your crit damage at 17th level! It looks super awesome. But it is RUINED by how Surprise is handled in 5e. I have played 5e for about 3 to 4 years, I have done AL and have seen many Assassins. In that time I have seen them get to use their class ability once. And that was during a special occasion when the party was actually able to set up an ambush properly and have it work.

Usually players don't get to ambush things, either because a player wants to negotiate instead of going murderhobo on everything or the one person in heavy armor failed their stealth check and put the targets on high alert as soon as they get near to the ambush site. And I'll admit, in my parties I tended to be the one who ruined surprise rounds due to both reasons. Normally its due to bad stealth...but occasionally its because I try to negotiate. For example, once we set up an ambush and my Paladin in Plate Armor with a -1 Dex rolled, and I kid you not, a 0 Stealth. Another time the Assassin wanted to try and kill the leader of the Stone Giants in Storm King's Thunder, but we as a party decided to try and negotiate first at my suggestion. Cause, you know, killing the Queen of the Stone Giants seemed like a bad idea. The Stone Giant leader attacked us when negotiations went sour, ruining the surprise.


Best: A tie between Totem Barbarian and Zealot Barbarian. While both are tanks, both do their tanking a bit differently. Bear Totams just ignore everything but Psychic damage, curse you mind flayers, while Zealots say "Screw death" and ignore the costs to be revived. And at level 14 Zealots just don't die while Raging. And considering that one level later Barbarians don't lose their Rage unless they are knocked unconcious or choose to do so, you end up with a class that refuses to die no matter what you do...well, unless you cast sleep or some other similar spell...but still. They are uber tanks.

Worst: Beserker, bar none. With this lovely subclass you can make a bonus action attack while raging at the cost of a level of exhaustion, become immune to fear and charm effects while raging, use an action to give one creature the frightened effect with a DC based off Charisma, and to top it off you can make an attack as a reaction to being attacked.

Do I even need to go into this any deeper? Well I'm going to anyway. The first class feature is horrible. Exhaustion is the best way for a DM to cripple a PC, and you're taking them on for free? And you don't get a way to recover from exhaustion faster? Keep in mind, you only lose one level of exhaustion per long rest, in exchange for a benefit you get with PAM or dual wielding. And doing this 6 times auto-kills you. The immunity to fear and charm are ok, but at the same time they're sort of meh.

And then the action to cause one creature to have the frightened condition sucks. Its a Wisdom save vs. a DC based off your Charisma. Most barbarians I know choose to dump Charisma for better Dex, Strength, and Con. I guess its ok if you were a Barbarian/Paladin, but even then you get that ability at level 10. I.E. the precise time that almost everything you face will magically become immune to being Frightened.


Best: Open Hand Monk and Kensai. I rather like both of these, because Kensai makes the Whip a viable weapon which is neat, and Open Hand is just great in every aspect of the Monk. Plus it gets really fun if you have a Lizardfolk that uses their Bite for all of their attacks and call yourself an Open Maw Monk.

Worst: Way of the 4 Elements, there's not much to say here. the cost for their abilities are too high, they don't get enough abilities to choose from, and don't get enough abilities to use. Just skip this Monk.



Best: Wild Magic and Celestial. What can I say, I love the chaos caused by Tides of Chaos. It is my favorite class ability out of every single class. I love the idea that I may accidentally turn my hair blue, or start glowing in a blinding light. I will admit, it is not optimal. I have accidentally cast Fly on a Stone Giant we were fighting, I have made a Vampire resist all bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage while giving us vulnerability to piercing, and the worst/funniest moment was when I rolled a 100 on the table at the end of a combat session. I proceeded to hit the Cleric with a 5th level magic missile at random, cast confusion on myself and the cleric, caused music to play around me, and glowed so brightly it blinded the poor cleric...while we were doing a stealth mission. I later accidentally dropped a fireball in a 15 by 15 foot room and torched the party, and then stole 1d10 hp from everyone in the room.

But at the same time I have also recharged my sorcery points, I have given myself resistance to all damage as a Soradin, have managed to save the party with the 4d10 lightning damage to any three creatures of my choice by vaporizing a vampire, and as an Oath of the Ancients/Wild Magic Sorcerer, I have laughed while blowing myself and whoever I am fighting up with a fireball after casting shield.

Celestial is fun too, but its less chaotic and more tactical. Still an excellent class.

Worst: Draconic Sorcerers are so boring! You have the Wild Magic Sorcerer, who can do CRAZY stuff, like summon a Flumph that manages to get the killing blow on a Fire Giant, or you can have 13 AC and +1 hp. Which is more fun?

[CTurbo]

Heh, I have a few odd choices for this stuff:


Best: Lore Bard, everything about it works wonderfully. You gain extra spells sooner, and your Bardic Inspiration can be used as one of the best debuffs in the game. You can use it to lower an attack roll, ability check, or damage. The only way to make it better is if you lowered their save.

Worst: College of Valor, sadly the only thing you get here is the access to better armor. It likes to pretend it can be a melee fighter, or maybe an archer, but they really lack anything to allow that. They don't have smite, they don't have sneak attack, rage, or even a Fighting Style. They're best used as a normal full Caster, but their extra attack and other features would make you think otherwise. All in all, its only good for getting better armor and shields.


Best: Grave Cleric, their ability to heal when someone is down is excellent. While Life is technically the better combat healer, I prefer Grave. Plus its a pretty cool subclass.

Worst: ...I'm not sure? I've only ever played two Clerics, a Life and Grave Cleric, and both were pretty ok. And by looking over the subclasses, none of them seem subpar?


Best: Divination, or as I have the tendency to call them, "Portent Wizards". No, seriously, I often forget Divination is the subclass and just call them Portent Wizards. They were made better by the fact that Xanathar's added Mind Spike, which a 2nd level Divination spell with decent range, great damage typing, decent damage, ok scaling, and an excellent rider when it comes into play. Jut always remember, part of the Invisible condition is that "An invisible creature is impossible to see without the aid of magic or a Special sense.", and Mind Spike says " if [the target is] invisible, it gains no benefit from that condition against you". Meaning you can see them just fine.

Worst: Conjuration. It just...you gain a slightly better Presdigitation effect with Minor Conjuration, you can eventually teleport 30 feet as an action which is ok, you eventually gain advantage on concentration saves with conjuration spells, and eventually your summons get 30 extra hp. Which is...not great...at all. I guess you have the ability that Conjuration spells only cost half to copy into your spell book, but again...so what? Most of your best abilities are done better by other classes or you can gain a better effect with a feat. And as for scroll copying prices, well...

I have plenty of Wizards in AL, do you know how many times I bothered doing the math to halve spell price when copying down spells? None. Never. Not even once. I would rather pay double for a spell, and pay double the downtime, then bother with figuring out which spells are for which school, and halve everything...and I'm a math tutor who loves helping people with math!



Best: Moon Druid or Shepard Druid. This is a hard one for me. On the one hand, you have the uber tank known as the Moon Druid, with more versatility then you can believe. You just gotta be creative with your stuff. And on the other hand, you have the best Summoning Class, and personally my choice for best Minionmancer, in the game, the Shepard Druid. I think my vote will ultimately go to the Moon Druid, because their Wild Shape ability is just so strong, especially when you mix it with casting, while Shepards lose out since DMs get to choose what's summoned for some stupid reason...but its a close race.

Worst: Gonna be shocking, but I'm gonna say Land Druid. Why? Cause if I wanted to play a caster like that, I'd go Nature Cleric or Wizard with a focus on elemental spells. I'm just not a fan of them. All the other Druids do something really awesome and unique...Land just casts more spells.


Best: This is split between Hexblade and Great Old One Warlocks. The Hexblade is really powerful for combat situations, and their level 6 ability is great for both combat and scouting purposes. The Great Old One is just plain old cool. You can talk to anyone you want, you can impose disadvantage on an attack that grants you advantage, you gain psychic resistance, and you can give yourself a charmed thrall? That's pretty dang neat.

Worst: The Fiend. Here's an idea, lets make a Warlock focused on Blasting! It'll be great! we can give them fireball, two spell slots, and Eldritch Blast! Oh wait, you only have two spell slots from level 2 to level 11. Better make them Fireballs count, and if you get Counterspelled? Well too bad. Your slot is gone. You can have it back when you short rest after the next encounter. Cause most DMs won't, and should not, allow short rests to happen whenever the warlock feels like it. The other Short Rest classes do just fine without Short Resting after every encounter/every five minutes.




Best: Gloomstalker and, surprisingly, Horizon Walker. I know, shocking right? While the Gloomstalker is pretty obvious, I've been able to see the use of the Horizen Walker. I'm playing Prince's of the Apocalypse, and their ability to detect portals has been invaluable.

Worst: Beast Master...as much as I want to love it, it just isn't good. If you want to have pets, you go Necromancer. The Beast Master just doesn't have enough going for it.

Best: Ancients bar none. When my party and I can face tank a Meteor Swarm at level 10 and TWO meteor swarms in a row at level 17 because of my Charisma bonus and resistance to spells, you know you have something strong. Sure, their Channel Divinity sucks, but they more then make up for it with that level 7 ability. Now I just need to make a Yuan-ti Ancients/Wild Magic Soradin, and laugh whenever I accidentally fireball myself.

Worst: Out of the ones I played, Devotion. It just lacks anything special for me. You can what? Add charisma mod to attack rolls for 1 minute, and you and your allies get immunity to charm. That's kinda boring, especially now that Hexblade is a thing you can multiclass into.


Best: Battlemaster, I love their maneuvers. I just wish they had more options, and more maneuvers that worked with ranged and melee attacks.

Worst: Champion. I don't like subclasses that just hit things and do nothing else. They are boring, give me something fun to do. If you wanna do fun stuff with crits, play a Hexblade and Eldritch Blast things. I assure you that you will be doing the same thing as the Champion Fighter, only better because at least you have Invocations and two spell slots to use.


Best: Arcane Trickster, Thief, or Swashbuckler. Another class with multiple subclasses that I can't choose from. All three are fun for different things. The Arcane Trickster nets you some fun illusions and wizard spells, as well as access to staffs that require spell casters to use. The Thief can use objects as a Bonus Action, which includes using a Healter's Kit to bring a person to 1 hp if they are down, and they eventually gain the ability to attune to ANY item regardless of the requirements. And Swashbuckler is just a beast when going 1v1 on things, plus Panache is an awesome skill.

Worst: Assassin. Here, I have an idea! Lets make a Subclass that works best when they're not in a party and play like a Murderhobo! What's that? Still sounds great? Well then, lets make the best features of this class require the use of one of the MOST CLUNKY mechanics in 5e, clunky enough that some DMs just ignore the RAW rules for it all together! Still good? Ok, lets make it so you LOSE part of your class' KEY FEATURES and your 17'TH LEVEL SUBCLASS ABILITY if you roll poorly on initiative. Have fun.

