Why each class is in its tier: 2019 update!

[eggynack]

Then why separate into distinct "Tiers" at all? Like I shared in the definition of "tier", that means "layers or levels". The tiers in amphitheater seating, for example, are all the same height. What makes all those classes "the same Tier"?

I get that you just wanted a ranking system. And your system is, perhaps better at showcasing relative power level between classes, and how close some classes are respective to each other.

But the distinction of "Tier" is 100% meaningless.

Most tier systems don't have these super special definitions for each tier so that everything can be slotted in based on its adherence to said definition. They're just, y'know, an ordered list with some dividing lines in places that feel right. Hell, a lot of tier lists, far from placing rules on what a game object must be like to reach a tier, are highly fluid, allowing classes to shift up and down over time. Look at fighting game tier lists or the Pokemon tier list, or the tier list for most games, actually. Here's the Hearthstone Arena tier list for a random example. The list could have theoretically just been the numbers on their own, but they have little categories at the top that're like, "This means average." JaronK's list is pretty unusual from what I've seen. A main reason for that being that most games don't have power level strongly associated with some weird unifying characteristics. What I have is honestly more typical.

Tiers are convenient. I can say, "This class is tier four," and that will transmit information to you. Weaker than a bard, stronger than a monk. I guess we could always just list the exact number, but that's a bit harder to utilize. You basically have to check back every time, and we're leveraging our foundational knowledge of tiers to build the thing anyway. But, if it's a choice between showcasing relative power and making the notion of "tier" all neat and meaningful, it's the former every time.

And JaronK's system provides descriptions that are general enough that the classes don't really have a problem of "breaking the definitions" or "break list's capacity to do what it was designed to do". Especially not the second one, because the ONLY THING the list was designed to do is rank the classes by virtue only of what the mechanics of those classes permit in terms of power and versatility.

Classes break the definitions with reasonable frequency. It's those arguments that necessitated this less wonky structure. The beguiler and dread necro are classic examples. They are stronger than sorcerers, the prototypical tier two class, roughly half the time, so any reasonable tier system should put them at tier two. Except they don't really meet the definition of tier two. They don't exactly get "nukes", with beguilers only getting time stop (and maybe ice assassin) for high end 9th's and dread necros getting nothing. The classes are very much not capable of anything, being fixed list casters off of a limited list, and neither do they have the issue that no one build can get all their power. The tier is defined by reduced versatility relative to tier one, sometimes even relative to tier three, but as much power as the former and as versatile as the latter. And that's not a beguiler or a dread necro.

So, yeah, definition broken. Or consider the spirit shaman, where the weird definitions inexplicably cause people to place the class anywhere from tier one to three. Like, some people individually contend the class might deserve a spot in any of those tiers. That shouldn't happen. And that's all to say nothing of the system's flexibility as regards new information. People like homebrew, and homebrew is capable of fitting these weird definitions even less.

That some people misunderstand the purpose and get into Tier arguments about classes being strictly "better" or "not even worth playing" has nothing to do with what the list was "designed to do".

I have no idea how you came to the conclusion that this is what I'm talking about. I'm talking specifically about people coming to wrong conclusions about where things are tiered, and creating bad power rankings. I don't especially care which classes are more fun or worth playing or whatever for this, and those ideas don't match the arguments I'm talking about.

If a system (any system) only fails when it is misused by people who don't understand it, how is that a fair indictment of the system itself? Especially when it DOES do what it WAS designed to do. Jeez, that sounds a lot like an alignment thread argument.

The people I'm talking about aren't misusing it. Not exactly. If someone says, "Yeah, a beguiler is as strong as any tier two, but I have to rank it three because it matches that definition better," they are lining up just fine with the tier list as written. Most of it, anyway. They're decidedly failing to line up with the part that's like, "High tier classes are stronger," but I'm failing to line up with the definitions when I operate the inverse way. The tier system is internally contradictory. It's kinda annoying.

Doesn't seem to me that the Tiers are exclusive to level 20 evaluation. A lot of Tier 1 classes are capable of doing almost anything by mid levels (7+). Let's not forget how many games never go to high levels, and all the level 1 Wizards that are frail, helpless glass cannons (or glass pea shooters in some cases), that are quite dependent on their allies to get through combat and noncombat encounters.

You'd think that, but the way the system as written implies otherwise. The tier one definition explicitly says that the class must have world changing powers at high levels, and then the tier two definition has nukes as a requirement. What's a nuke? Is glitterdust a "nuke"? It doesn't really feel right, and the natural conclusion is that it's referring to stuff like shapechange. Which, pretty high level. Both tiers are written in a very high level and high power way. I've seen more than a few people think that all evaluation must occur at 20, and the text is there to support the idea.

Re-read the into to JaronK's post again sometime. Most of what the intent of it boils down to is a tool for DMs. Whether for having an approximation of what the party members are capable of, for determining where some leeway in what may be allowed might shore up a weaker character, as opposed to boosting an already strong one, or for figuring how house rules could be applied in a balanced manner, or for figuring out how to model new, homebrewed material, based on what classes the homebrew is similar to in the creator's mind. The only mention of players is for when one is joining an existing group, and what level of power and versatility would be a "good fit" without being a spotlight hog or an albatross.

I've read it plenty. All these goals are served by ranking specifically in terms of power level.

Your last sentence there is entirely opinion, but you and I have different outlooks on the matter.

I don't think it is, honestly. The system is there to gauge the power level of classes. Whether you're using that information to decide who to give power to, or what classes should be allowed in the party, or to decide which class you want to pick, or whatever, power level is the important information. These definitions mean you're not getting information that's as accurate. Some of the info will be accurate, certainly, maybe even most of it, but these definitions can and do produce these problems.

But I'm wondering if you didn't just call it that to call attention to it, so all those people who are interested in things like how classes are ranked, and already know (or already argue about) the Tier System will click on it, thinking it's relatable to something they already have an idea about. In that sense, it's a form of click-bait. And it certainly invites this exact kind of argument from someone who may have expected...you know...TIERS. And perhaps you did that FOR all those people who wanted JaronK's Tier System to be something other than what it was. But they didn't really understand that, and I don't understand catering to a misunderstanding and changing a system to make their misunderstanding "correct", instead of just helping them understand why their assumptions were incorrect.

I did so for a number of reasons. For one thing, the original tiers are useful for, well, tiering. If I hand you a bard and I'm like, "Rank this on a scale of 1-100," then you'll randomly guess 68 and move on to the next class. You could do it in repeated rounds, each such round better clarifying the relative relationship between the classes, but that's pretty arduous and maybe still inaccurate. If instead I'm like, "Rank the bard using the original 1-6 scale, where the most agreed upon classes are placed in their tiers to start things off," then you can give a well informed number right away. Second, inversely, the basic tiers are indeed relatable to something people already know about. Not as clickbait but as ideas that can serve as the foundation for new ideas. You know what a tier two is, power-wise. Well, dread necromancers are tier two. Now you know some power level information without my needing to put in all that much effort.

Third, this very much is a direct modification of the original, whether you see it that way or not. That's what the project is. What it was meant to be. The original tier system has problems, so we're trying to fix them. The two main problems are a simple lack of game understanding at the time and the odd way the system is written. In point of fact, this system was built near the end of a different community tiering project because of some serious flaws in how that one functioned. One of the flaws was the way voting was handled, but another was that we kept having these arguments about how to read the tier list, whether these rules should function prescriptively, what various aspects of those rules mean. I was actually gonna stick to the original structure, but then Cosi was like, "Nah, we need to fix these essential problems that the community tiering project identified," and I was like, "True."

Fourth and finally, I think you're ignoring how much this tier system borrows from the original simply by dint of having the more obvious classes in the same places and judging things along those lines. Tier one means something, and so does the gap between tier one and tier two, even if the things they mean aren't all about game breaking nukes or whatever. The tiers aren't simply quantitative, even with more fluid numbers. They're qualitative. The power curve from tier one to tier six is weird. Not remotely linear. A lot of those core tier system assumptions are thus baked into the new system. And the qualitative nature of these differences isn't erased simply because we use decimal points.

I have kind of a fixed idea of what I expect from certain things. And as much as I cop to being Lawful Neutral, I mean that in a lot of the negative associations, too. This thing you have made...I am by no means saying it is "without value". But it it NOT a "Tier System" in any kind of meaningful way. It might as well be 50+ different "Tiers", each with only one or two classes (those that scored the exact same), because it's just ranking them all individually. Or just...not call it a Tier System

As I note above, this is what the vast majority of tier systems are. Hell, a lot of them actually get their information in this exact way, with community members voting on placement every so often. Sometimes you might have something about tournament results, but not always, and that's not especially possible here.

So what makes Mystic Ranger belong in a category with Death Master, with a 0.89 difference between them?

Why is the 0.11 difference not distinct between Death Master and Generic Spellcaster, but it somehow "is distinct" between Mystic Ranger and Wilder?

And if your answer is that "it's not", then I ask "why have them in 'tiers' at all?"

I think this is a necessary issue with basically any tier system, no matter its quality. Not every game has these huge and obvious gaps everywhere. Lots have relatively smooth power curves, or at least a decent number of classes in the gaps. If that's the case then you're going to have some bigger differences within tiers than between them. That said, as I noted, the curve we use is not smooth. Thus, .11 doesn't mean the same thing everywhere. Hard to say what exact implications that has here, but it's worth keeping in mind.

[Gnaeus]

I've read it plenty. All these goals are served by ranking specifically in terms of power level..

I would add, to eggynack’s excellent defense of the project, that I was involved in a lot of those original JaronK discussions and they were subjective as heck. Beguiler and rogue were bitterly debated, among others. And the debates always focused on trivial stuff like nukes. And when we were done arguing “what does equivalent optimization mean” JaronK would just decide. And JaronK, for all that I respect him and his work, had as many biases as anyone else. For example, beguiler was tier 3 because in part he had never seen a beguiler in play that wasn’t a shadowcraft gnome. Everything has problems, and I certainly don’t always agree with the community. But this evaluation is better.

[NigelWalmsley]

It amuses me somewhat that RedMage has now descended to asserting that only what JaronK did counts as a Tier System, when in fact every other context in which there are Tier Systems (e.g. Fighting Games) presents them as simple lists of "how powerful is this" with no particular concern for fundamental meaning beyond that. Maybe the outlier is the thing that is wrong? Maybe the way the term is used in every other context is a more accurate understanding of its meaning than this one guy's use of it?

And because all possible level of player performance/skill and all possible combinations of builds are impossible to account for, it means the only fair thing to be able to judge is the classes themselves, and assume all other factors are equal.

Then how are we arriving at an approximation of the value of the Wizard's "Spells" class feature? There are as many possible combinations of Wizard spell selections as there are of Warblade builds (or at least, they're both well beyond the point where we can rank them individually). Yet we're able to reach the conclusion that the Wizard's "Spells" class feature makes him quite effective. Because we approximate an expected average value of what you get out of it.

A good player playing a bad build of a low-tier class is more like 15 + -10 + 5. He's not going to be completely useless, but build and class options are going to limit and hamper him. But you put that same build and class in the hands of an inexperienced player, and the character's group contribution is going to be demonstrably worse than it was in the hands of the good player.

You understand how that's not "Player > Build > Class", right? If "Player > Build > Class", we'd expect "Player" to be the dominant factor, regardless of "Build" or "Class". And yet here you are admitting that "Build" and "Class" can have a significant effect. Your argument is essentially that you are pretty sure "Build" and "Class" will always be smaller than "Player", but that is quite obviously not true.

Point Blank: Are you claiming the list of Fighter Bonus feats are equivalent in power to the Wizard spell list?

I'm saying that if you assert that the Fighter's selectable options are inherently worse than the fixed options of other classes because they are selectable (which is what you seem to be asserting), you must make the same claim about the Wizard's spells. Which would imply that the Wizard is T6 (if you assume "selectable" means "must be ignored during tiering") or at least "worse than the fixed-list casters". I'm not making a claim about the relative power of the Wizard and the Fighter at all. I'm making a claim that if the principles you are applying to the Fighter are the ones we apply in general, the Wizard is mistiered.

Those are all subjective and dependent on factors that are too subjective to possibly account for.

Then why are you claiming that a ranking that relies on them is objective? If you want to make the argument that class balance requires us to consider too broad a range of factors to arrive at universal answers, that's fine. But that is, fundamentally, a concession that no ranking of classes can be objective. And maybe that's fine. Not everything needs to be objective. A ranking of the "best burrito places" is not objective. But that doesn't mean it isn't useful for choosing where to have lunch.

What makes that range distinct from the range right below it? What makes a "low Tier 3" still "Tier3" while a "high Tier 4" is still Tier 4?

The fact that one's ranking rounds to 3 and the other rounds to 4? Look at the article I cited. What makes the guy with a WAR of 4.1 definitely a "All-Star" and the guy with a WAR of 3.9 definitely a "Good player"? Nothing in particular, but the ability to have something that means "WAR in this range" is useful even if it doesn't mean something fundamentally different from a slightly lower or higher WAR in a different range. It sounds increasingly like you don't want a tier list.

Lolwut? What "term of art"?

That would be "Tier System".

The first thing that comes to mind with the word "tier" (for me at least), is architecture. A building like the Aztec/Inca pyramids. Tiered structures. Composed of several distinct levels atop one another.

... do you not know what the phrase "Term of Art" means? It means that the phase has a distinct meaning that is not the literal compound meaning of the constituent words. For example, "Tier System" (or I've been saying "Tier List" for clarity as a distinction from what JaronK did) means "ranking according to power" not "rows of seats in a football stadium".

For example, beguiler was tier 3 because in part he had never seen a beguiler in play that wasn’t a shadowcraft gnome. Everything has problems, and I certainly don’t always agree with the community. But this evaluation is better.

