Tiering the Pathfinder Classes - Fighter and it's Archetypes

[pabelfly]

I'm interested in starting work on a tier list for Pathfinder, in the same way that we have a tier list for 3.5 (link for reference) (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?600635-Why-each-class-is-in-its-tier-2019-update!).

There has been an informal attempt to do a tier list for Pathfinder, which I've also used in reference for this thread (link) (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?649283-%85-And-What-Is-the-*Deal*-with-Pathfinder-Tiers). But a formal collection of threads, where everyone discusses and debates how classes should be tiered, is something I think would be useful for Pathfinder, in the same way the tier list for 3.5 is.

We'll start the thread with Fighter and its various archetypes. I'll add the caveat that specific archetypes should be tiered only if they're significantly better than other fighter archetypes. I think the archetype "Child of Acavna and Amaznen" is an example of this, as discussed below Scrubbed because board consensus is that the archetype isn't that great. If I've missed something, let me know. I'm not as familiar with Pathfinder as I'd like to be.

(edited)

Fighter - The informal thread pegs this at about a Tier 4.5 but the forums have voted this to be a Tier 4 class. Good choice of archetypes are can likely take this up half a tier. No particular archetype for Fighter has been singled out as being particularly powerful that it needs to be tiered separately.
Fighter (Child of Acavna and Amaznen) - I'll single out this specific Fighter archetype as being stronger than other archetypes. It trades away weapon and armor proficiencies, and Fighter bonus feats for more skill points and spells from the Bloodrager spell list. Spellcasting has always closely related to tiers in 3.5 and I don't see that changing much for Pathfinder. The informal thread pegs a Bloodrager at about a Tier 3.75 and I can see types being similar in power level. Scrubbed because board consensus is that the archetype isn't that great

Current Vote Totals:

Fighter
Kurald Galain, Serafina, Maat Mons, Raven777, AnonymousPepper, Darvin, Bucky – 4
Gnaeus – 4.5

Fighter Tiering (average) - 4.06




What are the tiers?

The simple answer here is that tier one is the best, the home of things on the approximate problem solving scale of wizards, and tier six is the worst, land of commoners. And problem solving capacity is what's being measured here. Considering the massive range of challenges a character is liable to be presented with across the levels, how much and how often does that character's class contribute to the defeat of those challenges? This value should be considered as a rough averaging across all levels, the center of the level range somewhat more than really low and really high level characters, and across all optimization levels (considering DM restrictiveness as a plausible downward acting factor on how optimized a character is), prioritizing moderate optimization somewhat more than low or high.

A big issue with the original tier system is that, if anything, it was too specific, generating inflexible definitions for allowance into a tier which did not cover the broad spectrum of ways a class can operate. When an increase in versatility would seem to represent a decrease in tier, because tier two is supposed to be low versatility, it's obvious that we've become mired in something that'd be pointless to anyone trying to glean information from the tier system. Thus, I will be uncharacteristically word light here. The original tier system's tier descriptions are still good guidelines here, but they shouldn't be assumed to be the end all and be all for how classes get ranked.

Consistent throughout these tiers is the notion of problems and the solving thereof. For the purposes of this tier system, the problem space can be said to be inclusive of combat, social interaction, and exploration, with the heaviest emphasis placed on combat. A problem could theoretically fall outside of that space, but things inside that space are definitely problems. Another way to view the idea of problem solving is through the lens of the niche ranking system. A niche filled tends to imply the capacity to solve a type of problem, whether it's a status condition in the case of healing, or an enemy that just has too many hit points in the case of melee combat. It's not a perfect measure, both because some niches have a lot of overlap in the kinds of problems they can solve and because, again, the niches aren't necessarily all inclusive, but they can act as a good tool for class evaluation.

Tier one: Incredibly good at solving nearly all problems. This is the realm of clerics, druids, and wizards, classes that open up with strong combat spells backed up by utility, and then get massively stronger from there. If you're not keeping up with that core trio of tier one casters, then you probably don't belong here.

Tier two: We're just a step below tier one here, in the land of classes around the sorcerer level of power. Generally speaking, this means relaxing one of the two tier one assumptions, either getting us to very good at solving nearly all problems, or incredibly good at solving most problems. But, as will continue to be the case as these tiers go on, there aren't necessarily these two simple categories for this tier. You gotta lose something compared to the tier one casters, but what you lose doesn't have to be in some really specific proportions.