Seriously though, the Assassin sucks hard, which is sad. On paper it looks amazing! Auto-Crit on surprised creatures, advantage on things that haven't taken their turn yet, the ability to double your crit damage at 17th level! It looks super awesome. But it is RUINED by how Surprise is handled in 5e. I have played 5e for about 3 to 4 years, I have done AL and have seen many Assassins. In that time I have seen them get to use their class ability once. And that was during a special occasion when the party was actually able to set up an ambush properly and have it work.

Usually players don't get to ambush things, either because a player wants to negotiate instead of going murderhobo on everything or the one person in heavy armor failed their stealth check and put the targets on high alert as soon as they get near to the ambush site. And I'll admit, in my parties I tended to be the one who ruined surprise rounds due to both reasons. Normally its due to bad stealth...but occasionally its because I try to negotiate. For example, once we set up an ambush and my Paladin in Plate Armor with a -1 Dex rolled, and I kid you not, a 0 Stealth. Another time the Assassin wanted to try and kill the leader of the Stone Giants in Storm King's Thunder, but we as a party decided to try and negotiate first at my suggestion. Cause, you know, killing the Queen of the Stone Giants seemed like a bad idea. The Stone Giant leader attacked us when negotiations went sour, ruining the surprise.


Best: A tie between Totem Barbarian and Zealot Barbarian. While both are tanks, both do their tanking a bit differently. Bear Totams just ignore everything but Psychic damage, curse you mind flayers, while Zealots say "Screw death" and ignore the costs to be revived. And at level 14 Zealots just don't die while Raging. And considering that one level later Barbarians don't lose their Rage unless they are knocked unconcious or choose to do so, you end up with a class that refuses to die no matter what you do...well, unless you cast sleep or some other similar spell...but still. They are uber tanks.

Worst: Beserker, bar none. With this lovely subclass you can make a bonus action attack while raging at the cost of a level of exhaustion, become immune to fear and charm effects while raging, use an action to give one creature the frightened effect with a DC based off Charisma, and to top it off you can make an attack as a reaction to being attacked.

Do I even need to go into this any deeper? Well I'm going to anyway. The first class feature is horrible. Exhaustion is the best way for a DM to cripple a PC, and you're taking them on for free? And you don't get a way to recover from exhaustion faster? Keep in mind, you only lose one level of exhaustion per long rest, in exchange for a benefit you get with PAM or dual wielding. And doing this 6 times auto-kills you. The immunity to fear and charm are ok, but at the same time they're sort of meh.

And then the action to cause one creature to have the frightened condition sucks. Its a Wisdom save vs. a DC based off your Charisma. Most barbarians I know choose to dump Charisma for better Dex, Strength, and Con. I guess its ok if you were a Barbarian/Paladin, but even then you get that ability at level 10. I.E. the precise time that almost everything you face will magically become immune to being Frightened.


Best: Open Hand Monk and Kensai. I rather like both of these, because Kensai makes the Whip a viable weapon which is neat, and Open Hand is just great in every aspect of the Monk. Plus it gets really fun if you have a Lizardfolk that uses their Bite for all of their attacks and call yourself an Open Maw Monk.

Worst: Way of the 4 Elements, there's not much to say here. the cost for their abilities are too high, they don't get enough abilities to choose from, and don't get enough abilities to use. Just skip this Monk.



Best: Wild Magic and Celestial. What can I say, I love the chaos caused by Tides of Chaos. It is my favorite class ability out of every single class. I love the idea that I may accidentally turn my hair blue, or start glowing in a blinding light. I will admit, it is not optimal. I have accidentally cast Fly on a Stone Giant we were fighting, I have made a Vampire resist all bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage while giving us vulnerability to piercing, and the worst/funniest moment was when I rolled a 100 on the table at the end of a combat session. I proceeded to hit the Cleric with a 5th level magic missile at random, cast confusion on myself and the cleric, caused music to play around me, and glowed so brightly it blinded the poor cleric...while we were doing a stealth mission. I later accidentally dropped a fireball in a 15 by 15 foot room and torched the party, and then stole 1d10 hp from everyone in the room.

But at the same time I have also recharged my sorcery points, I have given myself resistance to all damage as a Soradin, have managed to save the party with the 4d10 lightning damage to any three creatures of my choice by vaporizing a vampire, and as an Oath of the Ancients/Wild Magic Sorcerer, I have laughed while blowing myself and whoever I am fighting up with a fireball after casting shield.

Celestial is fun too, but its less chaotic and more tactical. Still an excellent class.

Worst: Draconic Sorcerers are so boring! You have the Wild Magic Sorcerer, who can do CRAZY stuff, like summon a Flumph that manages to get the killing blow on a Fire Giant, or you can have 13 AC and +1 hp. Which is more fun?



I see the Valor Bard getting a lot of hate and I don't understand it. I still think the Lore is superior, but IMO the Valor Bard is THE single more versatile subclass in the entire game.


And a quick note about the Assassin, I've played one, and I've seen a few more, and I will agree that it is really really REALLY hard to pull off a surprise round in melee range, BUT it's not really that hard to pull off with a bow. My Assassin was extremely effective from long distances from Sharpshooter.

[Citan]

I can't believe Storm Herald is getting such a pass. Berserker is costly but at least it's *effective*. In a game without feats it is one of the better subclasses.

Storm Herald is laughable without tweaks.
Did you consider that maybe you just didn't try it with the right mindset?

Or actually run down proper calculations?

Because Storm Herald is very balanced with other archetypes. It just expresses an area in which Barbarians are usually mediocre (except Totem Barbarian at 14): supporting others, dealing non physical damage, dealing with crowds.

First, the tundra ability: 2 THP may seem useless at first, or 3 at 5 (well, it basically follows proficiency mod with escalation slightly tweaked).
But in a tag-team with just one other friend, it's 6 THP every round. Or actually "9" because Barbarian rages means those THP are doubly effective thanks to resistance.

At a level where enemies don't all have Multiattack yet, unless you are overcrowded (in which case you're probably toast if no caster anyways), you'll usually live through the attack(s) (especially the Barbarian). This means a *lot* of spared HP. Meaning in turn a lots of resources available for the next fight.

With an average duration of 5 rounds, provided you and your pal suffered at least one successful attack on each round (which sound reasonable enough an assumption since you're the frontliners) it amounds to ((3*2)+3)*5 = 45 actual HP spared.

Taking instead the average damage of moderately dangerous creatures you may face at that level (which is imo 8 per attack, but I'm open to other choices here), it means you brushed off nearly 30% of that single attack. Good enough for me as something that uses up bonus action.

This ability follows the same idea of Heavy Armor Master's damage reduction: a small "per instance" benefit seemingly low but that adds up quickly in the long run.
Big difference is that it doesn't scale with enemies, only with number of allies you affect.

So, of course it won't help any when facing powerful creatures with potential to disable even a Barbarian in a few hits. On regular fights, it's a big boost in resilience.

Especially when stacked with level 10 feature: you can now help your friend resist that kind of damage, for free.
One reason why I'd rather have a Storm Herald Barbarian by my side than any other in typed campaigns such as Storm King. :)

The ability to deal damage on a Dexterity saving throw (Sea) is nice too: its damage is good for a bonus action, and it gives a chance to do something when AC of your target is just too high.
And the lvl 10's "swim + breath underwater" makes it brilliant whenever you have a decent amount of water-related encounter occuring. Of course if you're in a "all desert campaign"... XD

Same principle with the Fire effect: if you're the only frontliner and as such tend to be surrounded, that small amount of damage can stack up *very* quickly (you can easily affect 5 creatures).
Of course if you just think about one target, it is underpowered. But why in the world would you use it if only one or two targets are available in the first place? And if you tagteam or go for "solo boss face-off" kind, why would you pick this feature?

And 14th level abilities bring a bit of added control too.

Sooo... Yeah, it you judge it with the usual mindset people go with for Barbarians, yeah it's probably the lest option of all. But the problem lies in the mindset, not the archetype. This is not an archetype for pure 1-2 target damage or pure meatsponging. This is an archetype for support and soft control, for "bringing new options". And it's good at doing that.

The only thing I personally dislike in this archetype because it's like a "half-a****" measure that has no sense is that you change storm nature when you level up. It's, like, gamist and immersion-breaking as hell to me.
I don't understand why they didnt go full scale on either way: either choose one nature and stick with it (but imo the worst solution, because party composition and needs may change during campaign) or make it changeable with "at-will downtime", either long rest (best imo) or with a week downtime or something.

I would play it RAW myself because I play in tight groups so I can usually make long-run planning, but I would certainly wouldn't mind houseruling "change every long rest" if I was DM-ing "turning tables".


I see the Valor Bard getting a lot of hate and I don't understand it. I still think the Lore is superior, but IMO the Valor Bard is THE single more versatile subclass in the entire game.


And a quick note about the Assassin, I've played one, and I've seen a few more, and I will agree that it is really really REALLY hard to pull off a surprise round in melee range, BUT it's not really that hard to pull off with a bow. My Assassin was extremely effective from long distances from Sharpshooter.
You're right about Valor Bard in that it is the archetype that can be pushed in the most different directions, thanks to proficiencies and Extra Attack: you can make it just a "regular gish", or push it into a supportive melee build with sword and board, or you can make it a very great archer...

But all those usually require investment in adequate feats, spells and Magic Secrets.
So, first, there is a problem in the "visibility" of that archetype's potential since making the most of it requires good knowledge of the system, and decidation to one or two specific goals.

Moreover, when "gishing" in a particular way is your objective, you usually have better archetypes or base classes to do so.
"Melee gish"? Swords Bard does it better if you want "built-in", Eldricht Knight or Bladesinger can be even better in some aspects.
Valor Bard's redeeming quality is going Swords and Board with Booming Blade or GreenFlameBlade, which require either a feat or a dip.
"Ranged gish"? Whispers Bard does it better with Greater Invisibility and heavy bonus damage. Hunter Ranger has some of the best built-in "ranged martial features". Devotion Paladin can be a beast too.
"Support gish"? Combat Inspiration is the only thing helping here, and I'd argue confidently that Glamour's "THP + move" is a much better deal overall.

In short, apart from niche builds such as "Swift Quiver lvl 10 Bard" or "Shadow Blade Booming Blade Shield Master Bard" Valor is simply a "gish as an afterthought" archetype, not enough built-in to really make it worth choosing.
The only thing that is evident and useful whatever kind of Bard you want to play is...
- Proficiencies: and those are easy to get other ways (at least armor ones).
- Combat Inspiration: yet you have already many other ways to use Bardic Inspiration (and some archetypes provide better alternative use) so it's not a selling feature either. And it underscales as you level with enemies getting better bonuses, multiattacks, and your own pals getting more interesting uses of their reaction usually.

