The Tier Spectrum

[Godskook]

Ok, I've heard it mentioned that wizard is tier 1 and fighter is tier 5, but at ECL 1, that's not exactly true.

So my question is, if you had to decide tiers for base classes at more than one point, what'd you put them at? Use the same values as Jaronk did in his list. When would the first class hit tier 1? When does the list stabilize to what we've come to know in Jaronk's version?

The 'notable' levels should be 1,6,10,14,18, or any even level in between. After L18, classes have pretty much 'matured', and at odd levels, you have that weird disparity between casters, and other class abilities that only happen at odd or even levels(Such as a fighter's bonus feat versus the rogue's SA dice).

[Sinfire Titan]

In order of sheer power at 1st level:

Druid
Wizard
Other Full Casters
Erudite
Psionic mainifesters
Artificer
Warblade/Swordsage/Crusader
Warlock
Bard


After that, everyone not mentioned in Tier 1 tappers off until they hit their appropriate tiers.


Explanation

Druid

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Two class features that matter. The Animal Companion alone is another fighter, and your buff spells/BC stuff is decent at this level.

Wizard

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Color Spray, Sleep, and Precocious Apprentice for Pyrotechnics. Still game breaking, even if it is squishy.

Other Full Casters (sans Healer and Warmage)

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Clerics and FS have trouble, but there's a few good Buffs out there that take care of this. Archivist still has class features that matter, and everyone can do something. Dread Necromancer is arguably best in this area thanks to free healing, but the Cleric can get a limited version.

Erudite

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Only because Spell-to-Power can't kick in here. Still has more powers known than the Psion, but just barely.

Psionic mainifesters

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All of them are decent at this level.

Artificer

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If he has time to craft and can make alchemical items, he's good.

Warblade/Swordsage/Crusader

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Because they rock this level.

Warlock

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Unlimited Firepower. All they are is a walking Spam Button here.

Bard

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The limited spell access is overcome by Precocious Apprentice. That gives them a decent weapon of choice.

[Tinydwarfman]

The tier list considers levels 6-15 foremost, followed by 1-6 and 15-20. By level 6 the tier system is probably 90% correct.

And yeah, Sleep and Color Spray just end encounters on their own.

[RagnaroksChosen]

Other Full Casters (sans Healer and Warmage)

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Clerics and FS have trouble, but there's a few good Buffs out there that take care of this. Archivist still has class features that matter, and everyone can do something. Dread Necromancer is arguably best in this area thanks to free healing, but the Cleric can get a limited version.

I'd have to slightly disagree. I think that a warmage at level 1 can pritty much end encounters as well. Burning hands at first level with warmages edge can end encounters the same way color spray can.
I know warmage is underpowered. But i belive at lower levels it does just fine. till you hit about 8+ IMO

[Scorpions__]

Truenamer, Soulknife, and Samurai are the best at all levels, they're just keeping it a secret.






DM[F]R

[JaronK]

Ok, I've heard it mentioned that wizard is tier 1 and fighter is tier 5, but at ECL 1, that's not exactly true.

So my question is, if you had to decide tiers for base classes at more than one point, what'd you put them at? Use the same values as Jaronk did in his list. When would the first class hit tier 1? When does the list stabilize to what we've come to know in Jaronk's version?

For what it's worth, I considered 6-15 to be most relevant. At the lowest levels the differences are much less noticeable (a Wizard can destroy encounters with Color Spray or triple his starting WBL with Magecraft and time, while a Druid can dish it out with just his pet doggie, but a solid Fighter can smash up encounters too at the very least). Plus, everyone's so fragile at low levels that it just doesn't matter much. Also, other differences like starting race and starting stats matter a lot at the lowest levels.

By level 3 a Wizard can already do game breaking stuff (Summon Mirror Mephit) and horribly overpowered stuff (Alter Self). A Sorcerer is right behind him, getting such abilities by level 4. But it's really around level 5-6 where the high power tiers really take off (except the Druid, who's been rocking it since level 1).

JaronK

[Frosty]

In order of sheer power at 1st level:

Druid
Wizard
Other Full Casters
Erudite
Psionic mainifesters
Artificer
Warblade/Swordsage/Crusader
Warlock
Bard

Isb't there like between 30 and 40 base classes? Care to analyze those as well? For example, how does Truenaming and Dragon Shaman hold up at level 1?

[arguskos]

Isb't there like between 30 and 40 base classes? Care to analyze those as well? For example, how does Truenaming and Dragon Shaman hold up at level 1?

Truenamers and Dragon Shaman both hold up pretty bad at level 1. The former is better, but is swingy, since the checks get crazy hard really fast, and the latter is a dude with "meh" auras and no other class features of relevance. I mean, you COULD make a good Dragon Shaman at level 1, but it'd be rough, to say the least.