Tier three: Again, we gotta sacrifice something compared to tier two, here taking us to around the level of a vanilla Magus. The usual outcome is that you are very good at solving a couple of problems and competent at solving a few more. Of course, there are other possibilities, for example that you might instead be competent at solving nearly all problems.

Tier four: Here we're in Paladin and Barbarian territory. Starting from that standard tier three position, the usual sweet spots here are very good at solving a few problems, or alright at solving many problems.

Tier five: We're heading close to the dregs here. Tier five is the tier of chained Monks, classes that are as bad as you can be without being an aristocrat or a commoner. Classes here are sometimes very good at solving nearly no problems, or alright at solving a few, or some other function thereof. It's weak, is the point.

Tier six: And here we have commoner tier. Or, the bottom is commoner. The top is approximately aristocrat. You don't necessarily have nothing in this tier, but you have close enough to it.

[Kurald Galain]

If I understand correctly, you expect people to use whole numbers in their opinions/votes, and things like "4.5" are the average of what people think. That is, a "half tier" doesn't actually exist, but it means that some people think it's 4 and some people think 5. Is that right?

Anyway. Baseline fighter, tier 4 because of its Advanced Weapon Training ability (which lets you e.g. parry spells, project an aura of difficult terrain, or add Bane to your weapons), and also because I don't think "no archetypes" should be a separate rating because archetypes are the default, and popular, and pretty much everybody uses them. Otherwise you might as well think of a rating for "fighter without power attack" or something.

Archetype fighter, still tier 4. Standouts include:
Mutation Warrior gains free and permanent flight at level 7;
Eldritch Guardian gets a familiar, and familiars are good in PF;
Unarmed Fighter can skip feat prereqs;
Siegebreaker is PF's dungeoncrasher, and can lead to some funky damage loops where your bull rush deals damage, your opportunity attacks give a free bull rush, and your bull rushes give an opportunity attack. Rinse and repeat.
Tactician can share teamwork feats, which is comparable to bardic performance; and gets more skill points.


And then there's the Child of Acavna and Amaznen (sometimes called "child of war" because d20pfsrd removes in-world names), I'm open to discussion but I don't think this is very good.
It gives up advanced weapon training, two-handed weapon use (!) and half your feats in exchange for a small amount of spellcasting, but you must spend your swift action each turn to cast in armor. This leads me to wonder WHY this even exists, and WHY would you ever play one instead of a Magus or Bloodrager, or indeed anything that gets actual class features in addition to spellcasting.
Frankly this is such a mess that I don't see how it has any claim to a higher tier. Unless people want to argue that any and all spellcasting archetypes are automatically a tier higher, which I do not agree with. So, still tier 4.

HTH!

[pabelfly]

If I understand correctly, you expect people to use whole numbers in their opinions/votes, and things like "4.5" are the average of what people think. That is, a "half tier" doesn't actually exist, but it means that some people think it's 4 and some people think 5. Is that right?

People can go into decimal numbers if they want, I'm happy with however they vote.


Anyway. Baseline fighter, tier 4 because of its Advanced Weapon Training ability, and also because I don't think "no archetypes" should be a separate rating because archetypes are the default, and popular, and pretty much everybody uses them. Otherwise you might as well think of a rating for "fighter without power attack" or something.

Archetype fighter, still tier 4. Standouts include:
Mutation Warrior gains free and permanent flight at level 7;
Eldritch Guardian gets a familiar, and familiars are good in PF;
Unarmed Fighter can skip feat prereqs;
Siegebreaker is PF's dungeoncrasher, and can lead to some funky damage loops where your bull rush deals damage, your opportunity attacks give a free bull rush, and your bull rushes give an opportunity attack. Rinse and repeat.
Tactician can share teamwork feats, which is comparable to bardic performance.


And then there's the Child of Acavna and Amaznen (sometimes called "child of war" because d20pfsrd removes in-world names), I'm open to discussion but I don't this is actually so great.
It gives up advanced weapon training, two-handed weapon use (!) and half your feats in exchange for a small amount of spellcasting, but you must spend your swift action each turn to cast in armor. This leads me to wonder WHY this even exists, and WHY would you ever play one instead of a Magus or Bloodrager, or indeed anything that gets actual class features in addition to spellcasting.
Frankly this is such a mess that I don't see how it has any claim to a higher tier. Unless people want to argue that any and all spellcasting archetypes are automatically a tier higher, which I do not agree with. So, still tier 4.

HTH!

Thanks for the contribution, it was interesting reading.

[Gnaeus]

People can go into decimal numbers if they want, I'm happy with however they vote.