Valor is kinda "here, take your equipment and your Extra Attack, figure out how to use it by yourself".
Comparatively to that, other archetypes clearly define their orientation: Lore is "caster specialisation", Glamour is "support specialization", Swords is "melee specialization" (although you can technically use its abilities with ranged attacks which work well too ;))

So Valor is good mainly (only?) if you have a specific idea of play in mind and its the best archetype to start from... Which is an "advanced use-case". ^^
Or, if you just want to play a classic Bard trope and don't care about optimizing around it: which is perfectly fine too, but I daresay far from the general mindset on these forums...
Hence the public disgrace here. ^^

[Millstone85]

The Great Old One is just plain old cool. You can talk to anyone you want, you can impose disadvantage on an attack that grants you advantage, you gain psychic resistance, and you can give yourself a charmed thrall? That's pretty dang neat.As much as I love my goolock, the last feature really pisses me off. Create Thrall, huh? As in a slave? A servant? An ally? A friendly creature? Nope, none of that, just someone with whom you have advantage on social checks. Better not let them realize you touched them in their sleep, or even that advantage will be negated by them, you know, becoming hostile.

At least you can make an enemy unable to harm you directly. Or, as someone else mentioned, it can be very useful if you know a character who is fine getting charmed for the purpose of long-range telepathy. Still, talk about false advertising!

[KithanDarkmoon]

You asked for most and least fun, rather than powerful. With that in mind, here are my choices and justifications.


Bard: College of Valor
This college might be mechanically sound for a generalist support caster, but it's not good at doing what it should be doing: making you a valorous martial combatant. Your damage is pathetic, you have hardly any spells that assist with melee in any way, you become really MAD... and you have to juggle instruments, shields, and weapons! Now that I think about it, that last part is actually on-theme for a bard...



I kind of pictured the valor bard being closer to combat, but not in the front line. Maybe mid distance, behind the fighters and barbarians, but in front of the mages and sorcerers. Maybe providing rogues with their sneak attacks by being within 5ft of the mooks in a combat, but not next to the heavies.

The bardic inspiration die that can also improve AC and damage allows for a more versatile use of Inspiration.

At the game that I am running we have a valor bard and they are doing great! In the mix of the battle using their magic to hinder opponents and reduce their damage taken while providing inspiration to the rogue, paladin, and barbarain and allowing them to take out the bad guys.

The valor bard is doing all this in the front line! Not 80 feet back with our illunsions and ranger.

[sithlordnergal]

And a quick note about the Assassin, I've played one, and I've seen a few more, and I will agree that it is really really REALLY hard to pull off a surprise round in melee range, BUT it's not really that hard to pull off with a bow. My Assassin was extremely effective from long distances from Sharpshooter.

Your party allowed you to set up ambushes? o-o You have a really nice party. X3

[CTurbo]

Your party allowed you to set up ambushes? o-o You have a really nice party. X3

Why would this be a problem? What kind of party have you been playing with that would be against a character playing to it's strengths? The whole thing amounts to "hey I'm gonna fire off a couple of arrows from +200ft away at those completely unsuspecting enemies"

So yes. Every single time we needed to come up with a plan to deal with enemies, it began with me shooting arrows at them from far away.

[sithlordnergal]

Why would this be a problem? What kind of party have you been playing with that would be against a character playing to it's strengths? The whole thing amounts to "hey I'm gonna fire off a couple of arrows from +200ft away at those completely unsuspecting enemies"

So yes. Every single time we needed to come up with a plan to deal with enemies, it began with me shooting arrows at them from far away.

I tend to be in parties where stealth is a concept we have yet to master...We've only done a single ambush ever. Other times we try diplomacy, or someone gets spotted and ruins any surprise an enemy my have. I've only ever been in one situation like you described, other then that the person wanting to do the ambush gets out voted.

Usually when someone says "Hey, I'm gonna fire off a couple of arrows from +200ft away at those completely unsuspecting enemies", the rest of the people go "We aren't sure if they are enemies, we should try a peaceful solution first"

[Trustypeaches]

I feel like people really underestimate how much of a boost to Bard’s resourceless at-will damage output College of Valor provides.

With 16 Dexterity (not unreasonable) your melee and ranged attacks are going to pack a hella lot more of a punch than any cantrips you have access to, and honestly more than most of your non-concentration spells.

[Man_Over_Game]

I feel like people really underestimate how much of a boost to Bard’s resourceless at-will damage output College of Valor provides.

With 16 Dexterity (not unreasonable) your melee and ranged attacks are going to pack a hella lot more of a punch than any cantrips you have access to, and honestly more than most of your non-concentration spells.

A Bard with a +3 modifier is likely to deal about 6 damage per shot. A level 5 bard deals an average of 5 damage with Vicious Mockery, on top of which deals Psychic damage (rarely resisted) and it causes Disadvantage to the target.

In most circumstances, Vicious Mockery will be a better choice to use past level 4.

[stoutstien]

A Bard with a +3 modifier is likely to deal about 6 damage per shot. A level 5 bard deals an average of 5 damage with Vicious Mockery, on top of which deals Psychic damage (rarely resisted) and it causes Disadvantage to the target.

In most circumstances, Vicious Mockery will be a better choice to use past level 4.
Plus it's the only way to kill NPCs by insulting them. I'd still use it even of the damage was 1/2 of what it is now

[strangebloke]

Hey, I polled up everyone's answers! Here's the HIVEMIND's opinion:

Best:

Barbarian: Zealot (closely followed by Totem)
Bard: Lore
Cleric: Tempest
Druid: Moon (Shepherd was only contender, but did well. 4.5 votes to 6.5)
Fighter: Battlemaster
Monk: Open Hand (Huge spread of picks here. Every archetype other than sun soul got at least 1 vote)
Paladin: Ancients/Conquest/Devotion three-way tie.
Ranger: Gloomstalker (9 votes, HW got 1 and so did Hunter)
Rogue: Arcane Trickster
Sorcerer: Divine Soul (a combined 2.5 votes for everything else)
Warlock: Hexblade
Wizard: Diviner

Worst

Barbarian: Berzerker, though Battlerager and Stormherald were close
Bard: Whispers
Cleric: War
Druid: Dreams
Fighter: Banneret
Monk: Four Elements
Paladin: Crown
Ranger: Beastmaster
Rogue: Assassin
Sorcerer: Wild
Warlock: Undying
Wizard: Necromancy

WORST OVERALL: Bannerett, followed by Beastmaster, and by Four Elements
BEST OVERALL: Gloomstalker, followed by Divine Soul, Hexblade, and Arcane Trickster

MOST CONTENTIOUS: Valor Bard, with three votes for worst, and 3.5 votes for best!

[Man_Over_Game]

D*mn good work, Bloke!

I am surprised that nobody likes Crown Paladin. A lot of its abilities seem fairly powerful and flavorful in a melee-oriented team.

[Trustypeaches]

A Bard with a +3 modifier is likely to deal about 6 damage per shot. A level 5 bard deals an average of 5 damage with Vicious Mockery, on top of which deals Psychic damage (rarely resisted) and it causes Disadvantage to the target.

In most circumstances, Vicious Mockery will be a better choice to use past level 4.A Bard with +3 DEX and a Longbow or Rapier will deal an average of 15 damage (7.5 per shot) per round at level 6. That is triple the damage output of Vicious Mockery.

Of course Vicious Mockery is still good, and advantage / disadvantage may make weapon attacks more or less attractive, but often you just want pure damage output. Vicious Mockery also gets progressively less useful as enemies benefit more and more from Multiattack and use more Save effects instead of attack rolls.

[Yakmala]

Barbarian:
Best - Bear. It might not be exciting, but you are nearly unkillable.
Worst - Berserker, because levels of exhaustion are worse than most curses.

Bard:
Best - College of Lore. Possibly the best sub-class in the entire game.
Worst - Valor. Unless you are going for the Swift Quiver trick, Swords does everything Valor does better and in a more entertaining way.

Cleric:
Best - Arcana. There are a ton of great ones out there, but I like Arcana's versitility, especially if you pick up the SCAG cantrips as cleric cantrips and then grab Shillelagh via Magic Initiate.
Worst - Trickery. Like the flavor, but the functionality is just meh.

Druid:
Best - Moon, especially if you take it to 20.
Worst - Dreams. Just play a cleric.

Fighter:
Best - Battlemaster. So many great maneuvers! And you get them back on a short rest. Great battlefield control.
Worst - Purple Dragon Knight. Just play a Paladin.

Monk:
Best: Way of the Long Death. Potentially harder to kill than a Moon Druid or Bear Barbarian.
Worst: Way of the Four Elements. You wanted to be an Avatar style element bender. What you got instead was a bunch of weak situational abilities.

Paladin:
Best: Order of the Ancients. The "fun" Paladin. And once you get to Level 7, your party will love you!
Worst: None of them are really bad, but Oath of the Crown could probably be done better by a Battlemaster or Cavalier.

Ranger:
Best: Gloom Stalker is great. If you are primarily adventuring in dungeons or The Underdark, it is clearly one of the best of any class.
Worst: Horizon Walker. If you work with your Homebrew DM to incorporate your specialties into the campaign, then it could be fun, otherwise avoid.

Rogue:
Best - Thief: I would have said Swashbuckler a few months back, but Fast Hands is incredible, especially if you pick up the Healer feat and carry around ball bearings and caltrops.
Worst - Mastermind: Even in a roleplay heavy campaign, it's just mediocre. You're a Rogue. You have better things to do with your Bonus Action than giving an ally Advantage.

Sorcerer
Best: Divine Soul. Full Sorcerer and Cleric spell list? Yes please.
Worst: Wild Magic. Can it be fun on occasion? Sure. Does it usually work out in your favor in any meaningful way? Not really.

Warlock:
Best: Celestial: Yeah, I didn't pick Hexblade. Love the flavor, and having a nice big stack of bonus action heals to get party members back on their feet is great!
Worst: Undying: There's just not enough there, and what is there is completely situational.

Wizard
Best: Abjuration. You're not much help to the party if you can't stay alive. Abjuration helps with that. Divination is probably the best at the beginning due to Portent. Then you start running into bosses with Legendary saves that spoil your fun.
Worst: Necromancy. That undead army seems powerful at first, but it quickly loses relevance as you level up. Plus, everyone will hate you for taking five times as long to complete your combat turn.

[Man_Over_Game]

A Bard with +3 DEX and a Longbow or Rapier will deal an average of 15 damage (7.5 per shot) per round at level 6. That is triple the damage output of Vicious Mockery.

Of course Vicious Mockery is still good, and advantage / disadvantage may make weapon attacks more or less attractive, but often you just want pure damage output. Vicious Mockery also gets progressively less useful as enemies benefit more and more from Multiattack and use more Save effects instead of attack rolls.

