TOPIC: Class Power Rankings

Fred K wrote:

Endgame wrote:

Fred K wrote:

Endgame wrote:

Endgame wrote:

OrionW wrote: Endgame, I assume that you are talking Nightmare or lower in your power rankings - because at Epic you need to move fighter and dwarf fighter up the list.

Also for ranged combat how many combat rooms are you expecting?

I’m ranking in epic / nightmare. I would need to review rare builds hardcore.

I expect 4 combat rooms - some dungeons have 3, some have 5. VTD has had some 6 combat paths that could be chosen, but I’m not aware of any physical dungeons with 6

Edit,

If I have some time, I can pull one of my E series modules and drop some actual numbers based on, say, E3.

I'm doing this exceptionally fast, and don't have anything in excel for this yet, so we'll ball park this.

E3 doesn't have any published epic numbers, but E2 does have published epic.

Both E2 and E3 are 3 combats.

E2 ACs on Epic are 29, 25, and 35.

E2 has no flying monsters.

Looking at melee builds (all builds have 20+ saves, 60+ hp). Dwarf fighter has high enough AC to guarantee all monsters need a 20 to hit for taunt usage.

For Monk and Ranger, we will add the VTD offhand penalty.

Assume Bard w/ Legendary Windseth and using Bless Scroll is in the party, so add +5 / +4 to all stats.
For being really quick and ignoring how rooms 2 and 3 could cause many rounds of combat, assume all combats go 2 rounds.

1) Monk - +25 hit (+18 offhand) / +45 damage / 2x ashers 10.5 average damage each.
Room 1: hits on 2+ main hand, on 6+ offhand. Probably lands 4 hits for 238 damage
Room 2: hits on 2+ mainhand, 2+ offhand. Probably lands 4 hits for 238 damage
Room 3: hits on 5+ mainhand, 12+ offhand. Probably lands 3 hits for 179
total: 655-711

2) Barbarian - +20 hit / +57 damage / Averon's 12.8 average damage.
Room 1, hits on 4+. Probably lands 2 hits for 140 damage.
Room 2, hits on 2+. Greater Rage and Fury. probably lands 2 hits for 221 damage.
Room 3, hits on 10+. Greater Rage and Fury. May miss once. Damage range is large. 76-221
Total: 437-582

3) Ranger - +24 hit (+18 offhand) / +36 damage / 2x ashers 10.5 average damage each.
Room 1: hits on 2+ main hand, on 6+ offhand. Probably lands 4 hits for 188 damage
Room 2: hits on 2+ mainhand, 2+ offhand. Probably lands 4 hits for 188 damage
Room 3: hits on 5+ mainhand, 12+ offhand. Probably lands 3 hits for 179
total: 555-602

4a) --omitting rouge to not worry about crits at the moment--

4b) Poly Druid - +23 hit / +44 poly damage / +29 spell damage / Iktomi's 11 average damage, +3 freezing orbs (RoQB), +1 Spell Surge Call Lightning (RoSS)
Room 1, hits on 2+. Probably lands 2 hits for 110 damage, lands 1 freezing orb for 37 damage.
Room 2, hits on 2+. Probably lands 2 hits for 110 damage, lands 2 freezing orbs for 74 damage.
Room 3, hits on 7+. May miss once, but probably hits for 110. 1x spell surge call lightning for 69 damage.
Total: 455-510

5) Fighter - +30 hit / +44 damage / Welfor's 10.5 average damage
Room 1, hits on 2+. Probably lands 2 hits for 110 damage.
Room 2, hits on 2+. Probably lands 2 hits for 110 damage.
Room 3, hits on 2+. Probably lands 2 hits for 110 damage.
Could fairly safely use power attack for +5 damage on each attack.
Total: 330-360.

6) Dwarf Fighter - +24 hit / +34 damage / 51 AC / Welfor's 10.5 average damage
Room 1: hits on 2+. Probably lands 2 hits for 90 damage.
Room 2: hits on 2+. Probably lands 2 hits for 90 damage.
Room 3: hits on 5+. Probably lands 2 hits for 90 damage.
Could fairly safely use power attack for +2 damage on each attack.
Total: 270-282.

I forget who put it together but there is a thread already about max damage by class that allows for changing the ACs and incorporates crits. That might allow for a more accurate comparison. It also allows for a realistic comparison on Rogue - without crits, rogue is only above bard and cleric for damage.

I would also recommend looking at 2 rounds of combat per room - that seems more common than 3.

Barb damage seem very low. I've been doing runs on Epic with barbarians. Because of the availability of the panther figurine and rogue flank, I haven't seen a fury attack miss yet (due to re-roll and advantage+1 rolls.) Realistically, you are looking at Barbs doing 400+ just on the two fury attacks. Using V5b, typical epic Barb builds will hit on anything but a 1 for 2 of the 3 creatures. Assuming 3 rounds of combat each, that means 70+ dmg/round from barb in non-fury rounds 95% of the time. Assuming 12 rounds of combat per run, that works out to 630 dmg (700 *.95) plus 2 furies for 200 each = 830 damage.