I doubt I would do this in general but I think 4.5 is right for fighter.

Pros: Can be built to be effective in its role.
Cons: Full of trap options. Virtually no out of combat contribution outside some archetypes. Tends to be reliant on highly specific gear.

If I had to say 4 or 5, I would say top of 5. But I like fighter at 4.5 as an easy benchmark. If its worse than fighter, its 5.

Certainly the best fighter archetypes are 4. I don't think that a half tier jump is really worth mentioning. And given that I rank fighter as low as I do largely because of low op/trap options, I'm willing to say that a fighter who specifically is built well is 4.

[pabelfly]

I doubt I would do this in general but I think 4.5 is right for fighter.

Pros: Can be built to be effective in its role.
Cons: Full of trap options. Virtually no out of combat contribution outside some archetypes. Tends to be reliant on highly specific gear.

If I had to say 4 or 5, I would say top of 5. But I like fighter at 4.5 as an easy benchmark. If its worse than fighter, its 5.

Certainly the best fighter archetypes are 4. I don't think that a half tier jump is really worth mentioning. And given that I rank fighter as low as I do largely because of low op/trap options, I'm willing to say that a fighter who specifically is built well is 4.

I'm not really sure how to tier archetypes. 3.5 tier threads only tiered a few of the most OP, like Wildshape Ranger and Monk. Maybe something similar here is better, and presume that any player will generally pick something that's half-decent with average optimization skills?

[paladinn]

Why is there a need for a class "tier" system? It seems artificial and entirely opinion-based. And everyone's got an opinion

[Gnaeus]

I'm not really sure how to tier archetypes. 3.5 tier threads only tiered a few of the most OP, like Wildshape Ranger and Monk. Maybe something similar here is better, and presume that any player will generally pick something that's half-decent with average optimization skills?

I in general would not tier archetypes, unless they are real outliers that shift more than a tier.

[Kurald Galain]

I'm not really sure how to tier archetypes.
I'd suggest you don't, simply because dealing with all the classes is already quite a lot of work and dealing with all the archetypes is at least five times as much work. Or instead, do all the classes first, and after you have a good list of all the classes, consider if there are any archetypes that really make a huge difference (that's probably going to be fewer than you think, because almost all archetypes just aren't a big deal). $.02

(edit) and for the love of Aroden, please don't make separate listings for having one particular spell or feat (like the recent thread does). Like, no split between "druid with natural spell" and "druid without natural spell" or some such.

[exelsisxax]

Why would you even want to tier archetypes? A basic tier outline is useful due to being extremely concise and providing specific, limited information. It is a tool for a certain kind of job, and it's mostly about the environment of the game rather than usable by a GM or player for any particular purpose (except by dummies trying to break the game).

What is the point of tiering archetypes? Why would anyone want that information and how could it ever be useful?

[pabelfly]

Why is there a need for a class "tier" system? It seems artificial and entirely opinion-based. And everyone's got an opinion

Tiers and discussions about why classes are in their tiers don't change how Pathfinder (and 3.5) work as a game. It helps you understand why some classes are much more powerful than others. It's also really helpful if there's an issue with balance between characters at the table and why it might be happening.


I in general would not tier archetypes, unless they are real outliers that shift more than a tier.

Sounds pretty reasonable. I think we should go with that. I'll edit the OP to clarify this.


I'd suggest you don't, simply because dealing with all the classes is already quite a lot of work and dealing with all the archetypes is at least five times as much work. Or instead, do all the classes first, and after you have a good list of all the classes, consider if there are any archetypes that really make a huge difference (that's probably going to be fewer than you think, because almost all archetypes just aren't a big deal). $.02

(edit) and for the love of Aroden, please don't make separate listings for having one particular spell or feat (like the recent thread does). Like, no split between "druid with natural spell" and "druid without natural spell" or some such.

I think this is pretty reasonable. Tiering classes with feats is not something I'm interested in either, both for the work and the lack of use of this information, in my opinion.


Why would you even want to tier archetypes? A basic tier outline is useful due to being extremely concise and providing specific, limited information. It is a tool for a certain kind of job, and it's mostly about the environment of the game rather than usable by a GM or player for any particular purpose (except by dummies trying to break the game).

What is the point of tiering archetypes? Why would anyone want that information and how could it ever be useful?

I've edited the OP. We'll only discuss if there's an archtype that's significantly more powerful than a regular Fighter now. I think the "Child of Acavna and Amaznen" archtype might be such a case, but I'm happy to hear counter cases.