Ah, I didn't realize you were comparing the Valor/Swords Bard. I agree with you, then. You should never use Vicious Mockery if Extra Attack is an option.

[Man_Over_Game]

Wizard:
Worst: Necromancy. That undead army seems powerful at first, but it quickly loses relevance as you level up. Plus, everyone will hate you for taking five times as long to complete your combat turn.

Why does Necromancy get so much hate? Is the swarm vs. bosses what Bounded Accuracy is for? So that multiple weaker creatures can take on one big one?

[Misterwhisper]

Why does Necromancy get so much hate? Is the swarm vs. bosses what Bounded Accuracy is for? So that multiple weaker creatures can take on one big one?

Giving up your spell slots for the day to keep them is not great and the massive RP problem it will cause.

[Rafaelfras]

Why does Necromancy get so much hate? Is the swarm vs. bosses what Bounded Accuracy is for? So that multiple weaker creatures can take on one big one?

How the times change.
I remember 2015, thread after thread about how the necromancer was overpowered, how they overshadow any martial, they are broken, D&D is broken, how they can solo dragons with x skeletons. There where a LOT of those :smallbiggrin:

[strangebloke]

A lot of people like doing necromancy without being a necromancer, as in the subclass. For lower level necromancy builds the bonuses aren't very large.

But this is also a subjective analysis, and a lot of people think they're powerful without liking what they do to the game.

[stoutstien]

Why does Necromancy get so much hate? Is the swarm vs. bosses what Bounded Accuracy is for? So that multiple weaker creatures can take on one big one?

i think its because its not only dependent on the DM being open to it you also need a certain party combo to really make it valid.
a necro wizard, oathbreaker, and glamour bard can make those low cr minions hit hard, often, and have a good buffer of thp to stay alive.

[jas61292]

Might as well give my two cents. Not doing every class since some I don't feel I've seen enough of to judge, or can't decide on, but from what I have seen:

Barbarian
Best: Ancestral Guardian
Worst: Battlerager
What is so awesome about barbarian in general is the resistance given by rage makes you so durable. To me, this makes Ancestral Guardian the best because it is the only one to actually leverage that survivability into true tanking prowess. As for the worst, Battlerager is just so limited, and nothing it does is all that unique, despite its cool flavor. I know it's cool to hate on Berserker, but that subclass has two of the best abilities of any barbarian in mindless rage and retaliate, while battlerager lacks anything all that good.

Bard
Best: College of Lore
Worst: College of Swords
Lore is just so good. It's not as much a jack of all trades as some of the others, but it's just so good at what it does, and the single focus fits better with multiclasses. Swords on the other hand is just to spread thin. I know it feels better when your melee guy can boost his own damage, which valor cannot, but until higher level when you can do so at will, your offensive capability is just not good, and even then it's mediocre at best. The epitome of something that is fun, but just not that good.

Druid
Best: Circle of the Sheppard
Worst: Circle of the Moon
While I personally prefer Land, Sheppard is just so good with summons, it is the clear most powerful once those things are online. As for moon, it wins the awards for most overrated subclass in the game. Being overpowered for around 4 levels and very good for around 6 does not make up for its main feature being drastically underpowered for half of the games levels.

Fighter
Best: Eldritch Knight
Worst: Purple Dragon Knight / Banneret
Fighter is such a well deigned class, imo, and every option cam be quite good, even if pandering to different play styles. The only exception to that is PDK, which is god awful, and has no good features at all. As for the best, I'm saying EK, just because it is the most versital, and, when all else fails, from a decision making standpoint, they have spells and the others don't.

Monk
Best: Shadow
Worst: Four Elements
Shadow may not be the most impressive in direct offense, but it offers a ton of utility that just synergizes so well with the strong core of the class. As for 4E, it's not as bad as people think, but that does not make it good.

Rogue
Best: Thief
Worst: Assassin
These two are kinda polar opposites. Assassin is fun for theoretical damage calculations, while thieves suffer in white room situations. But in actual play, thieves are among the most versital of all characters while assassins just keep wishing this was a solo game.

Wizard
Best: Illusion
Worst: Bladesinger
I don't normally base things on higher levels alone, and I know illusions are highly DM dependent, but the school of Illusion hold its own more than well enough throughout, and once you have Mirage Arcane along side Malleable Illusions, you are a god. On the other side of things, Bladesinger is "high AC, the class." If you actually need that AC, I think you are wizarding wrong. It offers next to nothing to actually improve what you want to do as a wizard.

[strangebloke]

D*mn good work, Bloke!

I am surprised that nobody likes Crown Paladin. A lot of its abilities seem fairly powerful and flavorful in a melee-oriented team.

White Room Bias.

The Crown Paladin, like the Non-bear totem barbarian and the Cavalier, is a team player. They're more focused on setting their allies up for big hits than they are for dealing them themselves, and so people get less excited about them. With paladin, too, there's the issue that all the subclasses are at the end of the day just pretty good. Redemption is my least favorite flavor ("I will save you... with copious radiant damage!!")

Anyway, a quick rundown of my thoughts on the hivemind's opinion (thus far)

Hey, I polled up everyone's answers! Here's the HIVEMIND's opinion:

Best:


Barbarian: Zealot (closely followed by Totem) Very fair. These are both incredibly strong options that have lots of advantages.
Bard: Lore Oh, I mean, its good. But to my mind, its very close to Glamour and that isn't reflected here. TBH I rated glamour higher, because the Lore Bard often feels like a "Can do 'x' quite well if they specialize in that" which doesn't really wow me like healing and moving the whole party 2-3 times a combat as a bonus action.
Cleric: Tempest Fun fact, the tempest domain has the highest satisfaction rating of any subclass in the game.
Druid: Moon (Shepherd was only contender, but did well. 4.5 votes to 6.5) Moon is better from 2-4, Shepherd is better everywhere else. Prove me wrong. Granted, some people don't like minionmancy...
Fighter: Battlemaster While the BM is better than the Samurai by any reasonable measure, (You can use Superiority die after a bad roll, people) I have a tough time making it out to be better than the EK, which got very few votes.
Monk: Open Hand (Huge spread of picks here. Every archetype other than sun soul got at least 1 vote) This ones the most on-point for the martial arts theme. But here... eh. The pushing effects are strong but you can only use them when you're flurrying, the healing is meh, and Quivering Palm is way too late. I prefer Kensei or Drunken Fist. How do people miss that +2 AC and/or a free version of the mobile feat is a very very good thing for a monk??
Paladin: Ancients/Conquest/Devotion three-way tie. As it should be, though Conquest is the most powerful IMO. All the paladin subclasses are good.
Sorcerer: Divine Soul Look, its good. But utilizing its features makes the hardest class in the game even harder. I vote for Dragon Sorc, as its easy to be powerful without turning your head inside out. AC and HP are important, people!
Ranger: Gloomstalker (9 votes, HW got 1 and so did Hunter): It's the best. I have a soft spot for Hunter, which is, AFAIK, the best DPR ranger of them all, but even I have to admit that the Gloomstalker has style.
Rogue: Arcane Trickster Remember how the EK is the best fighter subclass? Rogue subclasses traditionally offer a lot less than fighter subclasses, and the AT subclass offers even more than the EK does. Other rogues can sneak. You can sneak invisibly. Other rogues can disarm traps. You can disarm traps from 60 feet away.
Warlock: Hexblade Okay, so imma level with you. Melee warlocks weren't really good before hexblades, and they still really aren't. Outside of multiclass cheese, the hexblade is just a warlock with higher AC. That's good! But not revolutionary. Its the best, but by yards, not by miles.
Wizard: Diviner depends completely on your game. One epic fight? Diviner all the way. Slog fest with gritty rest rules? The abjurer makes this guy look like a chump.



Worst


Barbarian: Berzerker, though Battlerager and Stormherald were close The berzerker is better than the others here. The frenzy ability is wonky, but its great in a featless game, and while other barbarians are getting ribbons at level 7, the berzerker is getting resistance to fear effects which is a big killer for barbarians.
Bard: Whispers You get a smite effect. Off of Bardic inspiration. That's really good. There's nothing more to say here. For a crappy character, look at the swords bard, who wastes BI faffing about uselessly in melee when he doesn't actually have the tools to be there.
Cleric: War My vote decided this one, so of course I agree. Why the trickery hate, people? Free melee advantage as a bonus action? PwT as a cleric spell? It's good ****, man!
Druid: Dreams I honestly think a lot of people forgot about the Spore Druid. Those two are definitely the worst.
Fighter: Banneret As is right and proper.
Monk: Four Elements "It's not quite as bad as people say." is a hell of an introduction.
Paladin: Crown objectively false. The CD is better than vengeance, and the spells are better. Suprpess your edgelord, you know it to be true.
Ranger: Beastmaster Mostly fair. I dislike the Horizon Walker more. The HW is pushed heavily towards melee but can't use its class features with TWF which is pretty bogus. Hunt
Rogue: Assassin Honestly this ones just luck. They all got votes. Personally I think that the Mastermind is the least true in advertising.
Sorcerer: Wild Hey, at least its interesting and powerful, which is more you can say for the Storm Sorc.
Warlock: Undying The good news is that you'll outlive the party when you all settle down in the same retirement home.
Wizard: Necromancy This is just people's hatred of necromancers showing. Personally I would rate the enchanter at the bottom.

[Yakmala]

These two are kinda polar opposites. Assassin is fun for theoretical damage calculations, while thieves suffer in white room situations. But in actual play, thieves are among the most versital of all characters while assassins just keep wishing this was a solo game.

Exactly this!

Assassins are the best Rogue class when you are theory-crafting. Then you actually play the game and realize that your ability to put theory into practice is wholly dependent on the DM and the module/campaign.

Meanwhile, Thieves are incredibly versatile. My Thief, currently running through Waterdeep/Mad Mage is often the party's primary healer. Fast Hands + Healer feat = using healing kits as a bonus action, so, I'm often getting people back on their feet and sneak attacking on the same turn, or sometimes it's Action > Healer's Kit > Move >Bonus Action > Healer's Kit and getting two downed party members up on the same turn. And unlike clerics/bards/etc, I never run out of spell slots. And when I'm not slapping on bandages, I'm using my bonus action to toss out caltrops and ball bearings or even picking my enemy's pockets in the middle of a combat.

[Trustypeaches]

Worst

Cleric: War My vote decided this one, so of course I agree. Why the trickery hate, people? Free melee advantage as a bonus action? PwT as a cleric spell? It's good ****, man!
Invoke Duplicity may be "Free", but it (A) costs your concentration preventing you from using all your best spells and (B) requires repeated bonus actions to move it into melee range of enemies for your advantage, taking bonus actions you could use on healing word, spiritual weapon, etc. and (C) the trickery domain does not get martial weapon proficiency.