If the comparisons are just base tokens without consumables - they shouldn't be included in these calculations (you argued against consumables being considered earlier in this thread.)

Anyone with better forum search-fu than myself able to find the max damage by class calculator link?

Fred

All combats are 2 rounds - I just bolded that in my original post.

The only consumable I used is the bless scroll bard, because it's faster and more consistent than having a cleric sometimes add +1 or +3 in a combat, depending on Cleric gear.

I believe it is impossible for a Barbarian to deal 200 damage from a single fury attack. The highest damage barbarian build I'm aware of is +65 damage, and it would not meet the stated minimum requirements, as it has 59 hp and 17/8/16 saves. If this Barbarian uses Fury, Greater Rage (+6), and slides the highest possible number on Averon's (21), it would deal 184 damage. The full damage range is 158-184 damage.

Edit to note that a level 5 bard with +2 damage instrument would make the fury + greater rage damage range 166-190, assuming the target can be crit. If you need to wear bracers of guided strike to crit the monster, that will decrease the crit damage by 10 (loss of bracers of reckless fury).

It is becoming increasingly common for a wizard to boost barbarians for fury attacks. Base attack +63 (my current built with 70 hp and 20’s for saves), add +4 for bard song, use greater rage for +6, avg averon dmg of 12.8 gives you 75.8 before boost. Add an MEC boosted fireball for 40 more base and you have a reliable base of 115.8 (231 crit.) Even a non MEC boost of 20 puts you a hair under 200 crit dmg (191 crit.)

Matt has a spreadsheet that breaks all of this down already and demonstrated what classes are the top damage dealers.

Because of gloves of the flying fist, Monks are the #1 range damage dealers as well.

Sure, if you add a wizard’s action to the Barbarian, you can push it that high, but then it’s wizard + Barbarian for that particular combat and the individual performance is much less relevant. One would also need to discount the damage the wizard could have done on their own without boost from the total, and I’m less certain that calculation is valuable regarding overall melee rankings.

As a preview, here's the aggregate with 53 responses. Numbers shown are the average rank assigned.

Surprised to see Paladin above DF. Guard vs Taunt, and now with ViV's.

I dont think Sacrifice comes up that much.

I guess people really like Lay on Hands.

Some of the 53 who answered may also not own Viv's.

Wade Schwendemann (Dr. Uid) wrote: Surprised to see Paladin above DF. Guard vs Taunt, and now with ViV's.

I dont think Sacrifice comes up that much.

I guess people really like Lay on Hands.

+1. I am surprised to see Dwarf Fighter so low considering how powerful Taunt is.

I am also surprised to see Elf Wizard so low with how important winning initiative is.

Wade Schwendemann (Dr. Uid) wrote: Surprised to see Paladin above DF. Guard vs Taunt, and now with ViV's.

I dont think Sacrifice comes up that much.

I guess people really like Lay on Hands.

I think that is part of the issue. Not everyone has Viv's or even the relic version. I know when I was ranking them, I was asked specifically for my group so I answered accordingly. In no particular order, Gaurd, LoH and Sacrifice is why I ranked the Paladin ahead of D Fighter. And specifically for my group Grace.

Wade Schwendemann (Dr. Uid) wrote: Surprised to see Paladin above DF. Guard vs Taunt, and now with ViV's.

I dont think Sacrifice comes up that much.

I guess people really like Lay on Hands.

My wizard dumps ac and sets up a paladin shield. DF can only taunt one attack, and if a monster has two and really loathes wizards, mage is gonna get hit. Paly can stand in the way all day. Everyone else either can take hits, avoid hits, or has a cleric for the mopping of the blood. Since he loves the Magiks and can’t pump ac the shield is required. Wizard wouldn’t be so high except I know it’s getting taken for our runs.

Ok, I submit other parties have different priorities from each other.

I stand corrected, yet still surprised.

Here are the spreads for each class. I found it pretty interesting...there's widespread agreement that Bard and Cleric are good and the Fighters are bad, but the rest there's a wide range of opinions. That being said most responses did cluster right around where they landed. For those of you not used to reading a box and whisker plot 25% of the responses are in each part segment, with the middle 50% highlighted in blue. The x towards the middle is the average, the line in the middle is the median (the response right in the middle of the pack). Any dots on the outside are outliers, outside the normal spread enough that they're an aberration.

I personally like the outliers. Outliers in data is always interesting to me though.

macxdmg wrote: I personally like the outliers. Outliers in data is always interesting to me though.

Sure we need to find out who voted bard 12th and hunt them down...lol. Though maybe it was the person that voted fighter first and was doing the whole think backwards.

jedibcg wrote:

macxdmg wrote: I personally like the outliers. Outliers in data is always interesting to me though.

Sure we need to find out who voted bard 12th and hunt them down...lol. Though maybe it was the person that voted fighter first and was doing the whole think backwards.

It was the person who voted fighter first, so they probably did it backwards. Either that or they have a very controversial set of opinions on class rank.