[exelsisxax]

I don't know why you think child of acavdh and amajdfj is a fighter upgrade. It loses most feats, all weapon training, the good weapon proficiency, for the worst kind of spellcasting with no upsides. Bloodrager is good because it's an entire barbarian that can eventually cast spells as a free action. child isn't even an entire fighter, the spells are paltry when it has nothing to leverage them effectively. The kinds of spells it can eventually access are those that you could instead replace through weapon training, item mastery, or just a chunk of change. Casting fly is neat. Being able to cast fly starting at 10th level, probably once per day, is lame compared to in-fighter options that include permaflight.

Hard disagree on significant tier increase.

[Serafina]

Remember what Tiers are. They are meant to measure a classes ability to contribute to problem-solving. Often, you take into account how broadly applicable a classes abilities are (e.g. being able to handle all traps is better than just rune-based traps). This includes combat, but also goes beyond combat, because there can be so many other things involved in adventuring.

Two of the examples from older Tier Rating Threads are:

Stopping a Dragon from raiding the countryside. This may involve investigation into what you are even trying to stop, then tracking down the dragon, laying an ambush or working your way through it's lair (dealing with monsters and fighting or evading minions) and only then finally fighting it or otherwise taking it out.

A high-tier caster-class can just scry, teleport, and then use all sorts of spells. Tier 1 has more flexible spell selection, T2 may be stuck with suboptimal spells.
A medium-tier (T3) class likely has applicable class abilities, maybe spells for the investigation or tracking, maybe for evading minions or traps, and can meaningfully contribute during combat.
A low-tier (T4-6 class can likely only contribute during combat.


Defending a City during a Siege. Aside from personally fighting during a siege assault, this may involve constructing fortifications, gathering information on the enemy army, convincing foreign allies to help, rallying soldiers, summoning outsiders to help, skirmishing with the enemy before or during the siege, procuring supplies, and so on.

A high-tier caster can literary do any of the above with the right spell, except maybe the Diplomacy. Their spells can also do so in ways that non-magic skills can not.
A medium-tier class can likely help in several ways, for example a Bard would be good at the Diplomacy and rallying troops, but may also have skills and abilities for scouting.
A low-tier class could once again only really participate in combat, or maybe one of the other tasks.


For Archetypes, you can consider whether the Archetype makes a class noticeably better at accomplishing a range of tasks. Only if it's really noticeable should it be considered for a tier increase.
Regarding the Child of War - the spells you get can sure provide additional capabilities, but at the levels you get them, those abilities can often be replicated reasonably easily. Consider that the Ranger does not raise about T4 due to having spells. Having e.g. Air Breathing sure is nice, but at 10th level, what are you adding to a group that already has a caster by having that, or over the ability to buy that compared to what it takes from your WBL?

And yeah, by the above Fighter is pretty much T5, or T4 if you rate Advanced Weapon Training as opening up a nice amount of additional problem solving. Which is not unreasonable, so that's fair.

[Kurald Galain]

I don't know why you think child of acavdh and amajdfj is a fighter upgrade. It loses most feats, all weapon training, the good weapon proficiency, for the worst kind of spellcasting with no upsides.
Indeed. Child of Alaznist and Arazni is probably a downgrade over straight fighter, because it loses most of what makes the fighter decent (weapon training, half their feats), and gets nothing of what makes the bloodrager good. For comparison, at level 10 a bloodrager gets rage, three good bloodline powers, higher movement, uncanny dodge, and damage reduction; where as a child gets... a middling bonus to fear saves, and has trouble casting in armor? Yeah, clearly that's not in the same ballpark.

[Gnaeus]

I don't know why you think child of acavdh and amajdfj is a fighter upgrade. It loses most feats, all weapon training, the good weapon proficiency, for the worst kind of spellcasting with no upsides. Bloodrager is good because it's an entire barbarian that can eventually cast spells as a free action. child isn't even an entire fighter, the spells are paltry when it has nothing to leverage them effectively. The kinds of spells it can eventually access are those that you could instead replace through weapon training, item mastery, or just a chunk of change. Casting fly is neat. Being able to cast fly starting at 10th level, probably once per day, is lame compared to in-fighter options that include permaflight.

Hard disagree on significant tier increase.

I will agree it isn't a significant tier increase.

What you get are basically the default benefits of having a spell list and being a caster. Casting Monstrous Physique 2 at 15 isn't helpful. But using a wand of it at 10 might be. Still, it's worse than similar comparable classes, and even more highly gear dependent than it was before. I suppose it could craft items, but that seems desperate given how many feats behind it already is.