Wat? And people take this ranking seriously? How are we even having an argument if that's what JaronK's rankings are? Who believes "one guy's subjective list" is better than "the averaged opinions of the community"? We know that the latter is a better mechanism for approximation (as in, they've literally tested it scientifically).

[Gnaeus]

Wat? And people take this ranking seriously? How are we even having an argument if that's what JaronK's rankings are? Who believes "one guy's subjective list" is better than "the averaged opinions of the community"? We know that the latter is a better mechanism for approximation (as in, they've literally tested it scientifically).

JaronK is pretty smart. And his list is pretty good. You will see that the group rankings overall match his pretty well. And it gets support just for being a dozen years old and adequately explaining 3.5 class imbalance. And I won’t lie, there are a couple of places where I think he was right and community is wrong. But I have my biases too and some of them were shaped by those original discussions. For example, I am somewhat in between JaronK and community in terms of what default gear we should expect a class to have (community seems to assume pretty magic martish, JaronK assumed close to naked.)

[RedMage125]

Most tier systems don't have these super special definitions for each tier so that everything can be slotted in based on its adherence to said definition. They're just, y'know, an ordered list with some dividing lines in places that feel right. Hell, a lot of tier lists, far from placing rules on what a game object must be like to reach a tier, are highly fluid, allowing classes to shift up and down over time. Look at fighting game tier lists or the Pokemon tier list, or the tier list for most games, actually. Here's the Hearthstone Arena tier list for a random example. The list could have theoretically just been the numbers on their own, but they have little categories at the top that're like, "This means average." JaronK's list is pretty unusual from what I've seen. A main reason for that being that most games don't have power level strongly associated with some weird unifying characteristics. What I have is honestly more typical.

Tiers are convenient. I can say, "This class is tier four," and that will transmit information to you. Weaker than a bard, stronger than a monk. I guess we could always just list the exact number, but that's a bit harder to utilize. You basically have to check back every time, and we're leveraging our foundational knowledge of tiers to build the thing anyway. But, if it's a choice between showcasing relative power and making the notion of "tier" all neat and meaningful, it's the former every time.


Classes break the definitions with reasonable frequency. It's those arguments that necessitated this less wonky structure. The beguiler and dread necro are classic examples. They are stronger than sorcerers, the prototypical tier two class, roughly half the time, so any reasonable tier system should put them at tier two. Except they don't really meet the definition of tier two. They don't exactly get "nukes", with beguilers only getting time stop for high end 9th's and dread necros getting nothing. The classes are very much not capable of anything, being fixed list casters off of a limited list, and neither do they have the issue that no one build can get all their power. The tier is defined by reduced versatility relative to tier one, sometimes even relative to tier three, but as much power as the former and as versatile as the latter. And that's not a beguiler.

So, yeah, definition broken. And that's to say nothing of the spirit shaman, where the weird definitions inexplicably cause people to place the class anywhere from tier one to three. Like, some people individually contend the class might deserve a spot in any of those tiers. That shouldn't happen. And that's all to say nothing of the system's flexibility as regards new information. People like homebrew, and homebrew is capable of fitting these weird definitions even less.

Perhaps I was unclear.

Your Tier System does not make clear the criteria for adjudication of "power" that makes it clear why the classes are placed where they are.

While I find JaronK's system of having a specific definition for each Tier convenient, I'd be just as happy with a criteria of what it was that makes a class belong in X range.

Tiered systems in fighting games make quite clear the criteria. Being able to juggle, stun-lock, one-hit KO opponents, things like that. Factors such as a character that has awkward mechanics that often leave it open to attack are negative factors. And we can see and understand what makes a given character "S" or "C" Tier.

It doesn't have to specifically be exactly what JaronK did, but something that says "the ability to do 'X' or 'Y'makes a class Tier N", or "classes in Tier N are ones that perform in X fashion". Clearly, from the criteria JaronK established, access to "nukes" if you will, was a criteria for Tier 1 and 2, and thus other classes like Dread Necromancer don't make the cut based on a criteria that was established. So it is understood why it is not Tier 2. It resonates with the reader, who understands from the beginning what the judgement criteria for each Tier is.

So for you to say "Dread Necromancer is definitely more powerful than Sorcerer", I would need to understand the criteria in order for that to resonate.

I have no idea how you came to the conclusion that this is what I'm talking about. I'm talking specifically about people coming to wrong conclusions about where things are tiered, and creating bad power rankings. I don't especially care which classes are more fun or worth playing or whatever for this, and those ideas don't match the arguments I'm talking about.

Then I misunderstood what you meant.

The people I'm talking about aren't misusing it. Not exactly. If someone says, "Yeah, a beguiler is as strong as any tier two, but I have to rank it three because it matches that definition better," they are lining up just fine with the tier list as written. Most of it, anyway. They're decidedly failing to line up with the part that's like, "High tier classes are stronger," but I'm failing to line up with the definitions when I operate the inverse way. The tier system is internally contradictory. It's kinda annoying.

I feel like that just begs the question "What is the criteria for a Tier 2 ranking?", which brings me right back to what I have been saying this whole time.

You'd think that, but the way the system is written implies otherwise. The tier one definition explicitly says that the class must have world changing powers at high levels, and then the tier two definition has nukes as a requirement. What's a nuke? Is glitterdust a "nuke"? It doesn't really feel right, and the natural conclusion is that it's referring to stuff like shapechange. Which, pretty high level. Both tiers are written in a very high level and high power way. I've seen more than a few people think that all evaluation must occur at 20, and the text is there to support the idea.

I'm not saying that level 20 isn't also considered, I just don't think it's the only thing being considered, which is what it seemed like you said. If we're still talking wizards, Fly trivializes a number of potential challenges, for example. Glitter dust is powerful, without a doubt, but so is Grease at level 1. Wizard's ability to trivialize challenges only grows exponentially, compared to the more steady growth of other classes, culminating in spells that re absolutely "nukes".

I've read it plenty. All these goals are served by ranking specifically in terms of power level.

But what is the criteria for cutoff?

I don't think it is, honestly. The system is there to gauge the power level of classes. Whether you're using that information to decide who to give power to, or what classes should be allowed in the party, or to decide which class you want to pick, or whatever, power level is the important information. These definitions mean you're not getting information that's as accurate. Some of the info will be accurate, certainly, maybe even most of it, but these definitions can and do produce these problems.

I think you had a different goal in mind, and with that, trying to make a lateral comparison with a value judgement of "worse" is not grounded in a factual basis.

Are toasters "worse" than blenders because they don't make smoothies?

Therefore judging it as a "worse system" when it accomplishes its design goal is an opinion based on your preference of what you wanted FROM the system vis what it was designed to do.

I did so for a number of reasons.

I'm cutting this reply short, only because my response is more of the same that I feel is left unanswered. Except, of course, for the answer "tier delineation is completely arbitrary"

I was actually gonna stick to the original structure, but then Cosi was like, "Nah, we need to fix these essential problems that the community tiering project identified," and I was like, "True."

From my perspective, this is actually not a great point, as Cosi was also constitutionally incapable of differentiating between "this has been true for me, based on my experiences" and "this is an objective fact that is true for everyone". Anything he didn't like based on his preferences "had to be" an objectively bad thing, and that was a factual as gravity in his mind.

Fourth and finally, I think you're ignoring how much this tier system borrows from the original simply by dint of having the more obvious classes in the same places and judging things along those lines. Tier one means something, and so does the gap between tier one and tier two, even if the things they mean aren't all about game breaking nukes or whatever. The tiers aren't simply quantitative, even with more fluid numbers. They're qualitative. The power curve from tier one to tier six is weird. Not remotely linear. A lot of those core tier system assumptions are thus baked into the new system. And the qualitative nature of these differences isn't erased simply because we use decimal points.

Then what does the gap between Tier one and Tier two mean in your system? Because I do not think it is clear.

As I note above, this is what the vast majority of tier systems are. Hell, a lot of them actually get their information in this exact way, with community members voting on placement every so often. Sometimes you might have something about tournament results, but not always, and that's not especially possible here.

I think this is a necessary issue with basically any tier system, no matter its quality. Not every game has these huge and obvious gaps everywhere. Lots have relatively smooth power curves, or at least a decent number of classes in the gaps. If that's the case then you're going to have some bigger differences within tiers than between them. That said, as I noted, the curve we use is not smooth. Thus, .11 doesn't mean the same thing everywhere. Hard to say what exact implications that has here, but it's worth keeping in mind.

I don't insist that every Tier has a sentence or paragraph exactly like JaronK's system did. I'm sorry if I came across like I was saying that. But I can't determine what, AT ALL, a given Tier means in yours. What is the criteria for the cutoff? Other tier systems you mention usually give us the criteria for the classification.

It amuses me somewhat that RedMage has now descended to asserting that only what JaronK did counts as a Tier System, when in fact every other context in which there are Tier Systems (e.g. Fighting Games) presents them as simple lists of "how powerful is this" with no particular concern for fundamental meaning beyond that. Maybe the outlier is the thing that is wrong? Maybe the way the term is used in every other context is a more accurate understanding of its meaning than this one guy's use of it?

What's REALLY amusing is that NigelWalmsley is ONLY capable of building an argument against a Straw Man, to the point of intentionally lying about what his opponent is saying (which anyone can scroll up and see is not true).

I never said that "only what JaronK did counts as a Tier system". Which makes your assertion a flat-out lie.

Then how are we arriving at an approximation of the value of the Wizard's "Spells" class feature? There are as many possible combinations of Wizard spell selections as there are of Warblade builds (or at least, they're both well beyond the point where we can rank them individually). Yet we're able to reach the conclusion that the Wizard's "Spells" class feature makes him quite effective. Because we approximate an expected average value of what you get out of it.

The system is only judging the class mechanics as a whole, without assuming any particular value, or average of values, that each individual will get out of it.

We get the approximation of value of Wizard spells based on what they are capable of. Like I have said before, that value is so high that even classes that have access to any (but not all) of those spells are in their own tier, even though JaronK's Tier 2 is barely a distinct "Tier" in and of itself. I said that right away in my first post, and it's utterly disingenuous of you to act like I didn't.

You understand how that's not "Player > Build > Class", right? If "Player > Build > Class", we'd expect "Player" to be the dominant factor, regardless of "Build" or "Class". And yet here you are admitting that "Build" and "Class" can have a significant effect. Your argument is essentially that you are pretty sure "Build" and "Class" will always be smaller than "Player", but that is quite obviously not true.

I never said that neither Build nor Class were completely insignificant, that's just another attempt by you to intentionally misrepresent what I said. You're claiming I said (Player) > (Build + Class), and I did not. I have clarified multiple times what I meant, and you keep twisting the it around, because that's the only way you continue to try and "prove me wrong".

I'm saying that if you assert that the Fighter's selectable options are inherently worse than the fixed options of other classes because they are selectable (which is what you seem to be asserting),

I have now clarified multiple times that I am not saying this.

You continue to misrepresent what I am saying like this, which, at this point, is clearly intentional on your part.

You are being intentionally dishonest, and anyone else reading this can scroll up to what I said and see that for themselves, so what purpose does that serve?

Then why are you claiming that a ranking that relies on them is objective? If you want to make the argument that class balance requires us to consider too broad a range of factors to arrive at universal answers, that's fine. But that is, fundamentally, a concession that no ranking of classes can be objective. And maybe that's fine. Not everything needs to be objective. A ranking of the "best burrito places" is not objective. But that doesn't mean it isn't useful for choosing where to have lunch.

...what?

The quote you responded to was about how all the subjective factors were eliminated and NOT taken into consideration. So the class ranking DID NOT rely on them. Looking back at my post, that was quite clear from what I said, so at this point, you are clipping sentenced from my post, and replying to them out of context in completely non-sequitur ramblings.

That would be "Tier System".

... do you not know what the phrase "Term of Art" means? It means that the phase has a distinct meaning that is not the literal compound meaning of the constituent words. For example, "Tier System" (or I've been saying "Tier List" for clarity as a distinction from what JaronK did) means "ranking according to power" not "rows of seats in a football stadium".

I literally posted for you the definitions from 4 different dictionaries. You have yet to show that JaronK "used the term to mean something it doesn't mean", as you claimed. Because his system is still ranking according to power. And meets at least one of the definitions provided by all 4 dictionary examples.

Go ahead, I'm still waiting for you to show, with some kind of proof, that JaronK's system doesn't meet the definitions.

You've made an entirely baseless claim, and I am calling it out as false. Provide evidence otherwise.

Because right now, I am seeing a trend in the way you conduct yourself, and this is just more of the same.

[eggynack]

Perhaps I was unclear.

Your Tier System does not make clear the criteria for adjudication of "power" that makes it clear why the classes are placed where they are.

You were completely clear. It's just that weird criteria are bad. The only reasonable criteria for the adjudication of power is power.

Tiered systems in fighting games make quite clear the criteria. Being able to juggle, stun-lock, one-hit KO opponents, things like that. Factors such as a character that has awkward mechanics that often leave it open to attack are negative factors. And we can see and understand what makes a given character "S" or "C" Tier.

What? No, they don't. Most tiers systems I've seen are just like, "This character is better." Which is good. Characters are good for diverse reasons.

It doesn't have to specifically be exactly what JaronK did, but something that says "the ability to do 'X' or 'Y'makes a class Tier N", or "classes in Tier N are ones that perform in X fashion". Clearly, from the criteria JaronK established, access to "nukes" if you will, was a criteria for Tier 1 and 2, and thus other classes like Dread Necromancer don't make the cut based on a criteria that was established. So it is understood why it is not Tier 2. It resonates with the reader, who understands from the beginning what the judgement criteria for each Tier is.

Yes, according to the criteria the dread necromancer should be ranked in a way that does not reflect its power level. This is bad.