[Daphne]

Invoke Duplicity may be "Free", but it (A) costs your concentration preventing you from using all your best spells and (B) requires repeated bonus actions to move it into melee range of enemies for your advantage, taking bonus actions you could use on healing word, spiritual weapon, etc.

It also costs your action to create and Trickery Clerics don't have proficiency with martial weapons (have to use a dagger if you're going DEX) or heavy armor. Additionally, their Divine Strike deals poison damage.

[Citan]

Invoke Duplicity may be "Free", but it (A) costs your concentration preventing you from using all your best spells and (B) requires repeated bonus actions to move it into melee range of enemies for your advantage, taking bonus actions you could use on healing word, spiritual weapon, etc.
Well... Instead of viewing it with the eyes of the classic "Spirit Guardians and stand into melee like a slowly moving pole", why not view if with the eyes of "hmm, that's an interesting mechanic with a significant limitation, how to make it to good use?"

Regarding the particular case of "how to exploit that auto-advantage require both to be within 5 feet?"
- Spiritual Weapon: non concentration, so the main thing is keeping your target at hand if you want advantage, in which case I'd say an Expertise in Grappling should do the trick.
- Booming Blade: easier way to exploit advantage, and lesser cost (Magic Initiate or racial cantrip).
- Inflict Wounds: better chance to crit, this can deal serious hurt at low level.

But honestly, I wouldn't build around keeping Duplicate for a tag-team melee, at least on a Cleric that I don't plan on mixing with a martial. I find it better used for tactical flexibility, like...
- Command: draw people into attacking/moving closer to "you" as in the Duplicate.
- Inflict Wounds: if you don't go for advantage, it still is a pretty decent damage for a Cleric 1st level spell, without the added risk.
- Spare the Dying/Cure Wounds/Healing Words/Sanctuary: much easier for you to help friends within frontline without endangering yourself.
- Guiding Bolt: still perfectly usable, but you can extend its range or use it to avoid non-total cover (since you still need to use your senses so you must see the target).
- AOE "self" cantrips and spells: a single level of Druid is largely worth for spells and cantrips like Thorn Whip or Thunderwave. Otherwise now as Cleric you get Word of Radiance: mini AOE without the risks (being hurt, hurting friends), what's not to like?

In addition to that, there are all the uses, in and out of combat, pertaining enemy misdirection and misdecision: like, Hide, spawn the Duplicate as rushing out, then cast Mirror Image (or simply use a cantrip / draw melee weapon) if this would be overkill) and make it move away or towards a hostile group depending on intended goal: I know few DM that would rule anything other, if enemies were present, than "it's the guy get him" and have them chase/engage and attack unless they happen to have serious prior knowledge about your abilities or background. :)
(Hence the idea of Mirror Image to imprint doubt when people deal no apparent damage to whatever they fight, it may help keeping illusion longer).

One of many use-cases of that ability to trick people...

[Trustypeaches]

Well... Instead of viewing it with the eyes of the classic "Spirit Guardians and stand into melee like a slowly moving pole", why not view if with the eyes of "hmm, that's an interesting mechanic with a significant limitation, how to make it to good use?"Concentration prevents you from using more than just Spiritual Guardians, but okay.


Regarding the particular case of "how to exploit that auto-advantage require both to be within 5 feet?"
- Spiritual Weapon: non concentration, so the main thing is keeping your target at hand if you want advantage, in which case I'd say an Expertise in Grappling should do the trick.
Yeah, and look forward to when your enemy moves and you need to use two bonus actions on two different turns to move your duplicate then your spiritual weapon over to them.

The concentration requirement is too taxing for in-combat and the limited duration severely limits its utility outside of combat (1 minute is too short to do much of anything). It's a cool ability in theory but very very shaky. I made a homebrew redesign the subclass here (https://homebrewery.naturalcrit.com/share/HJZQ5St6A7) for one of my players to use. The main difference is the addition of this ability to Invoke Duplicity:

"Additionally, as an action, you may swap positions with your illusion if you can see it. This swap is done perfectly so it is impossible to tell that you have swapped places, and can be done before or after moving yourself or your illusion."

[strangebloke]

Invoke Duplicity may be "Free", but it (A) costs your concentration preventing you from using all your best spells and (B) requires repeated bonus actions to move it into melee range of enemies for your advantage, taking bonus actions you could use on healing word, spiritual weapon, etc.

People are really weird about what they think is or is not a good use of concentration.

Everyone just accepts that even at high levels you'll sometimes want to cast Bane or Bless or Shield of Faith. Presumably because you lose your mojo in the middle of combat or you're short on powerful spells.

Even if you only use it for one turn, it's sufficient to turn a touch spell into a long-ranged spell. Keep the copy near a damaged friend and have it cast revivify if the guy dies. That's a pretty significant trick right there. Use it to distract a bunch of people. Use it to punch someone with inflict wounds. Its one small change away from being broken good. If it was just a bonus action, or if it wasn't concentration, or if it lasted longer... but as it is its still very flexible, fun, and useful.

Cloak of Shadows is bad, of course. Although its worth noting that you can disappear, invoke duplicity on the next turn, and run away around the corner. That's a niche use, but at least you actually get two different options, unlike the War Domain Cleric who gets... +10 to his own attack roll, once, or +10 to another person's attack roll, once.

Yayyyy.

Okay, seriously, it is effectively +10 or +20 damage as a reaction which is pretty great. Overall I'd prefer Invoke Duplicity because it allows for some very fun pinch plays, but neither of them is bad.

War Priest, though, is terrible. Either you've dealing 2d6+3 damage 3 to 5 times a day, or you've taken a weapon feat that you really shouldn't have and now you're +2 WIS behind everyone and you're still not dealing enough damage to make it worth it. Either way, you can't use War Priest unless you're already making attack actions, which probably isn't preferable to using a blade cantrip or casting a spell. Why not cast spiritual weapon, instead? By comparison, Blessing of the Trickster is advantage on all stealth checks forever for one party member.

And then you have the spell lists.

Trickery gives you PwT, Polymorph, mirror image, blink, dimension door... YIKES! That's like a who's who of wizard spells! Every one of those spells is powerful and potentially game-changing.

Meanwhile, War gives you... divine favor. Yay. You can be better at hitting things now. You won't actually be, you know, good at it, but you can make your weapon glow so that's something. Crusader's Mantle is truly great, but that's the only other spell on the list that's not on the cleric spell list. And boy, I bet you'll be glad to always have stoneskin available.

Ultimately the War Cleric isn't bad, its just... meh. It's the best archetype for playing in a suboptimal way. If you really want to play the Holy Archer or whatever, that's how you do it, but it isn't a great way to play.

(How good is crusader's mantle, anyway? SG deals 9 damage on average to each monster in the radius each turn. CM deals 2.5 damage per allied hit. So you only come out ahead with CM if your party is hitting with four attacks every turn for every one nearby enemy. Obviously against flying enemies CM is better, but in general, it's not exactly a reason to pick War Cleric, by itself.)

[Citan]

Concentration prevents you from using more than just Spiritual Guardians, but okay.

Yeah, and look forward to when your enemy moves and you need to use two bonus actions on two different turns to move your duplicate then your spiritual weapon over to them.

The concentration requirement is too taxing for in-combat and the limited duration severely limits its utility outside of combat (1 minute is too short to do much of anything). It's a cool ability in theory but very very shaky. I made a homebrew redesign the subclass here (https://homebrewery.naturalcrit.com/share/HJZQ5St6A7) for one of my players to use. The main difference is the addition of this ability to Invoke Duplicity:

"Additionally, as an action, you may swap positions with your illusion if you can see it. This swap is done perfectly so it is impossible to tell that you have swapped places, and can be done before or after moving yourself or your illusion."
Seems you missed something in my post.
Let me help.


Spiritual Weapon: non concentration, so the main thing is keeping your target at hand if you want advantage, in which case I'd say an Expertise in Grappling should do the trick.

See?
I'm not advocating this is a powersell "you should just play like this" tactic of that archetype, certainly not. Because I don't consider that archetype as wanting to get into melee any and every round (or in general for that matter).
And this uses up your action, so without multiclass it takes at best two rounds to fully setup your plan.

But if this is someone's pleasure to try and make attacks with advantage, then it's perfectly workable.
Combine Expertise in Athletics with Booming Blade and Spiritual Weapon, you'll deal a pretty decent deal of damage. Or just Dodge instead because those creatures will surely try to down you to escape your grasp.
Either way, it's a big win if your goal was to aggro enemies.

It's basically the same kind of approach as with Spirit Guardians, except lesser resource consumption for lesser efficience in action economy and effect, which is a decent tradeoff imo.
And you can stack (cast on first round obviously) Mirror Image onto that if you really expect lots of attacks but you really want to keep those two creatures occupied exclusively with you. :)

Again though, that's not something I'd build around on a pure Trickery. I'd rather do this as a mix-up with Open Hand Monk (Extra Attack + ability to make unarmed attacks so you can use both hands and still be functional) or Eldricht Knight (only one creature to grapple because you want to use weapons, but you can set up everything in a single turn with Action Surge).

The nice thing though: you don't need to build around this tactic, it's enough to keep it in mind and use it when it's interesting to do so, which is often true at lower levels where your spellcasting resources are really scarce and cantrips don't deal that much damage anyways. The only investment would be the Expertise, and you can do without if you instead raise a decent STR and pick proficiency.

(On that note: I'd daresay Expertise is still a pretty decent investment to make for the classic "Spirit Guardians" tactic: pair that with Mirror Image and Booming Blade and you'll make quick work of most enemies. Or combo Mirror Image and Dodge and you'll run them crazy from frustration of not hitting you).

[Daphne]

War Priest, though, is terrible. Either you've dealing 2d6+3 damage 3 to 5 times a day,
It isn't terrible, it's very powerful before level 5 where everyone can only attack once.


Why not cast spiritual weapon, instead?
You have at most 3 2nd level slots, so if you have more than 3 fights you won't be using Spiritual Weapon. Also, slots aren't infinite, there are times you will want to attack or cast a cantrip, and War shines at these moments, or you may use your slots for out of combat things.

[strangebloke]

It isn't terrible, it's very powerful before level 5 where everyone can only attack once.


You have at most 3 2nd level slots, so if you have more than 3 fights you won't be using Spiritual Weapon. Also, slots aren't infinite, there are times you will want to attack or cast a cantrip, and War shines at these moments, or you may use your slots for out of combat things.

It is very good at early levels. But levels 2-5 go by pretty fast, I wouldn't pick a character class based off of their strength for those levels unless it was a one-shot.