[pabelfly]

So far, it seems like everyone agrees that there aren't any Fighter variants that are significantly stronger that they deserve separate tiering.

Kurald Galain, Serafina, Maat Mons – 4
Gnaeus – 4.5

Fighter total - 4.13

If I've missed any votes, let me know.

[Maat Mons]

Personally, I feel the best Fighter archetypes are solidly Tier 4. I'm not sure about the worst Fighter archetypes. For simplicity, I'd probably just put Fighter as a whole in Tier 4. Even supposing some of the archetypes do merit Tier 5 status, I'm inclined to rank classes based on what they can achieve if built and played well, not how poorly they might perform if completely messed up.

[Raven777]

Gut feeling for me is that Fighter is the archetypal Tier 4, and to paraphrase someone else higher up the thread, if it contributes less than Fighter, it's Tier 5.

[AnonymousPepper]

Yeah, Pathfinder Fighter's just a blatant tier 4. Much better than its 3rd ed incarnation, largely thanks to some of the excellent options available through Weapon Training (that is, a feature so good that it's nearly a tier-booster on its own in several other classes' archetypes that grant it) and some solid archetype, trait, and feat support heaped on it. Fighter was very much the writers' favorite in much the same way that Desna was, and one can really tell; you don't have to pick and choose all that well to stay out of tier 5, trap options or not.

There are many haters of Fighters (I definitely am one when it comes to 3.5e), but when it comes to PF1's implementation? I am not one. It's a very good tier 4, in the middle or the upper part of the T4 pack; it's not just the dividing line between 4 and 5 any more.

[GreatWyrmGold]

Why is there a need for a class "tier" system? It seems artificial and entirely opinion-based. And everyone's got an opinion
I don't understand the question. Tiers are a straightforward, well-recognized way to express those opinions. That is, in and of itself, useful.


I'm not sure that it's useful to apply tiers to archetypes unless you have a strong opinion about a given archetype. If you feel one archetype is either impressively strong (granting powerful or versatile problem-solving abilities without compromising the ones the class already had) or impressively weak (costing an important ability without giving much in return), sure, rank it. But don't rank every archetype, because most don't have that much of an effect. Even the most dedicated completionist would burn out before finishing the core classes.

[Darvin]

I would argue that Fighter is a high tier 4 with full Pathfinder content. Item Mastery and Conduit feats mean you can get a lot of spell-like abilities if you have the feats to burn, and the Fighter most certainly does. Advanced Weapon Training is a killer class feature, and the biggest standout is the ability to spontaneously add weapon properties which can be very useful. And it's any weapon property, so feel free to go book diving for an obscure one. And they're pretty easy to build; it's not hard to create a devastating Fighter that can dominate combat encounters.

Child of Acavna and Amaznen is pretty bad, you're giving up all the cool class features of the Fighter in order to get spellcasting that really isn't any better than those spell-like abilities you could have gotten by just taking feats. At that point, why even be a Fighter at all? This is one of the places I disagree with the paradigm of the 3.5 tiering system, it overrates things like Child of Acavna and Amaznen. The archetype technically does get spellcasting but is really just a bad martial strapped to a bad spellcaster that has to give up its swift action economy for the privilege. Technically it does have problem-solving tools in the form of 4-level casting... by why would you ever pick it?

[Kurald Galain]

Well, it's been a week... time for the next class maybe? :smallsmile:

[pabelfly]

Well, it's been a week... time for the next class maybe? :smallsmile:

Yeah, I'll get it ready later today my time.

[Bucky]

I've been staying out of the discussion because all my Fighter play happened before Advanced Weapon Training, but it's my opinion that Fighter can tier 4 without it.

Even with Path of War enabled and inflating mundane power, putting Fighter bonus feats into PoW feats lets it not fall too far behind the initiators - it effectively becomes a half-initiator as a class feature on top of its normal class features.

[pabelfly]

Okay, a new thread is up for both versions of Rogue: https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?649952-Tiering-the-Pathfinder-Classes-Rogue-(Core)-and-Rogue-(Unchained)&p=25588366#post25588366.

After this I'll do Wizard and Cleric, finish off the Core classes and their Unchained versions, and then go through the various books from there. If anyone else wants to add their vote to Fighter, I'll still keep updating the thread votes.



Votes:

Kurald Galain, Serafina, Maat Mons, Raven777, AnonymousPepper, Darvin, Bucky – 4
Gnaeus – 4.5

Fighter Tiering (average) - 4.06