So for you to say "Dread Necromancer is definitely more powerful than Sorcerer", I would need to understand the criteria in order for that to resonate.

It's about as powerful as a sorcerer because it's more capable of dealing with situations for about half the level range and less capable for the other half, and to an extent that averages out to approximately sorcerer level. And the class is even stronger if you do the comparison at a range of optimization levels instead of sticking to higher op. Beguiler is probably even stronger than the sorcerer, in the sense that it's better at handling problems.

I feel like that just begs the question "What is the criteria for a Tier 2 ranking?", which brings me right back to what I have been saying this whole time.

Better at dealing with problems than any tier three, worse than any tier one. The boundary classes are a challenge to determine, and are a bit subjective, but it's not that big a deal, especially with fractional scores.

I'm not saying that level 20 isn't also considered, I just don't think it's the only thing being considered, which is what it seemed like you said. If we're still talking wizards, Fly trivializes a number of potential challenges, for example. Glitter dust is powerful, without a doubt, but so is Grease at level 1. Wizard's ability to trivialize challenges only grows exponentially, compared to the more steady growth of other classes, culminating in spells that re absolutely "nukes".

If "nukes" are fundamental to evaluation, and they only show up at really late levels, then this implicitly centers high level analysis. It makes stuff at 20 make or break as regards tiering. And, if you look, there isn't really anything that centers low level analysis. Lacking a shapechange at 20 keeps you out of tier one but lacking color spray at 1 does not. It's real weird and bad.

But what is the criteria for cutoff?

It's always going to be a little murky. But, y'know, the criteria for a given tier vote is made apparent through all the tiering discussion that happens, so you can just look at that if you want to know why people vote as they do. And once those votes are in, the cutoff is blatantly what range a class falls into.

I think you had a different goal in mind, and with that, trying to make a lateral comparison with a value judgement of "worse" is not grounded in a factual basis.

Are toasters "worse" than blenders because they don't make smoothies?

Therefore judging it as a "worse system" when it accomplishes its design goal is an opinion based on your preference of what you wanted FROM the system vis what it was designed to do.

You're expected to deal with a variety of problems in a given campaign. Any given class is going to be able to contribute a certain amount to each problem. The class that contributes the most is the strongest. Average that across the broad range of campaigns and you have a tier system. This is what we talk about when we talk about a class being strong.

I'm cutting this reply short, only because my response is more of the same that I feel is left unanswered. Except, of course, for the answer "tier delineation is completely arbitrary"

The specific numeric structure is arbitrary. The specific things that make a class strong are somewhat arbitrary, fundamentally dependent on specific. What it means to be strong is not arbitrary. The strength of any particular class isn't arbitrary either.

From my perspective, this is actually not a great point, as Cosi was also constitutionally incapable of differentiating between "this has been true for me, based on my experiences" and "this is an objective fact that is true for everyone". Anything he didn't like based on his preferences "had to be" an objectively bad thing, and that was a factual as gravity in his mind.

I don't especially care about your opinion of Cosi. He was correct about these issues. I was already well aware of these problems, especially clarified via the tier debate, and he was correct that revising these definitions was critical.

Then what does the gap between Tier one and Tier two mean in your system? Because I do not think it is clear.

Tier one is about as strong as a wizard. Tier two is about as strong as a sorcerer. This foundation is present in the original and carried over to this system. We could have had a wide variety of different tiering structures that think about power differently. For example, we could have combined tiers one and two, or done that and also combined four, five, and six, or split each tier into two separate tiers, or even moved the dividing lines around such that you need more or less power to hit certain tiers. But we didn't. We have the same set of tiers with about the same boundaries, so the way we think about the power curve is defined via the original system.

I don't insist that every Tier has a sentence or paragraph exactly like JaronK's system did. I'm sorry if I came across like I was saying that. But I can't determine what, AT ALL, a given Tier means in yours. What is the criteria for the cutoff? Other tier systems you mention usually give us the criteria for the classification.

I'm not sure what you want, then, besides, "This tier is better at solving campaign problems than this tier, and this class over here is reasonably representative."

[Troacctid]

But what is the criteria for cutoff?

The cutoffs are based on the average of all votes.

Tier 1: 1 to 1.5
Tier 2: 1.5 to 2.5
Tier 3: 2.5 to 3.5
Tier 4: 3.5 to 4.5
Tier 5: 4.5 to 5.5
Tier 6: 5.5 to 6

If "nukes" are fundamental to evaluation, and they only show up at really late levels, then this implicitly centers high level analysis. It makes stuff at 20 make or break as regards tiering. And, if you look, there isn't really anything that centers low level analysis. Lacking a shapechange at 20 keeps you out of tier one but lacking color spray at 1 does not. It's real weird and bad.

You know, I kind of want to make a tier list for just levels 1–4. I feel like that range is poorly served by a lot of the common wisdom.

[MeimuHakurei]

The cutoffs are based on the average of all votes.

Tier 1: 1 to 1.5
Tier 2: 1.5 to 2.5
Tier 3: 2.5 to 3.5
Tier 4: 3.5 to 4.5
Tier 5: 4.5 to 5.5
Tier 6: 5.5 to 6


You know, I kind of want to make a tier list for just levels 1–4. I feel like that range is poorly served by a lot of the common wisdom.

Can we get a different terms for the level ranges other than Tiers, which 5e uses? Epic 6 actually has defined those tiers of play before:

1-5: Gritty Fantasy
6-10: Heroic Fantasy
11-15: Wuxia
16-20: Superheroes

[NigelWalmsley]

JaronK is pretty smart. And his list is pretty good. You will see that the group rankings overall match his pretty well.

Sure. I don't particularly think either list is massively better or worse. I think my problem with JaronK's list is less the actual list and more the way it seems to have been (based on some interactions I've had with people) canonized as the only useful way of thinking about the various properties classes have. And that's a real shame, because ultimately "how powerful is this class" is only one question, and not even a particularly important one. My impression is that community consensus is that perception of the best-designed classes is heavily skewed towards "stuff in T3", and I think that causes some real problems in people's thinking about game design.

I never said that "only what JaronK did counts as a Tier system".

You said that JaronK's thing (which does not have the properties ascribed to tier lists) is a tier list and eggynack's thing (which has those properties) is not. You didn't literally say the words "only this is a tier list", but I didn't claim you did. From your argument, the only thing you're describing as a tier list is the thing that, by your own admission, does not have the properties of a tier list. It's possible there's something else you think is a tier list, but such a position would be inconsistent at best.

We get the approximation of value of Wizard spells based on what they are capable of.

And that is different from an "average of values that each individual will get out of it" how? You are making a distinction without a difference. If, as you assert, we can draw a meaningful conclusion about the value of the abilities the Wizard gets, then we can do it about the value of builds. It's fundamentally the exact same problem. There's a range of things you can do that is too large for each element to be assessed individually, and we want to know the overall expected value. Either you can solve that problem or you can't.

You're claiming I said (Player) > (Build + Class), and I did not. I have clarified multiple times what I meant

No, I'm not claiming that. I'm claiming that your assertion that the impact of "Player" will always be bigger than the impact of "Build" which will in turn always be bigger than the impact of "Class" is false. Consider two concrete examples: the Dread Necromancer and the Ubercharger.

The Dread Necromancer is a class that has almost no build impact. By understanding how to not intentionally cripple your build (I think this is something you've said doesn't factor in?) you get the overwhelming majority of the class's power. If "competent Dread Necromancer" is a 7, "optimized Dread Necromancer" is an 8 or a 9. So that's Class > Build.

The Ubercharger is a build that has almost no player impact. You figure out what to charge, you charge it, it explodes. It's a gameplay loop that can be executed by a particularly clever goldfish. So that's Build > Player.

Hopefully that clarifies my point more that quoting a bunch of arbitrary numbers, which apparently confused you about what I was actually saying.

I have now clarified multiple times that I am not saying this.

Really? Because this is what you said in the post I was replying to:

No, but a class that is "decent at solving combat problems and can't solve non-combat problems" is better than a class that is "only able to solve combat problems (but doesn't really have any concrete class abilities that allow it to do so, and has lots of customizable options, many of which do not continue to be advantageous throughout the career) AND can't solve non-combat problems".

You're asserting that the Fighter "doesn't have concrete class abilities" because its abilities are selectable. That seems to me to be an assertion that the Fighter's abilities are worse/less meaningful because they are selectable. And that's what I was objecting to. Should I have quoted that instead? I quoted the thing I did because I thought that was the core of what you thought the argument was about, but it appears that I confused you. I apologize.

And maybe you don't think that's an important part of your overall argument. That's fine, I don't object to the conclusion you're reaching (that Wizard Spells > Fighter Feats). That's why I said I wasn't disagreeing with it. I object to one of the arguments you're making to reach that conclusion. And if the argument is overall not important, it seems to me that the thing for you to do would be to just stop making it. The fact that you keep making it despite my objecting to it suggests to me that you feel it is important to your argument, and therefore that attacking it is not attacking a strawman.

The quote you responded to was about how all the subjective factors were eliminated and NOT taken into consideration.

Yes, that was the claim you made. I understand that, I read your post. I was saying that claim that the claim you made was false. Specifically, I was saying that all subjective factors were not removed, because JaronK does not give objective definitions for things like "what's the standard for specialist" or "what's breaking the campaign" when he uses criteria like "is better than specialist classes" or "breaks the campaign".

And again, that's fine. Narrowing down a genuinely objective measure probably wouldn't be that useful. But I can't take your assertion that JaronK's tier definitions are objective and eggynack's are not seriously.

Go ahead, I'm still waiting for you to show, with some kind of proof, that JaronK's system doesn't meet the definitions.

You're the one who said it ranks "power + versatility". That means that it does not do the thing that systems described as "tier lists" are intended to do, which is rank things purely by power. Your citation of dictionary definitions is noted, but irrelevant, because what we are debating is both colloquial and a term of art.

I really don't understand why you're so hung up on the idea that it is a tier list to begin with. Tier lists are not the only valuable thing that exists. A Barbarian Handbook isn't a tier list. A guide for picking good spells for Advanced/Eclectic Learning isn't a tier list. A set of tips for making good tactical choices isn't a tier list. Lots of things aren't tier lists, and I think many of them are more useful for a cooperative game than tier lists are. If you want to make the argument that JaronK's rankings are good or valuable, that's fine. I would tend to disagree, because I think that Gnaeus's points about the overvaluing of nukes are good, and because I think a lot of the definitions given to the middle tiers are mostly just descriptions of party dynamics in environments of relative balance, not inherent to the particular classes in those tiers. But that's a different argument from it being a tier list.

[eggynack]

You're the one who said it ranks "power + versatility". That means that it does not do the thing that systems described as "tier lists" are intended to do, which is rank things purely by power. Your citation of dictionary definitions is noted, but irrelevant, because what we are debating is both colloquial and a term of art.

If this is a disqualifying factor for tier list status, and I don't think it is, then this project is not a tier list. Versatility is a central concern of any 3.5 ranking system, practically out of necessity. The capacity to do multiple things well is important, and can sometimes be worth more than being able to do one thing really well. The basic reality is that most games have only one goal for various game objects, while this one has a wide variety. We need to account for both the city diplomacy game and the dungeon hack and slash, as well as any arbitrary mixture. I tend to eschew the whole power versus versatility thing in the way I construct the system, because the arguments surrounding what power is and what versatility is and how these should be evaluated are infinitely more trouble than they're worth, but the essential idea holds reasonably constant between system.

Returning to my first sentence, I dunno why any of this would be disqualifying for tier list status. We're ranking game object effectiveness in a way that applies to the whole game. Seems pretty tier listy to me. I dunno whether a barbarian feat ranking structure is a tier list too, but it doesn't feel like one, and I think that's enough. This feels like a tier list. JaronK's tier list feels like one too. We've developed somewhat different naming conventions for stuff like handbooks, and so maybe that's why we label it differently, or maybe the narrow scope of the information is the issue. I dunno. I guess I just don't see the point in placing these specific sorts of tier list constraints in either direction. I think we all know what we're talking about.

[NigelWalmsley]

Returning to my first sentence, I dunno why any of this would be disqualifying for tier list status. We're ranking game object effectiveness in a way that applies to the whole game.

I think you agree with me then? Because what you seem to mean by "effectiveness" is what I mean by "power". But RedMage seems to think there's some way in which what you're ranking is importantly different from what JaronK is ranking, and there does not seem to be any way for that to be true that ends up with the conclusion that what JaronK made was a tier list and not some other thing.

JaronK's tier list feels like one too.

Well, yeah, it does a good job of ranking classes by how effective they are. But if I'm understanding RedMage's points correctly, he doesn't think that's what it's supposed to do. Because he seems quite vehement in insisting that your thing, which does that, is fundamentally different from JaronK's.

[RedMage125]

The cutoffs are based on the average of all votes.

That's not really an answer. I can understand math patterns to see that it's "rounded up or down to [Tier] whole number". But that's not really distinct criteria.

You were completely clear. It's just that weird criteria are bad. The only reasonable criteria for the adjudication of power is power.

"Power equals Power" -

Look, I can understand what most of your reasoning was for these classes being judged on "power", but there's no real criteria for the distinction of tiering them. It might as well be a top to bottom ranking (with a few ties).

What? No, they don't. Most tiers systems I've seen are just like, "This character is better." Which is good. Characters are good for diverse reasons.

You've never looked into the breakdown of the adjudication?

Yes, according to the criteria the dread necromancer should be ranked in a way that does not reflect its power level. This is bad.

You don't think Tier 3 classes are powerful? There's plenty of power there. But when looking at what class abilities can do, some classes just had these "you get to do absolutely everything!" and that warranted consideration over anyone NOT granted that carte blanche.