[Dark.Revenant]

I've played a War Cleric. Honestly, there was never a point in the lv 1-8 campaign that it felt weak. +10 to hit is huge and essentially turns almost any sort of miss into a hit, which is a big deal if it's something like a power attack or a Guiding Bolt. It felt like having a Portent that refreshed on a short rest, especially once I was able to give it to my allies. It's the sort of ability that looks bad on paper but makes a big difference in practice.

I rarely ever ran out of War Priest uses, mainly due to the reasons outlined: the bonus action is already used on other things. It came into effect on the occasion that I didn't have anything else to do with a bonus action, and in those situations it's nice to have the extra damage on demand.

The spell list is the weak point, though. So vanilla...

[Citan]

It isn't terrible, it's very powerful before level 5 where everyone can only attack once.


You have at most 3 2nd level slots, so if you have more than 3 fights you won't be using Spiritual Weapon. Also, slots aren't infinite, there are times you will want to attack or cast a cantrip, and War shines at these moments, or you may use your slots for out of combat things.


I've played a War Cleric. Honestly, there was never a point in the lv 1-8 campaign that it felt weak. +10 to hit is huge and essentially turns almost any sort of miss into a hit, which is a big deal if it's something like a power attack or a Guiding Bolt. It felt like having a Portent that refreshed on a short rest, especially once I was able to give it to my allies. It's the sort of ability that looks bad on paper but makes a big difference in practice.

I rarely ever ran out of War Priest uses, mainly due to the reasons outlined: the bonus action is already used on other things. It came into effect on the occasion that I didn't have anything else to do with a bonus action, and in those situations it's nice to have the extra damage on demand.

The spell list is the weak point, though. So vanilla...
I agree with both comments. In particular, thanks Dark.Revenant to point out something we tend to forget: the Channel Divinity affects just "an attack roll", not a "weapon attack". So works with Guiding Bolt and Spiritual Weapon and whatever spell you may grab by multiclassing.

More importantly, it also works for friendly attacks. So while the immediate use-case is "friendly Paladin with fuel to Smite" or "friendly Rogue / Whisper Bard attacking from range", it can be a great deal if you have any fullcaster that uses spells such as upcast Chromatic Bolt (situational, but exists ^^) or BigBy's Hand (also situational)...
And here lies the main problem imo as far as party synergy goes: few spells actually use attack rolls past level 2 or 3, and most of them revolve around "mid-damage" (for that level) attack that can be repeated every round... Which reduces the interest of the +10 unless that one attack is sure to kill an enemy on hit.

So, IMO, that CD is really worth only when you have some guy with high-nova in party. Then again, why not in that case pick Order Domain instead, that uses up reaction but on a more repeatable basis (spell cast)?
Of course the nature of the benefit is very different between both, but as far as keeping account of added damage by the end of the day, unless party knows how to manage short rests, it's probably easier to get more from Order than War.

[Merudo]

I agree with both comments. In particular, thanks Dark.Revenant to point out something we tend to forget: the Channel Divinity affects just "an attack roll", not a "weapon attack". So works with Guiding Bolt and Spiritual Weapon and whatever spell you may grab by multiclassing.


Don't forget Contagion! Before the errata, it was terrible, but now using Channel Divinity on Contagion is actually a powerful move.

[Sception]

I am surprised that nobody likes Crown Paladin. A lot of its abilities seem fairly powerful and flavorful in a melee-oriented team.

It's less a case of nobody liking it, and more a case of many people rating it just slightly below the rest of it's peers. The least outstanding of a set of nothing but outstanding subclasses. Imo any of croen, vengeance, or redemption could be called the "worst paladin subclass", but I rate all three of them higher than most non-pally subclasses.

Honestly, necromancer is in a somewhat similar boat, as imo there are no bad wizard traditions in officially published books either.


Otherwise, I do definitely tjink a lot of people who rated dream as the worst druid subclass either forgot the printed version of the spore druid existed or just aren't sufficiently familiar with it, b/c when it comes to being disappointing and just kinda bad, spore druid out-fails dream druid by a country mile, imo.

[Sception]

Warlock: Hexblade Okay, so imma level with you. Melee warlocks weren't really good before hexblades, and they still really aren't. Outside of multiclass cheese, the hexblade is just a warlock with higher AC. That's good! But not revolutionary. Its the best, but by yards, not by miles.


They also get a scaling buff to damage and crit range on a short rest timer (admittedly competing for bonus actions, but hex wont always be the best use of your limited spell slots), which works as well on ranged and spell attacks as melee, plus the cool spectre thing, which is limited as a combat pet but still has some creative uses and is just cool as heck, far more so than most patron featured.

Yes, hexblade makes bladelock, well, not great, but much less frustrating to play. But it's also arguably the strongest choice mechanically for eldritch bladting chain and tome locks.

Imo the only thing holding the hexblade back is the lack of definition and personality on the narrative end.

[stoutstien]

It's less a case of nobody liking it, and more a case of many people rating it just slightly below the rest of it's peers. The least outstanding of a set of nothing but outstanding subclasses.

Honestly, necromancer is in a somewhat similar boat, as imo there are no bad wizard traditions in officially published books either.


Otherwise, I do definitely tjink a lot of people who rated dream as the worst druid subclass either forgot the printed version of the spore druid existed or just aren't sufficiently familiar with it, b/c when it comes to being disappointing and just kinda bad, spore druid out-fails dream druid by a country mile, imo.

I think dream gets a lot of undesired hate. On paper it is pretty meh but after seeing it in action I feel it has a lot going for it.
Balm is a constant supply of healing that isn't a spell and a bonus action. Only real issue is the druids spell list has a lot of continual spells using bonus action but frees up a lot of prepared spells every day.

Hearth looks like it can be replaced by tiny hut until you realize this is is instant vs the one minute casting of hut. This is a solid ambush tool combined with pass without a trace for a +15 on stealth checks.

Hidden path is a bonus action dimension door up to 5 times per day. Shorter range but it once again isn't costing spell slots.

Walker on dreams is a literal hearth stone only if you plan it right you can transport an army behind enemy lines.

[Spellbreaker26]

Hearth looks like it can be replaced by tiny hut until you realize this is is instant vs the one minute casting of hut. This is a solid ambush tool combined with pass without a trace for a +15 on stealth checks.


I didn't think about using Hearth for ambush, but you're right.

Also, being heavily stealthed is superior to tiny hut because you attract less attention. The only reason people think LTH replaces it outright is because DMs sometimes don't have monsters react appropriately to a giant glowing yurt being plonked in their dungeon. That's going to get surrounded and the party swamped immediately.

I'm going to be playing a dream druid soon and I think they're pretty reasonable (thought the level 14 ability seems only okay). Last of the Summer Balm is basically as many healing words as you're going to ever need with no spell slots and not competing with spells, Hidden Paths is as many Misty Steps as you're ever going to need, really. Those are also both two spells that are really, really good.

Also, Moon Druid is probably the single most overrated subclass in the game in power terms. All of its features are built around an ability you can only use a couple of times per day.

[noob]

You asked for most and least fun, rather than powerful. With that in mind, here are my choices and justifications.

WORST

Barbarian: Path of the Battlerager
All other barbarians are full of flavor, impactful effects, and/or changes in play-style. You get... a clone of Polearm Master, some extra THP, some maneuverability, and some piddly damage related to being spiky. The real trouble, however: when you're not raging, you get NOTHING!

Bard: College of Valor
This college might be mechanically sound for a generalist support caster, but it's not good at doing what it should be doing: making you a valorous martial combatant. Your damage is pathetic, you have hardly any spells that assist with melee in any way, you become really MAD... and you have to juggle instruments, shields, and weapons! Now that I think about it, that last part is actually on-theme for a bard...

Cleric: Grave Domain
This is definitely the worst-written subclass in the otherwise very strong list of subclasses that clerics have access to. Between the awful domain spell list, the awkward abilities, and the dissociative failure of game design that is Sentinel at Death's Door, this is a clear loser to me.

Druid: Circle of the Land
People always compare Moon to Land to show why Moon is so good. It's the other way around: Moon is there to make Land look bad. Why? You've nothing exceptional to do with your bonus action and your subclass features after 2nd level are uninspired, situational, or just plain awful. The other subclasses give you cool features that you'll use all the time, making Land feel totally left-out.

Fighter: Purple Dragon Knight
PDK has a big problem that pushes it from merely mediocre to outright terrible: Paladins. Why would you ever be a PDK with your situational, disjointed list of abilities, when you could be a Paladin and do (almost) everything the PDK can, but better?

Monk: Way of the Four Elements
A fun idea with a wretched implementation. I think this subclass would have been fine if you had more abilities to choose from in the moment, trading Ki efficiency for greater utility. But you don't. You pick one super-situational power. Every other monk subclass has an amazing build-defining feature at third level. The four elements? You get a wet fart.

Paladin: Oath of the Crown
The one bad egg in the otherwise excellent basket. Aside from a solid spell list, all you've got are a whole host of lackluster abilities that feel like a series of limp slaps. The worst part is Champion Challenge, which is rather poor as a taunt effect because it doesn't actually encourage anyone to attack you. It has some niche use if you can use it to keep a group of creatures occupied while all your allies are further than 30 feet away from you... but you won't live very long with a strategy that insane.

Ranger: Beast Master
The most awkward, clunky subclass in the entire game, and nothing else even comes close. Congratulations, Beast Master, you really are the worst. No matter what optimizers say about its mechanical effectiveness, it'll never actually feel right.

Rogue: Inquisitive
Absolutely terrible. This is an unfortunate example of a subclass with a theme that should have been a grand slam, a freebie. You're Sherlock Holmes! Except... every feature sucks. Seriously, every single feature you get as an Inquisitive is at or near the bottom among all rogue subclass features.

Sorcerer: Draconic Bloodline
Reasonably effective, but boring. None of your features until 14th level are at all dynamic or interesting, no matter how mechanically useful they are. And I'd argue they're not even that mechanically useful. Have you seen the crazy **** the other sorcerers can do by 6th level?! People like this subclass purely because it has the word "Dragon" in it. Here's a hint: you can be a dragon-blooded sorcerer of any of the other, more interesting subclasses.

Warlock: The Undying
Awful, awful spell list with awful features that are more ribbon than special power. This subclass has very little going for it.

Wizard: School of Necromancy
Aside from the fact that you'll probably be fighting with your DM every step of the way, this subclass has two big problems. First, the creation and usage of undead creatures is awkward, at best. To make proper usage of your features, you'll need to bog down combat with extra minions and juggle the resources of minionmancy even out of combat. Second, the necromancy school is by far the weakest of the schools in 5e. You'll be disappointed time and time again.
you are playing valor wrong: play a valor bard as if it was a full caster(max charisma and ignore str and dex) and ignore entirely weapon proficiencies and use a shield as well as armour to be a high ac full caster.
then you are comparably tough as a fighter and if enemies tries to hit you for trying to remove your fullcasting support the opponents are wasting their time.