It'd probably be wise to check out the Arena for details on level 1 characters though, they've been doing level 1 combats for a good while now, and probably have a better grasp of it than most.

[JoshuaZ]

Sinfire, I'm not sure I agree with your placement of the psionic classes. A wilder at level 1 is substantially weaker than a psion.

[Godskook]

In order of sheer power at 1st level:

Druid
Wizard
Other Full Casters
Erudite
Psionic mainifesters
Artificer
Warblade/Swordsage/Crusader
Warlock
Bard

I'm confused by the lack of mentioning of Barbarian, and why Wizard is listed second, when a d4 HD is most fragile at L1 when con bonus hasn't had enough time to help yet.

[The Rabbler]

as godskook mentioned, why isn't the barbarian on this list? get lion's totem barbarian level 1 with some flaws and the right feat choices and you can get pretty close to an ubercharger.

[Endarire]

I've seen physical characters (especially melee) destroy level 1 fights. Meanwhile, my Wizard stands in back, occasionally shooting his (cross)bow and saving his strength for when things get hard.

A Warblade1 with Punishing Stance, Sapphire Nightmare Blade, and a greatsword can do 4d6 (!) every other round and 3d6 every other round. With Power Attack and Cleave, the damage just ramps up. And there's the 1.5x the STR bonus (which can easily be +6 or higher) per hit. Things die.

Things change as the game goes on, but a first level melee man can be awesomely lethal.

[GoodbyeSoberDay]

Holding back shenanigans, a Beguiler is almost strictly superior to a Wizard at level 1. In fact, I consider the Beguiler to be the second best level 1 character, right behind Druid.

Martial adepts also excel at first level, perhaps even more than most full casters. My first level party of choice would be Druid, Beguiler, Crusader, DFA.

[Frosty]

My first level party of choice would be Druid, Beguiler, Crusader, DFA.

Wouldn't this be a rock-solid party at virtually all levels anyways?

[taltamir]

colorspray and sleep might end an encounter... but it is highly unlikely... enemies are not bunched together enough (unless you happened to walk in on them having a... um... group hug or maybe something else), there are too few castings of those, and the save means that it only works half the time... with multiple weak enemies that is a problem. (aka, 5 goblins/gnolls). of course, putting several of the enemy force out of comission is nothing to scoff at... but a level 1 sleep spell cast on a single goblin has an equal chance of taking him out as a bow does... only the bow has much longer range and more ammo. If you get lucky and can hit multiple enemies with one of those spells though...
but your wizard makes an excellent bowman though. 1d10 damage and the 0 bab vs 1 bab is no big deal.

As for the warlocks "all day" stuff... its only 1d6 damage. Longbow and crossbow both outdamage it and are practically all day as well (you will not run out of arrows even at level 1 WBL) and meleers get AoOs and two handed str damage bonus (assuming the warlock has 18 dex and guys with reach weapons have 18 str).
Granted it is a ranged touch attack vs regular attack, but against the things you are facing at level 1 that isn't much of a difference and balanced by their lower to hit. (most enemies at level 1 most likely don't have armor/nat armor). At level 3 it becomes a nicer attack as its now 2d6 and opponents are more much more likely to have meaningful armor which your touch attack bypasses.

you are certainly contributing to the party, but its not as awesome as you make it sound...

the druid having an animal companion though, that is just pure win for the druid.

Level 1 is pretty much rocket tag, and everyone should be carrying a bow/crossbow. (the rocket)

bottom line is, level 1 leaves very little room for optimization, its mostly about your tactics at that level. (ranged weapons are awesome at level 1, for everyone! and don't forget the cheap consumables)
Although the druid is somewhat of an exception because the animal companion lets it double up its actions per round.

PS. precocious apprentice shenanigans are just cheap cheese and unlikely to be allowed. A full caster could always go crazy and chain gate solars or go pun pun. But we are talking realistic gaming here. In realistic gaming level 1 druid is king... the rest is just tactics and with the classes not really mattering much at all yet.

[ryzouken]

For what it's worth, a Dragonfire Adept at lv 1 is crazysauce. Entangling Exhalation just kills entire rooms of baddies and it works all day. Coupled with the potential for free magic item identification (Draconic invocation), you've got a character that can AoE control/DoT and provides incredible fiscal savings that straight casters don't often get until much later.

Last time I ran one I immediately took center stage in the party.

[GoodbyeSoberDay]

Wouldn't this be a rock-solid party at virtually all levels anyways?

It would be a solid party at all levels (partly why I like the combination), but in terms of power at later levels you might as well have something like Wizard/Druid/Archivist/Artificer (or really, any T1/T1/T1/T1).