It's about as powerful as a sorcerer because it's more capable of dealing with situations for about half the level range and less capable for the other half, and to an extent that averages out to approximately sorcerer level. And the class is even stronger if you do the comparison at a range of optimization levels instead of sticking to higher op. Beguiler is probably even stronger than the sorcerer, in the sense that it's better at handling problems.

Your system ranks both of those below sorcerer.

And of the 3, Dread Necro is the one that appeals to me the most, if only because I have a really dope idea I never got a chance to actually play. (shameless plug of an old post)

Better at dealing with problems than any tier three, worse than any tier one. The boundary classes are a challenge to determine, and are a bit subjective, but it's not that big a deal, especially with fractional scores.

But Tier 1 and Tier 3 are arbitrary collection with arbitrary stopping points, too.

If "nukes" are fundamental to evaluation, and they only show up at really late levels, then this implicitly centers high level analysis. It makes stuff at 20 make or break as regards tiering. And, if you look, there isn't really anything that centers low level analysis. Lacking a shapechange at 20 keeps you out of tier one but lacking color spray at 1 does not. It's real weird and bad.

I always saw it as taking the whole gamut into account. If anything, the Dread Necro being Tier 3 and not lower proves that. As you even pointed out (and I 100% agree), they are more capable with respect to other classes at lower levels, much less so at higher levels.

You're expected to deal with a variety of problems in a given campaign. Any given class is going to be able to contribute a certain amount to each problem. The class that contributes the most is the strongest. Average that across the broad range of campaigns and you have a tier system. This is what we talk about when we talk about a class being strong.

I get that, and I'm not actually contesting the rankings of any individual class. But this doesn't really address the bit you quoted, which was simply to say that your system and JaronK's had different design goals. Calling his "worse" is an opinion, and is no different than calling a toaster "worse" than a blender, because it doesn't make smoothies.

The specific numeric structure is arbitrary.

I know, that is one of my criticisms.

I don't especially care about your opinion of Cosi. He was correct about these issues. I was already well aware of these problems, especially clarified via the tier debate, and he was correct that revising these definitions was critical.

Even a blind squirrel finds a nut, I suppose.

Tier one is about as strong as a wizard. Tier two is about as strong as a sorcerer. This foundation is present in the original and carried over to this system. We could have had a wide variety of different tiering structures that think about power differently. For example, we could have combined tiers one and two, or done that and also combined four, five, and six, or split each tier into two separate tiers, or even moved the dividing lines around such that you need more or less power to hit certain tiers. But we didn't. We have the same set of tiers with about the same boundaries, so the way we think about the power curve is defined via the original system.

I'm not sure what you want, then, besides, "This tier is better at solving campaign problems than this tier, and this class over here is reasonably representative."

If two classes are in the same Tier, I would like to understand why. Especially when seeing some of the few class variants I am not familiar with. What makes the Mystic Ranger more similar to the Sorcerer than it is to...say, the Psychic Warrior? What makes them the same Tier?

You said that JaronK's thing (which does not have the properties ascribed to tier lists) is a tier list and eggynack's thing (which has those properties) is not.

Hold up. How does JaronK's Tier System "not have the properties ascribed to Tier lists"? That's anothewr whopper of an unsupported statement from you. No less than what I have come to expect.

You didn't literally say the words "only this is a tier list", but I didn't claim you did.

Oh, you didn't? So this was someone posting on your account under your name?

It amuses me somewhat that RedMage has now descended to asserting that only what JaronK did counts as a Tier System

By your own admission, you're a liar, then?

From your argument, the only thing you're describing as a tier list is the thing that, by your own admission, does not have the properties of a tier list. It's possible there's something else you think is a tier list, but such a position would be inconsistent at best.

So...despite me clarifying my point several times, and despite me posting the definition of "Tier" from FOUR dictionaries (which JaronK's system absolutely meets the criteria of), you're going to make blanket false statements, then straw man what I said into claiming that I somehow said it "does not have the properties of a tier list"?

You're something else.

And that is different from an "average of values that each individual will get out of it" how? You are making a distinction without a difference. If, as you assert, we can draw a meaningful conclusion about the value of the abilities the Wizard gets, then we can do it about the value of builds. It's fundamentally the exact same problem. There's a range of things you can do that is too large for each element to be assessed individually, and we want to know the overall expected value. Either you can solve that problem or you can't.

This entire statement makes no sense, given the context.

No, I'm not claiming that. I'm claiming that your assertion that the impact of "Player" will always be bigger than the impact of "Build" which will in turn always be bigger than the impact of "Class" is false.

To hopefully put an end to at this particular string of you misrepresenting my point, I will try again:

Using JaronK's system, Fighter is Tier 5, which means: "Capable of doing only one thing, and not necessarily all that well, or so unfocused that they have trouble mastering anything, and in many types of encounters the character cannot contribute. In some cases, can do one thing very well, but that one thing is very often not needed. Has trouble shining in any encounter unless the encounter matches their strengths."

Now, let's say you decide to use the Fighter to build some kind of "ultimate archer". There are a great number of feats a Fighter can take to make him good at this.

Well, now this individual character is looking more like he meets the definition of Tier 4, right? "Capable of doing one thing quite well, but often useless when encounters require other areas of expertise, or capable of doing many things to a reasonable degree of competence without truly shining. Rarely has any abilities that can outright handle an encounter unless that encounter plays directly to the class's main strength."

This is the impact that an individual build can have, above and beyond just what the class features explicitly grant. This is what is meant by "Build > Class". That is in regards to any individual character that is created, because a well-constructed build can be very focused, even when it is of a class that is more unfocused in terms of granted abilities from class features.

We have already discussed how a "bad" player can make even a great build less effective. I think you get the gist of that. So, HOW an individual character is PLAYED in an actual GAME can have even more impact on things like problem-solving and overcoming challenges.

As all subjective and varied things like that are impossible to account for, JaronK's Tier System only looks at class mechanics. It is simply a baseline. Someone really good at playing a Beguiler (Tier 3) may outshine the party Cleric (Tier 1). "Player > Build > Class" is shorthand for that. And it only relates to how, in an actual game, a given character is going to be able to meet challenges.

Does that make things more clear now? Are you done creating straw men on at least that point?

Hopefully that clarifies my point more that quoting a bunch of arbitrary numbers, which apparently confused you about what I was actually saying.

No, as son as you continued to misrepresent what I was saying, I had very little interest. It wasn't "RedMage is confused", it was "RedMage doesn't care to engage you honestly until you stop lying".

Really? Because this is what you said in the post I was replying to:

No, but a class that is "decent at solving combat problems and can't solve non-combat problems" is better than a class that is "only able to solve combat problems (but doesn't really have any concrete class abilities that allow it to do so, and has lots of customizable options, many of which do not continue to be advantageous throughout the career) AND can't solve non-combat problems".

That is nothing like "the Fighter's selectable options are inherently worse than the fixed options of other classes because they are selectable", which, if you follow this conversation line back, is what you're claiming you said about that quote of mine.

I believe I was already clear that the first of those also "had lots of customizable options, and can continue to trade up those options for better ones later".

How is that AT ALL "having selectable options is worse because they are selectable"?

Answer: It's not. It's nothing like that. But you felt that such a Straw Man was the only way you could make your ego feel better because that's a point you can tear down.

I cannot possibly fathom any other reason you would twist what I said to that degree.

You're asserting that the Fighter "doesn't have concrete class abilities" because its abilities are selectable. That seems to me to be an assertion that the Fighter's abilities are worse/less meaningful because they are selectable. And that's what I was objecting to. Should I have quoted that instead? I quoted the thing I did because I thought that was the core of what you thought the argument was about, but it appears that I confused you. I apologize.

That's a backhanded apology. Because you are in no way apologizing for REPEATEDLY misrepresenting what I have said in order to make it a stupid point that you could knock down with snark.

Now saying "oh, I thought that must have been the core of what you meant. I'm sorry for confusing you".

No. You didn't confuse me. You were dishonest. On purpose.

And maybe you don't think that's an important part of your overall argument. That's fine, I don't object to the conclusion you're reaching (that Wizard Spells > Fighter Feats). That's why I said I wasn't disagreeing with it. I object to one of the arguments you're making to reach that conclusion. And if the argument is overall not important, it seems to me that the thing for you to do would be to just stop making it. The fact that you keep making it despite my objecting to it suggests to me that you feel it is important to your argument, and therefore that attacking it is not attacking a strawman.

It is when I am not saying "selectable options are worse because they are selectable". That's not important to my argument at all, because it's not something I said, nor something I believe. I am not "making that argument to reach [my] conclusion". So yes. That absolutely IS a Straw Man. And making it again after I explicitly told you that I was never saying that, is being dishonest intentionally.

Yes, that was the claim you made. I understand that, I read your post. I was saying that claim that the claim you made was false. Specifically, I was saying that all subjective factors were not removed, because JaronK does not give objective definitions for things like "what's the standard for specialist" or "what's breaking the campaign" when he uses criteria like "is better than specialist classes" or "breaks the campaign".

And again, that's fine. Narrowing down a genuinely objective measure probably wouldn't be that useful. But I can't take your assertion that JaronK's tier definitions are objective and eggynack's are not seriously.

My criticism of eggynack's system was that the tiers themselves are not defined or clarified in a meaningful manner. Eggynack themself has said that Tier delineations are arbitrary.

So the creator of the very system you are "defending", said that what I was saying was correct. Now, eggynack basically sums that up as a "feature, not a flaw", but it chafes with me. Why have them in "Tiers" at all then? Why not just a top to bottom ranking?

You're the one who said it ranks "power + versatility".

JaronK actually said that in his original post.

That means that it does not do the thing that systems described as "tier lists" are intended to do, which is rank things purely by power.

Citation for this? Do you have some support for this claim? Because right now it looks like the next item in line of "NigelWalmsley likes to make up false claims".
Hell, eggynack even called you out on it. This is a bunk claim.

Your citation of dictionary definitions is noted, but irrelevant, because what we are debating is both colloquial and a term of art.

No, words have meaning. You said he "used a term to mean something it doesn't mean". I posted what the term means.

You literally do not have a leg to stand on here. You might as well be claiming that nothing that isn't a cake cannot be "tiered" for all the sense you're making.

I really don't understand why you're so hung up on the idea that it is a tier list to begin with. Tier lists are not the only valuable thing that exists.

Did I say they were? Nope, just you putting words in my mouth again. I've actually said, to both you and eggynack that I'm not denigrating the value of eggynack's power ranking. So, you're making this point...why?

You're so grossly wrapped up now in "trying to prove me wrong" that you've completely lost sight of anything I am actually saying, and just painting me with some kind of one-dimensional brush. Clearly since you want to prove me wrong, I must have said al sorts of stupid things that you disagree with, so you can just go ahead and rebut those imaginary arguments

Whatever makes you feel better about yourself, homie.

And for the record, I would say most of those things (class guides, spell selection guides, etc) are actually MORE valuable because they retain their value longer to any given character. Tier lists are useful for a handful of things, usually before gameplay actually takes place. And they can be fun for the kind of nerd (of which I include myself) who like to engage in meta about our hobby.

But RedMage seems to think there's some way in which what you're ranking is importantly different from what JaronK is ranking, and there does not seem to be any way for that to be true that ends up with the conclusion that what JaronK made was a tier list and not some other thing.

Not really, no. Once again, misrepresenting me. Even in the third person to someone else.

No, I think the distinction of "tiers" in eggynack's system is completely arbitrary (eggynack has confirmed this). It is my opinion that things in groups of "Tiers" should share some kind of commonality in criteria that explains why they are the same Tier. This need not be descriptions like JaronK did.

Well, yeah, it does a good job of ranking classes by how effective they are. But if I'm understanding RedMage's points correctly, he doesn't think that's what it's supposed to do. Because he seems quite vehement in insisting that your thing, which does that, is fundamentally different from JaronK's.

Spoiler alert: You haven't really understood anything of mine correctly. Or at least, have not demonstrated such in your posts. At this point, I have come to the conclusion that it doesn't matter if you do or not understand my points internally, because you're going to engage in a dishonest fashion with straw men and blatant lies anyway.

Eggynack and JaronK actually used very similar criteria in the organization of their respective lists. Eggynack felt that the "Tier descriptions" in JaronK's system detracted from the purity of a simple power ranking. I get that, and can understand where they are coming from. I was hoping for SOMETHING, however, to clearly delineate what makes a group of classes in the same Tier similar enough to BE in the same Tier as one another. Something about their power/versatility/range of capability...something about WHY. Otherwise, it's just a power ranking. The demarcation of "Tiers" chafes at my sensibilities because it is so arbitrary.

Maybe it's because I am, as I mentioned before, more or less Lawful Neutral. I feel like I have been duped by the promise of sweet, sweet organization and labeling, and am instead treated to one long list broken up in places at nigh-random intervals. I like organization, but it has to have a reason.

[Troacctid]

If two classes are in the same Tier, I would like to understand why. Especially when seeing some of the few class variants I am not familiar with. What makes the Mystic Ranger more similar to the Sorcerer than it is to...say, the Psychic Warrior? What makes them the same Tier?

In that case, I have good news for you—there is a whole thread dedicated to explaining this!

[Gruftzwerg]

But the distinction of "Tier" is 100% meaningless.

I get your point and it's something I've been struggling with this too for a longer time. And imho we need a better system to solve our needs. But what are our needs actually (especially here in the forum)?

A: We want so show somehow how much power each class brings to the table when you try to munchkin as much as possible. Be it raw combat power or the power to solve any kind of other problem. pun-pun style, how close you can get.

B: On the other hand, we like to rate the power level of builds (incl versatility!) and sometimes like to see how close to the climax of their class tier they get (or even set a new one). Sometimes we even rate abilities and spells and such things when it comes to guides and handbooks.