[Citan]

I think dream gets a lot of undesired hate. On paper it is pretty meh but after seeing it in action I feel it has a lot going for it.
Balm is a constant supply of healing that isn't a spell and a bonus action. Only real issue is the druids spell list has a lot of continual spells using bonus action but frees up a lot of prepared spells every day.

Hearth looks like it can be replaced by tiny hut until you realize this is is instant vs the one minute casting of hut. This is a solid ambush tool combined with pass without a trace for a +15 on stealth checks.

Hidden path is a bonus action dimension door up to 5 times per day. Shorter range but it once again isn't costing spell slots.

Walker on dreams is a literal hearth stone only if you plan it right you can transport an army behind enemy lines.
You motivated me to reread it.

Sadly, my lack of interest didn't budge much to be honest.

First, the healing:
On the plus side, the extreme range (120 feet is pretty comfortable), the fact it's perfectly usable as a Wild Shape beast (to support a friend without being noticed), the ability to spend up to 10 dice.
On the wrong side? Basically everything else: no minimum healing (and yeah, rolling several 1 is not that rare to me ^^), only d6 (I guess they wanted to try and make something within Healing Words and Cure Wounds, but the absence of +WIS is very problematic to me especially on a d6 basis), and it's a long rest resource.

I would have considered it good enough if they have changed one thing among...
- average heal: adding +WIS to total (makes it extra Healing Words at lower level, but doesn't scale good at higher level) OR making it d10.
- resources: making it a WIS-mod short rest instead.

As is, it was "just decent" when they published it, and it's plain "situational" and borderline ribbon when you add Healing Spirit to Healing Words.
Technically, you are much less efficient at healing than the Shepherd, which is kinda sad.

Then, the Hearth:
it does definitely help a party that has to make up camp, but it's not that good either: it does nothing about sound, does nothing about forms and movement either.
It simply does not create a perfect illusion of "environment without party" if you see what I mean, it just gives a decent buff to overall discretion.
So it's nice to make passable camping places a bit more safe, but it's rarely gonna create a chance at short resting. To express otherwise, it makes "safe area" a bit safer, but won't help any if you didn't find such an area in the first place. Compare that to...
- Catnap (10mn is all you need for 3 people and rarely do everyone in a party need short rest equally),
- Rope Trick (you simply need a way to avoid detection just long enough to cast and get inside. Also, nobody neither anything forces you to use all rope's length, if you're in a hurry put it 2 feet of rope above ground).
- Leomund's Tiny Hut: it's definitely not an "automatic rest" tool, far from it. It doesn't do anything either about sound or movement (or smells ^^) and is much smaller than Hearth (so less comfortable potentially or you have to risk losing pets/carriage/etc). But when you really need short rest because you're on the ropes, whether or not it will be hard to avoid trouble, at least it provides a definitive protection during that time (counters exist of course but require specific tactics or at least a Dispel Magic at hand).

So it works well enough well paired with something like Pass Without Trace but is not enough by itself.

Hidden Paths
Good enough as an emergency teleport. Not sure how to rule the "alternatively" : I read RAW as "either use effect 1 on your turn with action" or "use effect 2 on your turn with bonus action".
Per ROC I'd anyways definitely allow both on same turn: I don't see it breaking anything but it would allow some classy rescues or tag-team drops. ;)

Walker in Dreams
can be definitely powerful in some campaigns...
But close to that level you get Wind Walk, which is imo enough for most "long-range travel" use-cases, at least unless you travel in bigger groups.

Besides all that mechanical quirks, imo that archetype is one the most engraved in fluff, that people may or not adhere to. I personally do not, so that certainly doesn't help. ^^

I'm glad there are people enjoying it though. Different taste usually goes with different people, and difference is good. :)

[Dark.Revenant]

you are playing valor wrong: play a valor bard as if it was a full caster(max charisma and ignore str and dex) and ignore entirely weapon proficiencies and use a shield as well as armour to be a high ac full caster.
then you are comparably tough as a fighter and if enemies tries to hit you for trying to remove your fullcasting support the opponents are wasting their time.

... why would you ignore Dex, if you're trying to maximize your AC? The best way to play Valor is to get that 19 (later 20 with MAM) AC with 16 Dexterity and 20 Charisma. Then you have a rapier in your pocket in case you're out of things to do. You're still not as tough as a fighter, by the way. A generic fighter will be capping out at 18 (archery/GWM), 20 (dueling/protection), or 21 (defense) - comparable numbers - while EKs can push it considerably further. Fighters also have more HP in general.

The problem with Valor is the gameplay-narrative segregation. It's presented as a valorous melee combatant, but optimal play is not being in melee and remaining a full support caster. It's a similar problem to the Bladesinger.

[noob]

I forgot it was medium armor proeficiency and not full plate.

[Trustypeaches]

... why would you ignore Dex, if you're trying to maximize your AC? The best way to play Valor is to get that 19 (later 20 with MAM) AC with 16 Dexterity and 20 Charisma. Then you have a rapier in your pocket in case you're out of things to do. You're still not as tough as a fighter, by the way. A generic fighter will be capping out at 18 (archery/GWM), 20 (dueling/protection), or 21 (defense) - comparable numbers - while EKs can push it considerably further. Fighters also have more HP in general.

The problem with Valor is the gameplay-narrative segregation. It's presented as a valorous melee combatant, but optimal play is not being in melee and remaining a full support caster. It's a similar problem to the Bladesinger.Honestly as a Valor Bard I find plenty of times where attacking with Melee is useful: it often deals more damage than casting one of my non-concentration spells or cantrips, which are fairly limited. Or if I simply don't want to spend spell slots.

The weapon proficiency and extra attack is a hefty boost to a Bard's AT-WILL damage output.

[strangebloke]

... why would you ignore Dex, if you're trying to maximize your AC? The best way to play Valor is to get that 19 (later 20 with MAM) AC with 16 Dexterity and 20 Charisma. Then you have a rapier in your pocket in case you're out of things to do. You're still not as tough as a fighter, by the way. A generic fighter will be capping out at 18 (archery/GWM), 20 (dueling/protection), or 21 (defense) - comparable numbers - while EKs can push it considerably further. Fighters also have more HP in general.

The problem with Valor is the gameplay-narrative segregation. It's presented as a valorous melee combatant, but optimal play is not being in melee and remaining a full support caster. It's a similar problem to the Bladesinger.

As with the cleric, you're still going to play an 'off-tank' role as often as not. You have lower HP than a fighter and don't want to lose concentration, but you can take a hit better than the wizard that you're standing next to.

[Man_Over_Game]

You motivated me to reread it.

Sadly, my lack of interest didn't budge much to be honest.

First, the healing:
On the plus side, the extreme range (120 feet is pretty comfortable), the fact it's perfectly usable as a Wild Shape beast (to support a friend without being noticed), the ability to spend up to 10 dice.
On the wrong side? Basically everything else: no minimum healing (and yeah, rolling several 1 is not that rare to me ^^), only d6 (I guess they wanted to try and make something within Healing Words and Cure Wounds, but the absence of +WIS is very problematic to me especially on a d6 basis), and it's a long rest resource.

I would have considered it good enough if they have changed one thing among...
- average heal: adding +WIS to total (makes it extra Healing Words at lower level, but doesn't scale good at higher level) OR making it d10.
- resources: making it a WIS-mod short rest instead.

As is, it was "just decent" when they published it, and it's plain "situational" and borderline ribbon when you add Healing Spirit to Healing Words.
Technically, you are much less efficient at healing than the Shepherd, which is kinda sad.

Then, the Hearth:
it does definitely help a party that has to make up camp, but it's not that good either: it does nothing about sound, does nothing about forms and movement either.
It simply does not create a perfect illusion of "environment without party" if you see what I mean, it just gives a decent buff to overall discretion.
So it's nice to make passable camping places a bit more safe, but it's rarely gonna create a chance at short resting. To express otherwise, it makes "safe area" a bit safer, but won't help any if you didn't find such an area in the first place. Compare that to...
- Catnap (10mn is all you need for 3 people and rarely do everyone in a party need short rest equally),
- Rope Trick (you simply need a way to avoid detection just long enough to cast and get inside. Also, nobody neither anything forces you to use all rope's length, if you're in a hurry put it 2 feet of rope above ground).
- Leomund's Tiny Hut: it's definitely not an "automatic rest" tool, far from it. It doesn't do anything either about sound or movement (or smells ^^) and is much smaller than Hearth (so less comfortable potentially or you have to risk losing pets/carriage/etc). But when you really need short rest because you're on the ropes, whether or not it will be hard to avoid trouble, at least it provides a definitive protection during that time (counters exist of course but require specific tactics or at least a Dispel Magic at hand).

So it works well enough well paired with something like Pass Without Trace but is not enough by itself.

Hidden Paths
Good enough as an emergency teleport. Not sure how to rule the "alternatively" : I read RAW as "either use effect 1 on your turn with action" or "use effect 2 on your turn with bonus action".
Per ROC I'd anyways definitely allow both on same turn: I don't see it breaking anything but it would allow some classy rescues or tag-team drops. ;)

Walker in Dreams
can be definitely powerful in some campaigns...
But close to that level you get Wind Walk, which is imo enough for most "long-range travel" use-cases, at least unless you travel in bigger groups.

Besides all that mechanical quirks, imo that archetype is one the most engraved in fluff, that people may or not adhere to. I personally do not, so that certainly doesn't help. ^^

I'm glad there are people enjoying it though. Different taste usually goes with different people, and difference is good. :)

I always figured the Dream Healing was to make it so that you aren't casting as a Bonus Action, meaning that you don't have to choose between casting a Cantrip and Healing Word, but you now can cast a real spell and heal someone as if you were using Healing Word. It frees up a prepared spell, level 1 spell slots, and allows you to cast more than just cantrips.

So instead of casting Healing Word and Frostbite, you can heal someone and cast Ice Knife. In a way, it increases your sustainability and your damage output.

[ad_hoc]

Bard: College of Valor
This college might be mechanically sound for a generalist support caster, but it's not good at doing what it should be doing: making you a valorous martial combatant. Your damage is pathetic, you have hardly any spells that assist with melee in any way, you become really MAD... and you have to juggle instruments, shields, and weapons! Now that I think about it, that last part is actually on-theme for a bard...

Valor is the strongest Bard subclass.

You get medium armour and shields which is already better than what other subclasses get.

Its damage is far and away better than Vicious Mockery.

Combat Inspiration is a decent upgrade to standard inspiration. The thing with inspiration is that the default is already great so Cutting Words isn't a big deal. They also don't get much out of new proficiencies.

Swords on the other hand is both weaker without a shield and is a waste of inspiration. That said, it is probably more fun for more people.