[taltamir]

I'm confused by the lack of mentioning of Barbarian, and why Wizard is listed second, when a d4 HD is most fragile at L1 when con bonus hasn't had enough time to help yet.

assuming a healthy 16 con for both barbarian and wizard. thats 15HP for barb and 7HP for wizard at level 1... neither will be outright killed (-10) by a single (level appropriate) blow. A barb is likely to take more blows to go into the negatives, and is very likely to survive a single hit, but you shouldn't be getting hit.

Never bring a knife to a gun fight applies here. At level 1 tactics are paramount and ranged weapons are amazing. (although tripping and AoO from reach are always nice; so a fighter/barb can melee at level 1... it really depends on what kind of enemies you face and what your group tactics are)

[GoodbyeSoberDay]

assuming a healthy 16 con for both barbarian and wizard. thats 15HP for barb and 7HP for wizard at level 1... neither will be outright killed (-10) by a single (level appropriate) blow. A barb is likely to take more blows to go into the negatives, and is very likely to survive a single hit, but you shouldn't be getting hit.

Never bring a knife to a gun fight applies here. At level 1 tactics are paramount and ranged weapons are amazing. (although tripping and AoO from reach are always nice; so a fighter/barb can melee at level 1... it really depends on what kind of enemies you face and what your group tactics are)

YMMV. If you're in the sewers or another dungeon-like environment, ranged weapons are still useful, but everything will be in melee range quickly enough.

[Draz74]

I vote Incarnate for the most powerful Level 1 class, except maybe Druid. 2d6 (or 3d6, if you ultra-specialize) acid damage at will as a ranged touch attack is just amazingly brutal at a level when all monsters have crappy Touch AC and most have less than 8 HP. And then it can even do other things, too.

For what it's worth, a Dragonfire Adept at lv 1 is crazysauce. Entangling Exhalation just kills entire rooms of baddies and it works all day.

Nah. Dragonfire Adept is strong at Level 1, but not ridiculous. 1d6 damage, save for half isn't "killing entire rooms of baddies," even in a 15-foot cone (which, really, is just 8 squares).

And tacking on Entangling Exhalation halves the damage. The debuff is awesome at Level 1 ... when it works. If you roll a 1-3 on your d6 damage roll, and your opponent makes its save, that's 1/4-damage ... which, rounded down, is zero damage. Which doesn't even trigger Entangling. (And if you have the free Identify invocation, you have to watch out for friendly fire, too.)

At will save-or-suck with a 50% chance of working even if the target saves ... yeah, strong. But not that amazing.

[Optimator]

The things that the tier systems measures aren't just combat fragility. The options the high-tiered classes have are just as relevant at low levels IMO.

[Sinfire Titan]

Isb't there like between 30 and 40 base classes? Care to analyze those as well? For example, how does Truenaming and Dragon Shaman hold up at level 1?

Not really. I only mentioned the Tier 4s and up because those ones have the most abilities to work with. Having options usually means you will survive to 2nd level.

Sinfire, I'm not sure I agree with your placement of the psionic classes. A wilder at level 1 is substantially weaker than a psion.

In all technicallity, the best manifester at 1st level (short of the Erudite) is the Ardent (good HP, armor profs, and a large number of powers to choose from). Psion and Wilder are close enough in power to a PsiWar at that level that ranking them separately implies they have an advantage. Really, Astral Construct just isn't good at 1st level (the reason I didn't put Psion ahead), and the Wilder doesn't get access to that power before 3rd level. However, the Wilder's Wild Surge is significantly more powerful than Overchannel at this level, meaning a well-optimized Wilder will have an easier time at 1st level than a Psion will (not that the Psion can't make do, he's just going to wear himself out and have to resort to the Crossbow sooner than the Wilder will because Wild Surge is free).

as godskook mentioned, why isn't the barbarian on this list? get lion's totem barbarian level 1 with some flaws and the right feat choices and you can get pretty close to an ubercharger.

Because Rage 1/day doesn't get you through 4 encounters/day, and Pounce is irrelevant unless you also have TWFing? And no charger build will waste feats on TWFing at this level, especially considering there is no guarantee he will make it.


Besides, did you see what I said about the Wizard? Pyrotechnics at 1st level>Rage.

I vote Incarnate for the most powerful Level 1 class, except maybe Druid. 2d6 (or 3d6, if you ultra-specialize) acid damage at will as a ranged touch attack is just amazingly brutal at a level when all monsters have crappy Touch AC and most have less than 8 HP. And then it can even do other things, too.

Bah, shame on me for forgetting that! Incarnates have the same advantage a DFA has at this level (Con-focus).

As for the warlocks "all day" stuff... its only 1d6 damage. Longbow and crossbow both outdamage it and are practically all day as well (you will not run out of arrows even at level 1 WBL) and meleers get AoOs and two handed str damage bonus (assuming the warlock has 18 dex and guys with reach weapons have 18 str).
Granted it is a ranged touch attack vs regular attack, but against the things you are facing at level 1 that isn't much of a difference and balanced by their lower to hit. (most enemies at level 1 most likely don't have armor/nat armor). At level 3 it becomes a nicer attack as its now 2d6 and opponents are more much more likely to have meaningful armor which your touch attack bypasses.