And at the moment the Tier list is barly capable of doing A while doing almost nothing for B. We need an entire new system:

1. We need power levels for 2 categories (e.g. Tier 1-3 or 5-2..): raw combat power & flexibility to deal with non combat situations. And each category needs its own parameters to determine each level. And this is difficult for both.

2. After that, we can use this to rate builds (in competitions) and see how close to the climax they get or if they even set a new one for a specific class/ability/build...

This would be much a more accurate measurement than votes on tier list threads, cause people know like <50% of what is possible or what happened in the last years. I mean I did vote too and I don't claim that I even know 10% of what have been posted the last years. So how accurate is this vote system atm.?

Imagine a 1-4 would maybe indicate that you can (1) kill multiple enemies per turn under any special conditions (invisible/hidden enemy, terrain, misschances ....) but your noncombat skills (4) are lacking. You can do a few things, but nothing shines very well.
A 5-2 could indicate that you can barely (5) kill an enemy per turn or maybe sometimes multiple if lucky but limited in use or not guarantied. On the other hand you seem to be able to solve almost (2) any non combat related issue very well and either at-will or with enough uses/day to shine on a regular adventurer day.

This would give us the option that every optimization thread would theoretically be able to alter the known standards for each class/ability/spell/build/whatsoever.
And these values need than to be monitored in a thread, that needs to be adjusted by moderators (I guess? kindly asking^^ someone who wants to do the job via getting PMs about new records/standards).

Imho that would be much more helpful and accurate than the system we have now. I mean this endless debate in this thread where everybody is like "I think A is Tier X because remember "THAT BUILD/COMBO/...??" wouldn't be needed anymore.

What we need is a maintained list with a better measurement system than we have atm.

[eggynack]

"Power equals Power" -

Look, I can understand what most of your reasoning was for these classes being judged on "power", but there's no real criteria for the distinction of tiering them. It might as well be a top to bottom ranking (with a few ties).

Why do you need any criteria besides problem solving capacity?

You've never looked into the breakdown of the adjudication?

I've seen individual characters or whatever have associated explanation. This character has this move and that move and the other move and that's why it's strong. But I've never seen some broad categorical statements about what things are typical of a given tier. And there doesn't really need to be much in the way of explanation anyway. A strong character is one that wins games.

You don't think Tier 3 classes are powerful? There's plenty of power there. But when looking at what class abilities can do, some classes just had these "you get to do absolutely everything!" and that warranted consideration over anyone NOT granted that carte blanche.

They are less powerful than tier two classes and more powerful than tier fours. This does not accurately describe these two classes, so the original was wrong. I dunno what you want here.

Your system ranks both of those below sorcerer.

So it goes. Their broader tier listings are accurate, at least. If you want to know why the classes are rated as they are, then look into those that said sorcerers are tier one and those that said these two classes are tier three.

But Tier 1 and Tier 3 are arbitrary collection with arbitrary stopping points, too.

Yes, all tiers can be described in about the way I did so for twos.

I always saw it as taking the whole gamut into account. If anything, the Dread Necro being Tier 3 and not lower proves that. As you even pointed out (and I 100% agree), they are more capable with respect to other classes at lower levels, much less so at higher levels.

Besides the healer, there is no class listed below tier three that does better than a dread necromancer at level 20. The class' placement proves nothing about the mode of evaluation. Besides which, the way you see it isn't the important thing here. The important thing is the way that a whole bunch of other people see it. If someone thinks that 20th level evaluation is what matters according to this system, and they can support that reasoning with the text, then they're gonna rank classes poorly and do so justifiably.

I get that, and I'm not actually contesting the rankings of any individual class. But this doesn't really address the bit you quoted, which was simply to say that your system and JaronK's had different design goals. Calling his "worse" is an opinion, and is no different than calling a toaster "worse" than a blender, because it doesn't make smoothies.

Our systems have the same goals. That's my point. That list up top of things his system is meant to accomplish? This one is meant to accomplish the exact same things. This system accomplishes those things better.

I know, that is one of my criticisms.

But it's a weird criticism. The different levels of power aren't all super special and distinct and junk. They're just different levels of power.

If two classes are in the same Tier, I would like to understand why. Especially when seeing some of the few class variants I am not familiar with. What makes the Mystic Ranger more similar to the Sorcerer than it is to...say, the Psychic Warrior? What makes them the same Tier?

As Troacctid noted, you can just use the reasoning that occurred when we were discussing these classes.

Edit: Jeez, what? I went back to the beguiler thread for a laugh, and you were literally one of the people doing what I described. You repeatedly contested ranking these fixed list casters at tier two because of some specific aspect of Jaronk's tier definitions that conflicted with this placement. You are, in a meaningful sense, the reason the definitions are the way they are. Not you specifically, necessarily, but people who were making the sorts of arguments you were making. Like, it's very likely to you I'm referring when I cite the "as much raw power" point. Frigging bizarre.

[Gnaeus]

Maybe it's because I am, as I mentioned before, more or less Lawful Neutral. I feel like I have been duped by the promise of sweet, sweet organization and labeling, and am instead treated to one long list broken up in places at nigh-random intervals. I like organization, but it has to have a reason.

there is a reason. A list provides us with no information relevant to play. I don’t know if barbarian is above rogue or which is higher, crusader or warblade, but either way those numbers are meaningless.

But at any point on the list, if something is 1.5 to 2 tiers above something else, I have very useful information as a player or DM. I know that the higher tier class will outperform the lower one at similar skill level. As a DM, I know to go easier on tier 5 requests than tier one ones. I know to drop better loot for the muggle if it’s a cooperative game. I know which classes I may want to modify. A strong player may want to play down. If player D is a strong optimizer and is playing a tier 4, I may suggest that player B pick his skill monkey class from high tier 3 or tier 2. This list helps where an unranked list wouldn’t tell much, because you need 1.5-2 tiers to really tell a strong difference anywhere on the chart. As a designer, I can see what the general characteristics of strong classes are.

And there are tier characteristics, which can be acquired from the list, even if the tiers themselves don’t use hard characteristics. Like, almost all of the games strongest classes use magic, as full, prepared 9 level casters with open lists. Or almost all of the weakest classes use no or 4 level magic, and tend to be highly dependent on getting gear from outside sources to function.

[NigelWalmsley]

And there are tier characteristics, which can be acquired from the list, even if the tiers themselves don’t use hard characteristics. Like, almost all of the games strongest classes use magic, as full, prepared 9 level casters with open lists. Or almost all of the weakest classes use no or 4 level magic, and tend to be highly dependent on getting gear from outside sources to function.

This is true. JaronK's tier descriptions are post hoc, based on the list of classes in each tier. Since those lists are largely the same, you can still use his descriptions if you want. If they are actually useful, the fact that the rankings have been redone with a better methodology and clearer definitions doesn't make them useless.

By your own admission, you're a liar, then?

No, you're missing out on the context. In the first quote, I was talking about this thread. Where you asserted that Eggynack's list "doesn't have tiers". In the second quote, where you asked what I said, I was pointing out that I left open the possibility that there was something else somewhere you felt was a tier list in addition to JaronK's. Now, if you would like to clarify that when you said something "doesn't have tiers" that was compatible with it being a tier system, you can do that. But don't accuse me of lying for assuming your claims imply things they clearly imply.

You seem to have trouble with context in general. You have yet to grasp, for instance, that you can cite all the dictionary definitions of "tier" you'd like without it making a whit of difference to the meaning of a colloquially used term of art.

To hopefully put an end to at this particular string of you misrepresenting my point, I will try again:

This doesn't prove your point. The fact that you can play something well doesn't mean "Player > Build". The fact that you can build something well doesn't mean "Build > Class". It means that those things can be true. But lots of things can be true. The Beguiler, Dread Necromancer, Sorcerer, Artificer, and Erudite are all pretty good and they all have E in their names. Soulborn, Monk, Dragon Shaman, and Ninja are all a lot less good and don't have E in their names. Does that mean "E Classes > no E Classes"? Of course not, that's insane. Similarly, while a good player can elevate a bad build, a bad player can also be carried by a good build. Which means that "Player > Build > Class" doesn't tell us anything particularly useful in general. Sometimes player will be the largest factor. But sometimes build or class will be. Sometimes class will be the smallest factor. But sometimes player or build will be. Maybe you have in your mind some understanding of that inequality such that it is always true. But the plain meaning of it is quite obviously false, and repeating it is mostly misleading.

How is that AT ALL "having selectable options is worse because they are selectable"?

That would be the thing where you describe having selectable class features as not having class features. Again, if you didn't believe that, you could just concede the point, instead of angrily shouting "Straw Man!" like you're a pokemon. It's not like we're playing a game and if you give up on enough points you lose. If your point is actually not this, you can just stop arguing about it. But if you continue arguing about it, it makes your claims that it is not your point (e.g. that it is a strawman) seem rather hollow.

Why have them in "Tiers" at all then? Why not just a top to bottom ranking?

Because, as I have said to you several times, being able to express "people voted for the class in a way that averaged out to a number in the range 1-1.5" more concisely is useful. You remember the post I linked about baseball stats? Naming arbitrary number ranges is a useful tool.

Hell, eggynack even called you out on it. This is a bunk claim.

Yes, I responded to that. I said that I felt the distinction she was making between her position and mine was a semantic one.

So it looks to me like you're stuck in a dilemma. Either eggynack's tiers measure the same thing as JaronK's, and we can just argue about the rankings on their merits (spoiler alert: community consensus is better than "one guy"), or they measure different things and since hers measures the thing tier lists are commonly understood to measure, it is the more useful one.

You're so grossly wrapped up now in "trying to prove me wrong" that you've completely lost sight of anything I am actually saying

It seems to be mostly "Straw Man" and various flavors of "you're intellectually dishonest for not agreeing with me yet". Whereas you seem to have entirely conceded the point that JaronK's tiers aren't any more objective than eggynack's. So it seems to me that you don't actually have a point anymore.

[eggynack]

Yes, I responded to that. I said that I felt the distinction she was making between her position and mine was a semantic one.

Probably? I think I lost track of whatever was going on with that one, and that you may have been contesting a point through the use of a lens besides your own. My opinion is that tier lists can measure things in ways besides a straight up power level evaluation (keeping in mind that "power" can be understood expansively in such a way so as to render this distinction meaningless), and that both the original and the new tier lists are, well, tier lists. If you agree about that stuff, then we agree about stuff.

[Troacctid]

If you really want a definition, then we can do it pretty easily with benchmarks.

Tier 1 is Cleric
Tier 2 is Sorcerer
Tier 3 is Bard
Tier 4 is Ranger
Tier 5 is Knight
Tier 6 is Warrior

All these classes were pretty widely agreed to be exemplary of their tiers.

[jywu98]

It's friggin' 2020 and people are STILL trying to argue about JaronK's ****ty tier system that clearly doesn't achieve an inkling of what it sets out to do. The bounds of each tier is doesn't make sense at all - what is the functional difference between breaking the game in one way and breaking the game in multiple ways? The game is broken either way, and the ability to break a game should in no way be even a factor in whatever he set out to do. 3.x breaks down in double digit levels anyway, and even a commoner can get a Candle of Invocation and start wish chaining. Furthermore, the tiering itself is riddled with bias, and the factotum writeup is takes the cake in this regard.

Stop trying to fix something obviously broken from the start, and start something new. Tiering classes has always been a ****show that breaks down within the first few pages because prepared casters get Schrodinger's Spells (Ex) and somehow always has the relevant spell at hand, regardless of the situation, and some classes are somehow just allowed to dumpster dive for whatever they need.

If you want actual tangible results to formulate class tiers, I suggest you run SGTs instead of typing out blocks of text theorycrafting about the "power" and "versatility" of each class. I guarantee you'll find that the factotum is in fact not higher than the rogue, and the beguiler is in fact as useful as the wizard.

[RedMage125]

Why do you need any criteria besides problem solving capacity?

Does not a straight ranking system tell us that, too?

Look, you've acknowledged that the "stops" for the tiers are arbitrary. My preference is that if things are going to be organized into Tiers that there be some rhyme or reason to that. That is all.

They are less powerful than tier two classes and more powerful than tier fours. This does not accurately describe these two classes, so the original was wrong. I dunno what you want here.

Not what I meant. Sorry.

I meant that JaronK had that criteria that classes with that carte blanche got consideration over other classes that did not. I don't expect you to judge by the exact same criteria, I only meant it as an example of "Tier Identity" I guess is a good way to phrase that. I only meant it as an example to highlight that idea, not as some kind of "this has to be a criteria" thing.

So it goes. Their broader tier listings are accurate, at least. If you want to know why the classes are rated as they are, then look into those that said sorcerers are tier one and those that said these two classes are tier three.

When I think of people who think sorcerers are Tier 1, it makes me think of certain posters who prolifically post shirtless, ab-baring sorcerers. Lol.

Yes, all tiers can be described in about the way I did so for twos.

Yeah, I get that. All I have been expressing is that this is a thing that causes dissonance for me.

Besides the healer, there is no class listed below tier three that does better than a dread necromancer at level 20. The class' placement proves nothing about the mode of evaluation. Besides which, the way you see it isn't the important thing here. The important thing is the way that a whole bunch of other people see it. If someone thinks that 20th level evaluation is what matters according to this system, and they can support that reasoning with the text, then they're gonna rank classes poorly and do so justifiably.

Which is why understanding the grading criteria is crucial, I think.

Our systems have the same goals. That's my point. That list up top of things his system is meant to accomplish? This one is meant to accomplish the exact same things. This system accomplishes those things better.

Unless it was also meant to categorize those groupings by meaningful milestones of capability.

But it's a weird criticism. The different levels of power aren't all super special and distinct and junk. They're just different levels of power.