[Citan]

I always figured the Dream Healing was to make it so that you aren't casting as a Bonus Action, meaning that you don't have to choose between casting a Cantrip and Healing Word, but you now can cast a real spell and heal someone as if you were using Healing Word. It frees up a prepared spell, level 1 spell slots, and allows you to cast more than just cantrips.

So instead of casting Healing Word and Frostbite, you can heal someone and cast Ice Knife. In a way, it increases your sustainability and your damage output.
Hey, that's a good find indeed.

But I don't see Druid using dat kind of spell very often at higher level, even upcast. After all, direct "raw" damage has always been the area where Druid shines the less. Not pure class anyways.

I'd put as exception to my own previous statement a few select spells such as Moonbeam, Heat Metal, Flaming Sphere and Call Lightning, but those either don't prevent using Healing Words since they use up action on subsequent turn, or don't preven use of cantrip since they use bonus action on subsequent turns.

See, the more I think about this the more I'm puzzled by it.
If you see it as "part of the kit" while considering Druid in isolation, sure, yeah, it's good enough.

But if I really want something useful to help avoid downs on a bonus action and stop seeing Druid alone, (apart from the fact I'd pick Shepherd but that's another topic ^^) I'd rather pick a level in Life Cleric to boost party survivability throughout the day: preventively/"proactively from allies" with Goodberry, casting a Healing Words which so boosted amounts to the average of two or maybe three dice of the archetype feature, or even if party is in dire need of healing cast Healing Spirit and combine it with Cure Wounds or healer kit or Spare the Dying as needed.

Or I could instead pick Grave Cleric so I have a no-resource distance stabilization with "distant Spare the Dying as bonus action".

If more intense dips/multiclasses were on my board, I'd directly pick Warlock to get short-rest slots to use on Healing Spirit or upcast Healing Words. Or maybe I'd pick Glamour Bard for a bigger party.

If Dreams had been among the first archetypes published, I would have understood.
But it was released last, after Glamour Bard (which alternative BI is just leagues above in terms of effective HP as long as you have more than 2-3 people in party), after Celestial Warlock (which doesn't get Healing Words so that kind of ability as a feature is plenty legitimate), and at the same time they released Healing Spirit (which everyone recognizes as overpowered which doesn't help ^^), along the Shepherd (which nets a much, much, like exponential times better healing with the proper tactic).
That ability is completely "sandwhiched" not only by other classes comparisons (which is certainly awkard to make since comparable abilities are not on the "same chassis") but even by core class abilities and comparison with other archetypes (which, this time, is a valid comparison ^^)...

I just don't see the point besides that particular use-case you mentioned (with variant "you don't want to cast Healing Spirit even for just one round because you have concentration already set on something useful"), and the fact it allows you to keep a bit of resource...
That's just not enough to my eyes. ^^

[Man_Over_Game]

No, that's a pretty valid analysis. The Druid itself is pretty much entirely made of Concentration spells, so why would it need to cast spells on-demand?

I think part of this is adjusted based on some of the spells they released in the same book, though. There were a number of instant-effect spells added for Druids, especially a few that have lasting effects so that you can maintain control on the battlefield without using Concentration. I'm thinking that was part of the goal to make the Druid a better controller, and the Dream doesn't sacrifice healing to do that.

A few examples of what I mean:

Earth Tremor, Tidal Wave, Erupting Earth, and Bones of the Earth were all added as Druid spells, and they all kind of do the same thing (instant effect, followed by some kind of movement impairment).

I don't think that's a coincidence, though.

My guess is that the intent is to combine those abilities while trapping enemies into bad positions with Call Lightning or Moonbeam combinations, and the Dreams' balms helps with that (since healing now no longer gets in the way of your control-combos). Knock the enemy front-line Prone with Tidal Wave, then use Moonbeam once the back line catches up to the front.

[stoutstien]

Like I said dream isn't as good as Shepard but nor is as bad as alot of people think at first glance. It's the thief of druids.

* I do agree that the healing should have a more normalized out come. A reroll 1s feature at a later lv would help alot.

[Citan]

Valor is the strongest Bard subclass.

1. You get medium armour and shields which is already better than what other subclasses get.

Its damage is far and away better than Vicious Mockery.

Combat Inspiration is a decent upgrade to standard inspiration. 2. The thing with inspiration is that the default is already great so Cutting Words isn't a big deal. They also don't get much out of new proficiencies.

3. Swords on the other hand is both weaker without a shield and 4. is a waste of inspiration. That said, it is probably more fun for more people.
1. It's a pure matter of taste here. Fighting style, three extra skills, and ability to try and mass charm or single frighten with no consquences whatsoever on a fail are a) effects or abilities very hard to get otherwise (except the skills which are exactly Skilled feat, and Fighting style which needs only a level dip) and can be largely more powerful in some situations.
Also, personal taste here, I prefer an ability that builds on my Bardiness rather than things I can get with feats or multiclasses. :)

2. Analysis error here. In terms of mechanical optimization, Cutting Words is *much* better. Simple reason to that. While both address attacks, in the "defensive aspect" of it Combat Inspiration is still preemptive: you need to have "distributed" your Bardic Inspiration beforehand. And a creature can only have one at a time *ever*.
In small groups, or in "unbalanced" groups (like 2 melee and 3 ranged), this is impractical. Sure, you can still give one each and expect it will be used anyways sometime on a check, attack roll or saving throw. But then what you said would equally apply to Combat Inspiration.
Worse thing: if you want to help your frontliners, those will usually be martials that have a high contender for their use of reaction: either to defend (Uncanny Dodge, Parry, Deflect Arrows, Defensive Duelist, Shield) or to attack (OA with possible help of PAM/Sentinel).
So you're giving them a die so they can use their reaction to hope a big enough AC boost to avoid an attack, which...
- does nothing against a crit
- is an average +3 and very slowly increases up every 4 levels on average.

With Cutting Words, you are "reactive": you can use *yourself* a Bardic Inspiration to help *others*. If you're in a 3/4-man party, no tedious micro-management: give one to each ally, you can still use the two left. Same with unbalanced parties.
And you as a Bard (normally not a frontliner) has little use for reaction in general, so it's better action economy on party scope.

Finally, if you really like preventing damage, Glamour's BI is times better than Valor's BI unless you're a 2-man party: not only does the THP quickly add up, it provides an OA-free movement *if ally wants* for their reaction.
All that for a *single* BI. This is very useful when you need to run away while being targeted by archers, to help friends kite a dangerous foe or simply save someone's hide while also helping others reposition...
Like, *ahem*, getting the hell out of the way before a Fireball or worse, Chain Lightning.
Or, *ahem ahem*, give them an additional go at Healing Spirit aura (only one of them is DM is nitpicky, but considering turns are abstraction, you may also fairly rule several allies cross it without telescoping each other ^^).
Or, *ahem ahem ahem*, surrounding an enemy that thought it still had a way to run.
Etc.

People tend to sadly forget it: movement is *power*. At least as much than number of attacks or big bonus to roll or reactive abilities to defend or reduce damage. ;)

3&4. Wrong too: Swords trade two AC for either +4 or +5 damage mod if he wades into melee (Fighting Style), and gains a +3 AC on average (so balance is +1) whenever he uses Defensive Flourish (which is imo the best option usually) at the level he gains it. Which soon becomes a short-rest resource along with the average bump, so you can expect something like 10 or 15 rounds with usually higher AC than Valor.

And at level 14, you can simply count on that average +3 for free, while you can boost your AC to much higher by using a die and a bit of luck.
To make things worse for Valor, you can very easily pick up the shield proficiency if you really want it, while Valor has no way to bridge the gap (same with picking Shield or Shield of Faith spell).

Moreover, the second use of Flourish, the mobile one, while giving you the option to move nearer creature after having pushed it, does not force you to do it. So you can perfectly use it to force a distance you<->creature that surpasses its reaches, then safely move away to a place when enemy will have trouble using full power against you, especially with that free 10 feet speed bonus.

So, when you strip up things to get to the core of the subject, what does Valor provide?
- Alternative use of Bardic Inspiration requiring competition for reaction, for an average bonus of +3. Casters fearing for their life will get Shield one way or another, martials all get tools for resilience, either on reaction or through effective HP management (*cough* Barbarian *cough*), in addition to sometimes having the way to grab their own defensive spells.
- Offensive equipment proficiencies that are either irrelevant or provided for any otherarchetype.
- Defensive equipment proficiencies that can easily be gotten another way, or supplemented by spells/Unarmored through racial feature (Variant Human for feat, Dwarf, races getting Unarmored), feat, spell or small dips.
- Extra Attack which is nice but not enough by itself to really follow. If damage is really important, Spell Sniper with Eldricht Blast is safer and will net same average damage from level 11 onwards. Or pick Booming Blade / GreenFlame Blade which deal near same average from level 5 onwards provided you manage to get their rider.
- Ability to make a weapon attack after casting a spell which is... Bad? Or simply irrelevant at that level? Except of course special build made around it like chaining it with Booming Blade after having set up an upcast Shadow Blade or similar?

----- TL;DR
Valor is a nice archetype, and I still have some feelings for it because I played a few in one-shots when 5e was still a new thing.
It's a mix that allows you to play a Bard with a bit more built-in versatility in combat for little to no investment in build decision and on-the-fly wits, because none of its features are bad and they form a balanced mix.

So for people who want to play a Bard with a martial aspect and better defense without multiclassing/using feats/grabbing specific spells, it's a perfect fit.

The most powerful archetype though? Not by a very, very long margin.



No, that's a pretty valid analysis. The Druid itself is pretty much entirely made of Concentration spells, so why would it need to cast spells on-demand?

I think part of this is adjusted based on some of the spells they released in the same book, though. There were a number of instant-effect spells added for Druids, especially a few that have lasting effects so that you can maintain control on the battlefield without using Concentration. I'm thinking that was part of the goal to make the Druid a better controller, and the Dream doesn't sacrifice healing to do that.

A few examples of what I mean:

Earth Tremor, Tidal Wave, Erupting Earth, and Bones of the Earth were all added as Druid spells, and they all kind of do the same thing (instant effect, followed by some kind of movement impairment).

I don't think that's a coincidence, though.

My guess is that the intent is to combine those abilities while trapping enemies into bad positions with Call Lightning or Moonbeam combinations, and the Dreams' balms helps with that (since healing now no longer gets in the way of your control-combos). Knock the enemy front-line Prone with Tidal Wave, then use Moonbeam once the back line catches up to the front.
Apart from Bones of The Earth, all those spells are as old as Elemental Evil companions though no?

Are you telling me they were not on Druid list so far???
Because if so, I totally share your opinion (and that is a scandal they were deprived of those... Much like Absorb Elements for Sorcerer ^^)