I meant the other Invocations. IIRC, both the Darkness one and the Spider Climb one at Least, so those are huge advatnages (especially when DotU is involved).

Level 1 is pretty much rocket tag, and everyone should be carrying a bow/crossbow. (the rocket)

Agreed. Level 1 play is much different from, say, Level 4 or Level 9. At 1st, you absolutely cannot afford to go last on the Init if you want to take actions that round. Trying to rank the classes at this level is a fool's errand, as the d20 determines if you get to 2nd or not.


1st level is horrid. 15th+ is broken. 2nd-5th is Psuedotag, and 6th-14th is where the classes actually matter. 15th+ with Tiers 3s and 4s, however, is relatively balanced if you use MM4 and MM5.

[term1nally s1ck]

I vote Incarnate for the most powerful Level 1 class, except maybe Druid. 2d6 (or 3d6, if you ultra-specialize) acid damage at will as a ranged touch attack is just amazingly brutal at a level when all monsters have crappy Touch AC and most have less than 8 HP. And then it can even do other things, too.



Nah. Dragonfire Adept is strong at Level 1, but not ridiculous. 1d6 damage, save for half isn't "killing entire rooms of baddies," even in a 15-foot cone (which, really, is just 8 squares).

And tacking on Entangling Exhalation halves the damage. The debuff is awesome at Level 1 ... when it works. If you roll a 1-3 on your d6 damage roll, and your opponent makes its save, that's 1/4-damage ... which, rounded down, is zero damage. Which doesn't even trigger Entangling. (And if you have the free Identify invocation, you have to watch out for friendly fire, too.)

At will save-or-suck with a 50% chance of working even if the target saves ... yeah, strong. But not that amazing.

1st: Minimum damage of 1. It's basically a no-save entangle.

2nd, if you entangle (which you do), they don't get a save for the ongoing damage, and that's an average of a fair bit more than your base breath damage anyway.

[Ernir]

I think those who say the tier system is (much) less applicable at low levels are kind of missing the versatility aspect of it. That's what is really separating the high tiers from the low. Almost everyone can have an encounter-killing trick. But not everyone can do stuff aside from that one trick.

A Fighter or Barbarian can, at level 1, charge and ****ing kill things with a greatsword. No one doubts that.
A Wizard, too, can kill things with a Sleep + CdG or what-have-you.

The difference is that even at level 1, the Fighter or Barbarian has 1 way to kill things, namely hitting it with their sword.
The Wizard has 3 + Int modifier ways to kill things.

At first level, the difference isn't very obvious because the greatsword method still works against pretty much everything, and kills things just as dead as anything a spell can do (maybe even with less chance of failure!). But the fundamental difference is still there.

[Frosty]

Holding back shenanigans, a Beguiler is almost strictly superior to a Wizard at level 1.

I doubt that. In most situations...probably...but with the limited spell-list the beguiler has access to, I'm sure there are some situations in which the wizard will have the right answer and the beguiler not.

[Eldariel]

I doubt that. In most situations...probably...but with the limited spell-list the beguiler has access to, I'm sure there are some situations in which the wizard will have the right answer and the beguiler not.

Key advantages level 1 Wizard has over Beguiler:
- Abrupt Jaunt
- Ray of Enfeeblement
- Enlarge Person
- Grease
- Nerveskitter (though unlike to be of actual use on level 1)
- Ability to build up to 2d6-3d6 Fiery Burst-reserve if desired

Among others. Wizards' versatility is pretty scary at this point even if they can't prepare that many different spells. E.g. Color Spray, Grease, Enlarge Person, Sleep is a fine setup. Abrupt Jaunt makes them defensively the best class at this point.

And it's worth noting that in a tagteam with any MWPd characters with Improved Trip, Wizards have some of the very few tools (Enlarge+Ray of Enfeeblement) that enable taking down brawlers of CRs 5 and up (the point where Color Spray and Sleep become inconveniently weak).

[JaronK]

The things that the tier systems measures aren't just combat fragility. The options the high-tiered classes have are just as relevant at low levels IMO.

Indeed. It's as much about how a level 1 Wizard can use Magecraft to craft his gear at 1/3 cost before the adventure begins or at level 3 use Alter Self to burrow (Earth Mephling) or fly (Air Mephling) around obstacles as it is his ability to launch Color Sprays at encounters. Combat is not everything. It's a big thing, but it's not everything.

JaronK

[TheMadLinguist]

Dread necromancers are pretty good at first level. Partially because their unlimited self healing makes them a nice alternative to trapfinding.

Heighten + versatile spellcaster gives them a few really nice options as well, though it's a bit abusive.