I'm sorry you think it's weird. I actually like distinct categorization. And I prefer if things are collected into groups that there is some cohesion within each group.

As Troacctid noted, you can just use the reasoning that occurred when we were discussing these classes.

Edit: Jeez, what? I went back to the beguiler thread for a laugh, and you were literally one of the people doing what I described. You repeatedly contested ranking these fixed list casters at tier two because of some specific aspect of Jaronk's tier definitions that conflicted with this placement. You are, in a meaningful sense, the reason the definitions are the way they are. Not you specifically, necessarily, but people who were making the sorts of arguments you were making. Like, it's very likely to you I'm referring when I cite the "as much raw power" point. Frigging bizarre.

So...that was about 3 years ago, so I had to slog though to find my post on the matter.

And you'll note even then that I agreed with Grim Reader when he said: "If you are going to re-tier classes based on tier definitions sufficiently different to produce different outcomes... that is going to end up very confusing. You'll get classes that are tier B according to the most used understanding of tier, but tier G according to this one.

You should call the ranking system produced something else than tiers, if it produces significantly different results."

This is true. JaronK's tier descriptions are post hoc, based on the list of classes in each tier. Since those lists are largely the same, you can still use his descriptions if you want. If they are actually useful, the fact that the rankings have been redone with a better methodology and clearer definitions doesn't make them useless.

You have any proof for this claim? I'm guessing not, since making baseless claims with no facts or citation is your modus operandi. But I'm curious if you THINK you can prove -in some kind of objective, factual manner- that JaronK's definitions were "post hoc".

No, you're missing out on the context. In the first quote, I was talking about this thread. Where you asserted that Eggynack's list "doesn't have tiers". In the second quote, where you asked what I said, I was pointing out that I left open the possibility that there was something else somewhere you felt was a tier list in addition to JaronK's. Now, if you would like to clarify that when you said something "doesn't have tiers" that was compatible with it being a tier system, you can do that. But don't accuse me of lying for assuming your claims imply things they clearly imply.

I took nothing out of context.

You said "Redmage asserted X". Which I did not.

When I called you on it, you said "I didn't claim you asserted X".

You didn't even both to cover your tracks and edit your older post, so I was able to throw your own words in your teeth. Ver Batim, you said "It amuses me somewhat that RedMage has now descended to asserting that only what JaronK did counts as a Tier System".

Backpedaling and making excuses to cover up your own blatant lies because you got caught is not the best way to handle this. You could just admit you put words in my mouth, and admit that you were addressing that made-up statement, and then try to move forward in a more mature and constructive fashion. But I'm betting you won't.

I have been saying this entire time that eggynack's system might as well not have tiers. And that eggynack's "tiers" do not have a cohesive "group identity" in any meaningful way. Eggynack themself has explicitly acknowledged that the delineation of Tiers was more or less arbitrary, and that avoiding such "group identity" within tiers was intentional on their part. Ergo, I was correct. It is my preference for a Tier System to be able to identify things grouped into tiers as having some kind of commonality, which need not be exactly like JaronK's, but...SOMETHING.

You seem to have trouble with context in general. You have yet to grasp, for instance, that you can cite all the dictionary definitions of "tier" you'd like without it making a whit of difference to the meaning of a colloquially used term of art.

And you seem to have trouble with the notion that "Tier" has several definitions.

You seem to think that because you WANT it to be "a colloquially used term of art", which, according to you, makes JaronK's system "not a tier system", that you must be correct.

Here's the thing, JaronK's Tier System does, in fact, meet several definitions of "Tier".

This is going to blow your mind, are you ready?

Sometimes, your initial assumptions are not correct.

Heavy, I know.

This doesn't prove your point. The fact that you can play something well doesn't mean "Player > Build". The fact that you can build something well doesn't mean "Build > Class". It means that those things can be true. But lots of things can be true. The Beguiler, Dread Necromancer, Sorcerer, Artificer, and Erudite are all pretty good and they all have E in their names. Soulborn, Monk, Dragon Shaman, and Ninja are all a lot less good and don't have E in their names. Does that mean "E Classes > no E Classes"? Of course not, that's insane. Similarly, while a good player can elevate a bad build, a bad player can also be carried by a good build. Which means that "Player > Build > Class" doesn't tell us anything particularly useful in general. Sometimes player will be the largest factor. But sometimes build or class will be. Sometimes class will be the smallest factor. But sometimes player or build will be. Maybe you have in your mind some understanding of that inequality such that it is always true. But the plain meaning of it is quite obviously false, and repeating it is mostly misleading.

As I have said a number of times, that was a shorthand for impact of a given individual character within a game. Because class (to include it's Tier listing) aren't everything. Because the Tier System is just a baseline judging only the abilities of the class itself.

That's it. Whatever other straw man you wish to drum up, because your ego just needs a "win against Redmage" does not concern me.

That would be the thing where you describe having selectable class features as not having class features. Again, if you didn't believe that, you could just concede the point, instead of angrily shouting "Straw Man!" like you're a pokemon. It's not like we're playing a game and if you give up on enough points you lose. If your point is actually not this, you can just stop arguing about it. But if you continue arguing about it, it makes your claims that it is not your point (e.g. that it is a strawman) seem rather hollow.

You are once again grossly misrepresenting what I said. You completely ignored me already answering this in my last post.

Are you just unwilling to engage in an honest discussion?

Because, as I have said to you several times, being able to express "people voted for the class in a way that averaged out to a number in the range 1-1.5" more concisely is useful. You remember the post I linked about baseball stats? Naming arbitrary number ranges is a useful tool.

And if it's arbitrary it is, by definition, meaningless.

Yes, I responded to that. I said that I felt the distinction she was making between her position and mine was a semantic one.

No, not really. You said: "Well, yeah, it does a good job of ranking classes by how effective they are. But if I'm understanding RedMage's points correctly, [insert yet another straw man that grossly misrepresent's RedMage's points]."

It seems to be mostly "Straw Man" and various flavors of "you're intellectually dishonest for not agreeing with me yet".

You're not intellectually dishonest "for not agreeing with me". Egy=gynack disagrees with me and is not intellectually dishonest.

You're intellectually dishonest because the conversation has gone like this:

Nigel- "Redmage you said X, and this is me tearing down X"

Redmage- "I did not say 'X', I said 'Y'"

Nigel- "Here is another way of me tearing down 'X'"

RedMage- "I have already said I didn't say that. I don't support that claim. My point is 'Y'"

Nigel- "Well, maybe you didn't say 'X' ver batim, but I think you meant 'X'. This is why 'X' is a stupid thing to say. I am sorry I confused you."

RedMage- "At no point did you confuse me, I saw through -and called you on- every instance of your misrepresentation of me, and how you were only knocking down straw men."

Nigel- "My point is that 'X', which is what you must mean, is a stupid stance."

RedMage- "You're just a blatant liar"

Nigel- "You only say that because I disagree with you. Poor me"

Whereas you seem to have entirely conceded the point that JaronK's tiers aren't any more objective than eggynack's. So it seems to me that you don't actually have a point anymore.

"I don't know where you get your delusions, laser brain" -Princess Leia, Empire Strikes Back

[eggynack]

Does not a straight ranking system tell us that, too?

Even if it did, it does so less effectively. Cause the tiers transmit information efficiently. And it doesn't, because, as I noted, the power curve isn't linear.

Look, you've acknowledged that the "stops" for the tiers are arbitrary. My preference is that if things are going to be organized into Tiers that there be some rhyme or reason to that. That is all.

Why?

Not what I meant. Sorry.

I meant that JaronK had that criteria that classes with that carte blanche got consideration over other classes that did not. I don't expect you to judge by the exact same criteria, I only meant it as an example of "Tier Identity" I guess is a good way to phrase that. I only meant it as an example to highlight that idea, not as some kind of "this has to be a criteria" thing.

But the point is, literally any criteria will have this problem. As long as you have some consideration besides some straightforward measure of effectiveness, then there could arise a class that fails to meet that requirement but nonetheless is as effective as classes that do.

Which is why understanding the grading criteria is crucial, I think.

Because we know for a fact that grading criteria have been known to mislead people?

Unless it was also meant to categorize those groupings by meaningful milestones of capability.

See, this "also" thing is a huge problem. If the system is meant to do thing A (letting you know how a class will function in a party, and what to do with it, and broadly how strong it is), and is "also" meant to do thing B (letting you know that a class has nukes, or actually looks like a sorcerer instead of merely sharing its power level), then the system will fail when A and B come into conflict. We have to choose which is more important, ranking by effectiveness or having these milestones. If you choose effectiveness then the milestones cease to function as criteria in the first place. You can't use them to judge where a class should be, because a class could fail to meet the milestones but still hit a given tier. If you choose milestones then you are objectively ranking effectiveness worse. Because a class that is more effective and misses a milestone will be ranked lower than it should be.

So, which is more important? The milestones or the effectiveness? If it's effectiveness, then my system is superior. If it's milestones, then I have no idea what the tier system is even trying to do. Are we just listing classes that look kinda similar together without direct concern for strength? It's very odd.

I'm sorry you think it's weird. I actually like distinct categorization. And I prefer if things are collected into groups that there is some cohesion within each group.

But there is cohesion. Cause the classes in each group are similarly powerful. There can only be so much cohesion in a tier list, because it's possible for classes at certain levels of power to be similarly diverse.

So...that was about 3 years ago, so I had to slog though to find my post on the matter.

And you'll note even then that I agreed with Grim Reader when he said: "If you are going to re-tier classes based on tier definitions sufficiently different to produce different outcomes... that is going to end up very confusing. You'll get classes that are tier B according to the most used understanding of tier, but tier G according to this one.

You should call the ranking system produced something else than tiers, if it produces significantly different results."

I mean, what was bizarre to me is that you were in this thread claiming that the original definitions are so broad that no one would ever rank a more effective class over a less effective one via definition wrangling, and then my response to you was essentially quoting you. This is blatantly a huge problem that crops up with the original definitions. They had to change.

And I say to grim reader what I said then. The new system doesn't actually produce results that are that different. The original system actually did seek to rank by effectiveness first. Clearly. The stronger classes are, the sizable majority of them, listed over the weaker ones, and the exceptions are often down to some bias or lack of knowledge rather than anything definitional. The issue is that he then produced these definitions, ones which seem to have the purpose of descriptively explaining the results of an effectiveness ranking, but which later were weaponized as prescriptive to fight against change.

I could do the same if I wanted, creating fancy definitions after the fact that match up with the tiers we've developed. They could be all fancy and well written too. And I very much won't. What if we're wrong about the rankings and the definitions are flawed to match? What if I'm poisoning the well of future discourse by doing so? It wouldn't even be the thing you want, given these definitions can't function as criteria. All they can do is mislead people into thinking those criteria exist.

Snip

What an odd comment. Most of these issues are the ones baked into the definitions. Y'know, the definitions this new system does not have for the reasons I'm currently explaining. The only things remaining are prepared caster overrating, which is an issue that should be directed at how people are actually tiering casters, not a tier system in general, and that we're not doing a same game test, which, if you want to do that, go right ahead. No one is stopping you.

[Gnaeus]

You have any proof for this claim? I'm guessing not, since making baseless claims with no facts or citation is your modus operandi. But I'm curious if you THINK you can prove -in some kind of objective, factual manner- that JaronK's definitions were "post hoc".

One of 2 things happened.

1. JaronK, knowing from the community and personal experience that some classes are better than others, ranked them by power, so effectively that after a dozen years and dozens of splats they still almost always match community concensus within about half a tier. Then he looked at his groupings and drew conclusions.

Or

2. JaronK arbitrarily decided to make some milestones. He then sorted classes into them and they happened to distribute by power.

I know which one makes sense to me. And I was involved in, sometimes quoted in all those early discussions. I wrote the “why this class is in its tier” for my favorite classes.

[RedMage125]

Even if it did, it does so less effectively. Cause the tiers transmit information efficiently. And it doesn't, because, as I noted, the power curve isn't linear.

I don't see how it's "less effective". It's literally the same information, but without arbitrary stops.

Why?

Because I feel that the ranking of "Tier" makes more sense. It doesn't really need to be what JaronK did, but some shared identity based on the criteria that placed them there.

So like: "Tier 1 classes can do 'A, B, or C' very well" "Tier 2 classes can either do 'A, B, or C', but not as well as Tier 1, or they do 'D and E with a smattering of B and/or C'". You know, go over how the criteria applies.

Like I said in my first post, JaronK's Tier 2 is barely a distinct Tier in and of itself. If I wasn't clear, this is absolutely a criticism of his system. But based on how he set his "tier identity" criteria, those classes that share a spell list with Tier 1 classes, but with less versatile access to said list get shunted into Tier 2. Tier 2's "identity" is just "limited access to Tier 1 abilities, but still able to access ANY of those abilities". Which isn't very distinct or strong (as an identity) itself.

But the point is, literally any criteria will have this problem. As long as you have some consideration besides some straightforward measure of effectiveness, then there could arise a class that fails to meet that requirement but nonetheless is as effective as classes that do.

But if the criteria is a certain measure of effectiveness, and it doesn't meet the criteria, shouldn't it be in a lower Tier?

Because we know for a fact that grading criteria have been known to mislead people?

Then be more clear and concise than JaronK was.

See, this "also" thing is a huge problem. If the system is meant to do thing A (letting you know how a class will function in a party, and what to do with it, and broadly how strong it is), and is "also" meant to do thing B (letting you know that a class has nukes, or actually looks like a sorcerer instead of merely sharing its power level), then the system will fail when A and B come into conflict. We have to choose which is more important, ranking by effectiveness or having these milestones. If you choose effectiveness then the milestones cease to function as criteria in the first place. You can't use them to judge where a class should be, because a class could fail to meet the milestones but still hit a given tier. If you choose milestones then you are objectively ranking effectiveness worse. Because a class that is more effective and misses a milestone will be ranked lower than it should be.

So, which is more important? The milestones or the effectiveness? If it's effectiveness, then my system is superior. If it's milestones, then I have no idea what the tier system is even trying to do. Are we just listing classes that look kinda similar together without direct concern for strength? It's very odd.

Ok, so if effectiveness is the priority, why add in arbitrary milestones? Just because people like milestones? People don't like meaningless milestones.

If you're travelling from Neverwinter to Candlekeep, and I say, "Hey, there's landmarks when you are at about 5.3% of the way, 27.9% of the way and 68.1% of the way. But nothing at the halfway point, nothing when you're about one day away, and none of these landmarks denote a safe place to rest or anything. They're just things you will see". Do those landmarks mean anything? Or are they just there?

But there is cohesion. Cause the classes in each group are similarly powerful. There can only be so much cohesion in a tier list, because it's possible for classes at certain levels of power to be similarly diverse.

I don't see those similarities with several of those. And it isn't made clear.

One of 2 things happened.

1. JaronK, knowing from the community and personal experience that some classes are better than others, ranked them by power, so effectively that after a dozen years and dozens of splats they still almost always match community concensus within about half a tier. Then he looked at his groupings and drew conclusions.

Or

2. JaronK arbitrarily decided to make some milestones. He then sorted classes into them and they happened to distribute by power.

I know which one makes sense to me. And I was involved in, sometimes quoted in all those early discussions. I wrote the “why this class is in its tier” for my favorite classes.

Or:

3. JaronK decided to rank the classes by milestones of power that were not arbitrary. Figured he'd start at the top. "Okay, what makes the most powerful classes 'powerful'? Well, some classes can do absolutely everything, even better than the ones who are supposed to be good at it. We'll call that the criteria for my top Tier". Now this criteria would have likely placed Favored Soul, Sorcerer, and Psion in the same Tier as Wizard and Cleric. "So if the highest Tier was 'can do everything', let me look at what classes are next. Well, a lot of classes have like ONE really good schtick, but are still good outside that. And below that are classes that have one, really good schtick, but are do poorly outside that." At some point, realized that sorcerers were ranked the same as wizards, but due to the way their classes work, any given sorcerer won't have as many of those powerful options as any given wizard would be able to (same with favored soul vis cleric). So a Tier was placed immediately after the top tier, and consisted solely of those classes with the same capabilities of tier 1, but with limited spells/powers known.

See? That's equally likely. And of course, since we have factual evidence for NONE of those, we can declare none of them factual. So NigelWalsley's assertion that "they were all post hoc", your assertion that "it was either post hoc, or he made aribtrary milestones and crammed classes into them"...neither of those things are true.

You quoted me asking NigelWalmsley for FACT or PROOF, and present your theory with no proof whatsoever as if your claim was somehow proof. Why would you think this post of yours contained even one single fact?

[Troacctid]

Or:

3. JaronK decided to rank the classes by milestones of power that were not arbitrary. Figured he'd start at the top. "Okay, what makes the most powerful classes 'powerful'? Well, some classes can do absolutely everything, even better than the ones who are supposed to be good at it. We'll call that the criteria for my top Tier". Now this criteria would have likely placed Favored Soul, Sorcerer, and Psion in the same Tier as Wizard and Cleric. "So if the highest Tier was 'can do everything', let me look at what classes are next. Well, a lot of classes have like ONE really good schtick, but are still good outside that. And below that are classes that have one, really good schtick, but are do poorly outside that." At some point, realized that sorcerers were ranked the same as wizards, but due to the way their classes work, any given sorcerer won't have as many of those powerful options as any given wizard would be able to (same with favored soul vis cleric). So a Tier was placed immediately after the top tier, and consisted solely of those classes with the same capabilities of tier 1, but with limited spells/powers known.

See? That's equally likely. And of course, since we have factual evidence for NONE of those, we can declare none of them factual. So NigelWalsley's assertion that "they were all post hoc", your assertion that "it was either post hoc, or he made aribtrary milestones and crammed classes into them"...neither of those things are true.

That sounds pretty arbitrary to me.

Listen, JaronK isn't the God of Tiers. He didn't invent tier lists. He doesn't have a trademark on them. He's just some person on the internet. I honestly don't care what he said. Forget about him. He's not important.

What's important is, do you actually think these rankings are a less accurate gauge of power than previous attempts, or are you just salty that we changed things around? Because if you actually have a problem with the placement of any particular class, let's have that discussion.

[NigelWalmsley]

My opinion is that tier lists can measure things in ways besides a straight up power level evaluation (keeping in mind that "power" can be understood expansively in such a way so as to render this distinction meaningless), and that both the original and the new tier lists are, well, tier lists. If you agree about that stuff, then we agree about stuff.

JaronK's ranking mostly is a power ranking, in that it ranks classes that are better higher than classes that are worse. My objection to RedMage's line of argument is the simultaneous assertion that JaronK's tier list is actually biased on a bunch of criteria he made up, and that it is a tier list. Because that's not what a tier list is. That's just "here are how things divide into groups I made up".

Look, you've acknowledged that the "stops" for the tiers are arbitrary. My preference is that if things are going to be organized into Tiers that there be some rhyme or reason to that. That is all.

And there is. Things that are in higher tiers are better than things that are in lower tiers. That's how tier lists work. It's like demanding that there be "rhyme or reason" to the fact that we say something that is 4ft long is "longer" than something that is 3ft long. That's just how length works. You could describe a bunch of properties of things of various lengths, but that would be an inherently different project from simply measuring them, and conflating the two confuses people.

When I think of people who think sorcerers are Tier 1, it makes me think of certain posters who prolifically post shirtless, ab-baring sorcerers. Lol.

Hmm, perhaps we shouldn't rely on a single person as the final authority on how powerful classes are. Maybe we should get a collection of people to express their opinions, then somehow smooth out those opinions into a single rating. That seems like it might be a better methodology, because it would reduce the risk of a single person's skewed perception of a particular class would result in that class being generally represented as more or less powerful than is reasonable.

"If you are going to re-tier classes based on tier definitions sufficiently different to produce different outcomes... that is going to end up very confusing. You'll get classes that are tier B according to the most used understanding of tier, but tier G according to this one.

This seems like a bad argument, because it sounds to me like it proves too much. Suppose JaronK had put the Wizard in T5. A ranking system that put the Wizard in T1 would then end up "confusing", even though it is more accurate by pretty much any proposed definition. This sounds like an argument that, because anything that disagreed with JaronK would be "confusing", only JaronK's list can be called a tier system. But isn't that the exact thing you told us you weren't saying?

Also, you're now going to a place where, as far as I can tell, you are asserting that anything that disagrees with JaronK shouldn't be called a tier system. Isn't that the exact thing you asserted was a "Strawman"?

You have any proof for this claim? I'm guessing not, since making baseless claims with no facts or citation is your modus operandi. But I'm curious if you THINK you can prove -in some kind of objective, factual manner- that JaronK's definitions were "post hoc".

If the definitions came first, it's not really a tier list as the term is generally understood. This is the dilemma I was referring to. If you have some definitions that are orthagonal to power (defined broadly here to include things you could split out like "versatility" or "flexibility" or "resilience" or "sustainability"), then what you're doing isn't tiering things as that is generally understood.

Ver Batim, you said "It amuses me somewhat that RedMage has now descended to asserting that only what JaronK did counts as a Tier System".

"Of options A and B, only B counts as X" is not the same claim as "of all the things that exist, only B counts as X". I made the first claim. I did not make the second claim. You asserted I did, and I corrected you. Again, if you were confused by my language, I apologize and will try to be clearer in future.

Sometimes, your initial assumptions are not correct.

Once again, it is not the case that the only reason someone could disagree with you is because they had never considered that you might be right. Sometimes, people disagree with you. You should try making convincing arguments that they are wrong, instead of shouting "strawman" and "intellectually dishonest". If you spend your time actually making substantive criticisms of my assumptions, instead of insulting me for daring to disagree with you, your argument would be in a much better place. As it is, you seem to have abandoned anything beyond "NigelWalmsley is a lying liar and no one should like him".

And if it's arbitrary it is, by definition, meaningless.

Then JaronK's tiers are meaningless too. Neither system is based on anything objective. Neither system claims to be. JaronK does some categorization, but he doesn't define it well enough for anyone to prove something is in one category or another. There's no experiment you can run that confirms that the Cleric is T1 or the Bard is T3.

[Gnaeus]

Or:

3. JaronK decided to rank the classes by milestones of power that were not arbitrary. Figured he'd start at the top. "Okay, what makes the most powerful classes 'powerful'?

Right. That’s a post hoc definition. He figured out which classes were the most powerful, then derived definitions based on that. It’s so obvious that you can’t even make a theory for how it happened which didn’t start with figuring out which classes were the most powerful first and then making definitions later.

[RedMage125]

That sounds pretty arbitrary to me.

It's the exact opposite of "arbitrary", because you say "Tier X classes share Y characteristics of power", and all the classes in that tier do, then it is not "arbitrary".

Listen, JaronK isn't the God of Tiers. He didn't invent tier lists. He doesn't have a trademark on them. He's just some person on the internet. I honestly don't care what he said. Forget about him. He's not important.

Never said he was. Only that his is an example of a system in which each Tier shares some sort of definable characteristics, and we can understand why each class in that Tier is there. I can understand why Dread Necromancer and Beguiler are in the same Tier in JaronK's. I cannot understand why Death Master and Mystic Ranger are in the same Tier in eggynack's.

As opposed to
What's important is, do you actually think these rankings are a less accurate gauge of power than previous attempts, or are you just salty that we changed things around? Because if you actually have a problem with the placement of any particular class, let's have that discussion.

No, my only issue is with the organization into "tiers" that are completely arbitrary.

JaronK's ranking mostly is a power ranking, in that it ranks classes that are better higher than classes that are worse. My objection to RedMage's line of argument is the simultaneous assertion that JaronK's tier list is actually biased on a bunch of criteria he made up, and that it is a tier list. Because that's not what a tier list is. That's just "here are how things divide into groups I made up".

But each of those "groups" share no similar characteristics in capability to make one understand why they are in the same group.

And there is. Things that are in higher tiers are better than things that are in lower tiers. That's how tier lists work. It's like demanding that there be "rhyme or reason" to the fact that we say something that is 4ft long is "longer" than something that is 3ft long. That's just how length works. You could describe a bunch of properties of things of various lengths, but that would be an inherently different project from simply measuring them, and conflating the two confuses people.

Has nothing to do with what I said. Unless you are grouping these sticks into collections, but some of the "2nd group" sticks are closer to the "3rd group" sticks in length, but you insist they belong in "2nd group", and have not clarified WHY.

This seems like a bad argument, because it sounds to me like it proves too much. Suppose JaronK had put the Wizard in T5. A ranking system that put the Wizard in T1 would then end up "confusing", even though it is more accurate by pretty much any proposed definition. This sounds like an argument that, because anything that disagreed with JaronK would be "confusing", only JaronK's list can be called a tier system. But isn't that the exact thing you told us you weren't saying?

Also, you're now going to a place where, as far as I can tell, you are asserting that anything that disagrees with JaronK shouldn't be called a tier system. Isn't that the exact thing you asserted was a "Strawman"?

*facepalm...again*

No. I am only referring to the classification of "tiers" in and of itself as meaningless without some kind of shared criteria of WHY each thing is in THAT tier with the other things in THAT tier. And "better than the tier below, not as good as the tier above" is meaningless IF both the "above and below" tiers are likewise only distinct in that same, arbitrary fashion.

That doesn't mean "only JaronK's can be called a tier system". But JaronK's DID give criteria for each Tier that helped the reader understand why the classes in that tier were grouped together. I don't insist that "other means of grading and criteria can't be tier systems", like you keep claiming I am. The way JaronK did it is an EXAMPLE. And his system wasn't perfect, either. Like I said initially, Tier 2 is barely distinct. But at least I can understand the metric which was used to say that all Tier 2 classes are grouped together.

Eggynack's system does not offer that, and I find it does not resonate with me. That doesn't mean their system is "worse". but without an understanding of WHY Death Master and Mystic Ranger, for example, belong in the same Tier, but Wilder does not, having them organized into these Tiers seems completely arbitrary.

If the definitions came first, it's not really a tier list as the term is generally understood. This is the dilemma I was referring to. If you have some definitions that are orthagonal to power (defined broadly here to include things you could split out like "versatility" or "flexibility" or "resilience" or "sustainability"), then what you're doing isn't tiering things as that is generally understood.

So you don't actually have any proof of your claim? You made another claim of fact with nothing to back it up?

I don't care about your backpedaling or stammered attempt to force cohesion into your statement. You made a claim of "fact" that is not a fact. It was not parsed as opinion or theory. I called on you to back it up, and you did not. Which is what I have come to expect.

"Of options A and B, only B counts as X" is not the same claim as "of all the things that exist, only B counts as X". I made the first claim. I did not make the second claim. You asserted I did, and I corrected you. Again, if you were confused by my language, I apologize and will try to be clearer in future.

I literally copy/pasted your exact words. Do not try and backpedal now and claim you didn't say that. Anyone can scroll up and see your post that you DID say that.

You're not "confusing me". You're lying.

Once again, it is not the case that the only reason someone could disagree with you is because they had never considered that you might be right. Sometimes, people disagree with you. You should try making convincing arguments that they are wrong, instead of shouting "strawman" and "intellectually dishonest". If you spend your time actually making substantive criticisms of my assumptions, instead of insulting me for daring to disagree with you, your argument would be in a much better place. As it is, you seem to have abandoned anything beyond "NigelWalmsley is a lying liar and no one should like him".

I have no problems with people disagreeing with me if they can engage in honest discourse. I disagree with eggynack, and my discussion with them has not devolved, because eggynack's behavior has been above reproach. I have disagreed with other posters in the past and have had perfectly polite and reasonable debates. I actually really enjoy such debates and discussions.

YOU, on the other hand, continued to say "Redmage is saying X", when I was not, and explicitly clarified that I was not. If my clarification was not clear enough, you could have asked, instead of continuing to assert "no, you're saying X, here is my rebuttal to X", which is a Straw Man. And continuing to build and knock down the same Straw Man after it has been spelled out to you more than twice that such is not the case, is intellectually dishonest.

When your assumptions are about misrepresenting MY points, I feel no need to treat them with the respect I would a genuine counterpoint. They're literally less valuable and can only be called out for being trash and summarily dismissed.

I do not wish for you to feel insulted because you disagree with me. Eggynack disagrees with me, and I have treated them with utmost politeness. If you feel insulted because I called you out on your tactics of consistently and intentionally misrepresenting my points, then perhaps you should re-examine how you conduct yourself in a debate, and adjust accordingly.

And I do not claim anything like "no one should like NigelWalmsley because he is a liar". I only call you out on your specific lies and dishonesty. If you'll note, the handful of times when you have ACTUALLY addressed what I have said, I responded. But I will not grant your straw men the same kind of legitimacy in response from me.

Then JaronK's tiers are meaningless too. Neither system is based on anything objective. Neither system claims to be. JaronK does some categorization, but he doesn't define it well enough for anyone to prove something is in one category or another. There's no experiment you can run that confirms that the Cleric is T1 or the Bard is T3.

You could do something like this:

Spoiler

Show

Situation 1: A Black Dragon has been plaguing an area, and he lives in a trap filled cave. Deal with him.

Situation 2: You have been tasked by a nearby country with making contact with the leader of the underground slave resistance of an evil tyranical city state, and get him to trust you.

Situation 3: A huge army of Orcs is approaching the city, and should be here in a week or so. Help the city prepare for war.

Okay, so, here we go.

Tier 6: A Commoner. Situation 1: If he's REALLY optimized, he could be a threat to the dragon, but a single attack from the dragon could take him out too. He can't really offer help getting to said dragon. He could fill up the entire cave with chickens, but that's probably not a good idea. Really, he's dead weight unless his build was perfectly optimized for this situation (see my Commoner charger build for an example). Situation 2: Well, without any stealth abilities or diplomacy, he's not too handy here, again unless he's been exactly optimized for this precise thing (such as through Martial Study to get Diplomacy). Really, again his class isn't going to help much here. Situation 3: Again, no help from his class, though the chicken thing might be amusing if you're creative.

Tier 5: A Fighter. Situation 1: If he's optimized for this sort of thing (a tripper might have trouble, though a charger would be handy if he could get off a clear shot, and an archer would likely work) he can be a threat during the main fight, but he's probably just about useless for sneaking down through the cave and avoiding any traps the dragon has set out without alerting said dragon. Most likely the party Rogue would want to hide him in a bag of holding or something. Once in the fight if he's optimized he'll be solid, but if not (if he's a traditional SAB build or a dual weilding monkey grip type) he's going to be a liability in the combat (though not as bad as the Commoner). Situation 2: As the commoner before, his class really won't help here. His class just doesn't provide any useful tools for the job. It's possible (but very unlikely) that he's optimized in a way that helps in this situation, just as with the Commoner. Situation 3: Again, his class doesn't help much, but at least he could be pretty useful during the main battle as a front line trooper of some sort. Hack up the enemy and rack up a body count.

Tier 4: The Rogue. Situation 1: Well he can certainly help get the party to the dragon, even if he's not totally optimized for it. His stealth and detection abilities will come in handy here, and if he puts the less stealthy people in portable holes and the like he's good to go. During the combat he's likely not that helpful (it's hard to sneak attack a dragon) but if he had a lot of prep time he might have been able to snag a scroll or wand of Shivering Touch, in which case he could be extremely helpful... he just has to be really prepared and on the ball, and the resources have to be available in advance. He's quite squishy though, and that dragon is a serious threat. Situation 2: With his stealth and diplomacy, he's all over this. Maybe not 100% perfect, but still pretty darn solid. An individual build might not have all the necessary skills, but most should be able to make do. Situation 3: Perhaps he can use Gather Information and such to gain strategic advantages before the battle... that would be handy. There's a few he's pretty likely to be able to pull off. He might even be able to use Diplomacy to buff the army a bit and at least get them into a good morale situation pre battle. Or, if he's a different set up, he could perhaps go out and assassinate a few of the orc commanders before the fight, which could be handy. And then during the fight he could do the same. It's not incredible, but it's something.

Tier 3: The Beguiler. Situation 1: Again, getting through the cave is easy, perhaps easier with spell support. And again, if he's really prepared in advance, Shivering Touch via UMD is a possibility. But he's also got spells that could be quite useful here depending on the situation, and if he's optimized heavily, this is going to be pretty easy... Shadowcraft Mage, perhaps? Or Earth Dreamer? Either way, he's got a lot of available options, though like the Rogue he's somewhat squishy (and that Dragon won't fall for many illusions with his Blindsense) so he still needs that party support. Situation 2: Again, with his skills he's all over this one, plus the added ability to cast spells like charm makes this one much easier, allowing him to make contacts in the city quickly while he figures out where this guy is. Situation 3: Like the Rogue, he can get strategic advantages and be all over the Diplomacy. He's not quite as good at assassinating people if he takes that route (though sneaking up invisible and then using a coup de gras with a scythe is pretty darn effective), but using illusions during the fight will create some serious chaos in his favor. A single illusion of a wall of fire can really disrupt enemy formations, for example.

Tier 2: The Sorcerer. Situation 1: It really depends on the Sorcerer's spell load out. If he's got Greater Floating Disk, Spectral Hand, and Shivering Touch, this one's going to be easy as pie, since he can just float down (and carry his party in the process) to avoid many traps, then nail the dragon in one shot from a distance. If he doesn't he'd need scrolls with the same issues that the UMD Rogue and Beguiler would need. If he's got Explosive Runes he could create a bomb that would take out the Dragon in one shot. If he's got Polymorph he could turn the party melee into a Hydra for extra damage. If he's got Alter Self he could turn himself into a Skulk to get down there sneakily. Certainly, it's possible that the Sorcerer could own this scenario... if he has the right spells known. That's always the hard part for a Sorcerer. Situation 2: Again, depends on the spell. Does he have divinations that will help him know who's part of the resistance and who's actually an evil spy for the Tyranical Govenerment? Does he have charm? Alter Self would help a ton here too for disguise purposes if he has it. Once again, the options exist that could totally make this easy, but he might not have those options. Runestaffs would help a bit, but not that much. Scrolls would help too, but that requires access to them and good long term preparation. Situation 3: Again, does he have Wall of Iron or Wall of Stone to make fortifications? Does he have Wall of Fire to disrupt the battlefield? How about Mind Rape and Love's Pain to kill off the enemy commanders without any ability to stop him? Does he have Blinding Glory on his spell list, or Shapechange, or Gate? Well, maybe. He's got the power, but if his spells known don't apply here he can't do much. So, maybe he dominates this one, maybe not.

Tier 1: The Wizard. Situation 1: Memorize Greater Floating Disk, Shivering Touch, and Spectral Hand. Maybe Alter Self too for stealth reasons. Kill dragon. Memorize Animate Dead too, because Dragons make great minions (seriously, there's special rules for using that spell on dragons). Sweet, you have a new horsie! Or, you know, maybe you Mind Rape/Love's Pain and kill the dragon before he even knows you exist, then float down and check it out. Or maybe you create a horde of the dead and send them in, triggering the traps with their bodies. Or do the haunt shift trick and waltz in with a hardness of around 80 and giggle. Perhaps you cast Genesis to create a flowing time plane and then sit and think about what to do for a year while only a day passes on the outside... and cast Explosive Runes every day during that year. I'm sure you can come up with something. It's really your call. Situation 2: Check your spell list. Alter Self and Disguise Self can make you look like whoever you need to look like. Locate Creature has obvious utility. Heck, Contact Other Plane could be a total cheating method of finding the guy you're trying to find. Clairvoyance is also handy. It's all there. Situation 3: Oh no, enemy army! Well, if you've optimized for it, there's always the locate city bomb (just be careful not to blow up the friendly guys too). But if not, Love's Pain could assassinate the leaders. Wall of Iron/Stone could create fortifications, or be combined with Fabricate to armour up some of the troops. Or you could just cast Blinding Glory and now the entire enemy army is blind with no save for caster level hours. Maybe you could Planar Bind an appropriate outsider to help train the troops before the battle. Push comes to shove, Gate in a Solar, who can cast Miracle (which actually does have a "I win the battle" option)... or just Shapechange into one, if you prefer.

So yeah, as you move up the Tiers you go from weak, unadaptable, and predictable (that Commoner's got very few useful options) to strong, adaptable, and unpredictable (who knows what that Wizard is going to do?). A Wizard can always apply a great deal of strength very efficiently, whether it's Shivering Touch on the Dragon or Blinding Glory on an enemy army. The Sorcerer has the power, but he may not have power that he can actually apply to the situation. The Beguiler has even less raw power and may have to use UMD to pull it off. The Rogue is even further along that line. And the Fighter has power in very specific areas which are less likely to be useful in a given situation.

Doesn't have to be the same thing, and I don't at all claim it's some kind of "master solution". Just wanted to point out that your claim of "no experiment you could run" is bunk.

Right. That’s a post hoc definition. He figured out which classes were the most powerful, then derived definitions based on that. It’s so obvious that you can’t even make a theory for how it happened which didn’t start with figuring out which classes were the most powerful first and then making definitions later.

It's like you didn't even read what I wrote. That is absolutely making the definitions first.

And it's all hypothesis anyway, something I wrote off the cuff. You provided no actual proof, and neither did NigelWalmsley.

Either pony up some kind of objective fact, or drop the point. Because you're not proving anything.

[Odin's Eyepatch]

I don't see how it's "less effective". It's literally the same information, but without arbitrary stops.

The tier list is more effective because its presenting the same information a different way. It's like choosing the correct graph for your data set.

If i had someone ask me if I could show them the differences in power between different classes, i could:

a) give them a list, with an explanation that those at the top are more effective at solving encounters than those at the bottom. (i could even recycle words used in the tier descriptions)

b) give them the tier list, with the current definitions of each tier.

It's the same information. But option b might be easier to read than option a, especially if a person wants to, for example, choose a class that is similar in power level to the other classes in his party (or any other reason why people use the tier lists). By separating the list into discrete sections, it improves our ability to analyse and compare the information presented. And if someone wanted to know why mystic ranger is where it is in the list, he can check the official thread to find out why. Simpler numbers like a scale 1-6 is easier to understand than a scale which is 20+ long.

Another reason why the community tier list is better than just a straight ranking: it means that people who have read JaronK's tier list in the past will find the new tier list easier to use, since it's presented in a familiar format.

Now obviously some people out there will probably prefer a straight ranking, or maybe their question requires a straight ranking. But look! We've got the best of both worlds. Each class in the community tier list has its score attached to it.

[eggynack]

I don't see how it's "less effective". It's literally the same information, but without arbitrary stops.

Because people do better with six categories than a hundred. Because the categories actually do feature some commonalities within them simply by dint of operating at similar power levels.

Because I feel that the ranking of "Tier" makes more sense. It doesn't really need to be what JaronK did, but some shared identity based on the criteria that placed them there.

But if members of a tier have some shared identity beyond power level, then we cease to measure power level effectively.

So like: "Tier 1 classes can do 'A, B, or C' very well" "Tier 2 classes can either do 'A, B, or C', but not as well as Tier 1, or they do 'D and E with a smattering of B and/or C'". You know, go over how the criteria applies.

This is written a bit confusingly, given the possibility of inclusive versus exclusive or. Do tier one and tier two classes have to pick A, B, or C and hit it at some level of capacity? If so, what if a class can do A, B, and C, but only reasonably well? Or can only do A, and less well than a tier one, but do D and E so ridiculously well that it compensates? Or whatever.

But if the criteria is a certain measure of effectiveness, and it doesn't meet the criteria, shouldn't it be in a lower Tier?

But that's the problem exactly. JaronK's definitions don't merely measure effectiveness. They also measure some arbitrary other things. My criteria are just the effectiveness thing. No more and no less.

Then be more clear and concise than JaronK was.

You misunderstand. The issue isn't some quality of the writing. It's having non-effectiveness criteria in the first place. They will always raise questions of whether to use the effectiveness or the weird criteria.

Ok, so if effectiveness is the priority, why add in arbitrary milestones? Just because people like milestones? People don't like meaningless milestones.

Cause they convey information. Just not extra information besides effectiveness. If I say, "Beguiler is tier two," then you know, without having to check, that that means, "Beguiler is about as good as a sorcerer." That's useful. It's also useful that, if I say, "Beguiler is tier two and fighter is tier four," then that means, "These classes are pretty far apart in power, but not as far as it is possible to be." Seriously, this is how basically all tier lists work. It's nice having groups. They fit better in your head. Also, uh, what people besides you don't like low-meaning milestones?

If you're travelling from Neverwinter to Candlekeep, and I say, "Hey, there's landmarks when you are at about 5.3% of the way, 27.9% of the way and 68.1% of the way. But nothing at the halfway point, nothing when you're about one day away, and none of these landmarks denote a safe place to rest or anything. They're just things you will see". Do those landmarks mean anything? Or are they just there?

Lets you know you're going the right way. Otherwise you're just in a featureless landscape and you have to be checking the map constantly.

I don't see those similarities with several of those. And it isn't made clear.

Why'sat? If you disagree with individual rankings, you might be better off just arguing about that.