TOPIC: What are the Ideal Class Damage Rankings?

Iross wrote:

Guedoji wrote:

Fiddy wrote:

Iross wrote: (except one turn of Flank at 5th level, which rarely gets used in my experience)

Re-read Flank. You can only place it once per combat, but you can leave it there the entire combat.

On some board layouts, you can effectively act as a backstop for multiple people to land crits for multiple rounds.

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I.. completely misunderstood flank then.

You're not the only one, I had no idea about that either - as mentioned above the character card doesn't give any indication you can leave the puck on the board. Fiddy's completely right though and it's very clearly stated in the PHB - "The flanking puck may be left on the combat board as long as the rogue wants—even the whole combat, if desired."

Don't feel bad. I usually run across a DM once a year or every other year that has to be reminded of that. "Wait! don't slide back the Rogue slider! He's still flanking!"

Fiddy wrote:

Iross wrote:

Guedoji wrote:

Fiddy wrote:

Iross wrote: (except one turn of Flank at 5th level, which rarely gets used in my experience)

Re-read Flank. You can only place it once per combat, but you can leave it there the entire combat.

On some board layouts, you can effectively act as a backstop for multiple people to land crits for multiple rounds.

\

I.. completely misunderstood flank then.

You're not the only one, I had no idea about that either - as mentioned above the character card doesn't give any indication you can leave the puck on the board. Fiddy's completely right though and it's very clearly stated in the PHB - "The flanking puck may be left on the combat board as long as the rogue wants—even the whole combat, if desired."

Don't feel bad. I usually run across a DM once a year or every other year that has to be reminded of that. "Wait! don't slide back the Rogue slider! He's still flanking!"

I love that after all these years, I continue to learn new things.. Thanks for this.

Endgame wrote:

Matthew Hayward wrote:

Dergidan wrote:

Endgame wrote:

Guedoji wrote: There should be no ideal class damage ranking. All classes should be relatively equal at base, then damage should scale with earned equipment and skill at sliding or performance on their respective skill test.

Note: Also, just shaking my head when people justify the Rogue having less damage because they have a puzzle to help the group. It's just silly.

each class should have a design statement that determines why you want to play the class. Not every class can be the top damage dealer, but many classes are only defined by their combat abilities. For class balance sake, no class should excel outside of combat and in it. Since rouge has a role out of combat, to be balanced in desirability, it should have a weak combat role.

At entry level, rare, and even UR levels and possibly higher, the Rogue does not "excel" at combat. Maybe the Rogue does awesome damage with a sneak attack once (or twice with high end builds) but after that they fall back to the middle. Rogues do not sustain the high damage output that other combat classes do.

The Rogue has a unique role in a puzzle room, yes. In a combat room, the Rogue has NO role outside of combat. A spike in damage on sneak attack if you crit and then middle damage or flank is fine.

Why are we arguing so much about whether or not the Rogue is unbalanced when there are clearly other classes that need to be toned down (monk) and need to be brought up (fighters, maybe wizards)

It seems to me there are a couple of people who really don't want the Rogue to do decent damage, some people who are invested in the class and don't want to see it ruined, and a lot more people that think it's fine as is.

I think we're better served looking at ways to boost up the classes the need more, rather than nerf classes that stand out.

I agree with this - the flurry of discussion about rogues here is not very productive.

The damage problems in this game stem from ever increasing stackable melee boosters that are more prevalent than other boosters for ranged/spell and two classes (monk, Ranger) that benefit substantially more from those boosters than the other 10.

Of course, if the design intention is that monks and rangers are supposed to be the top 2 damage dealer, then it’s working as intended?

A. One can go further: if the design intent is that all classes have their current damage output relative to one another then things are currently working as intended.

B. The topic you began on this thread is not "what is the design intent for class damage rankings," it's about what is ideal. There seems to be loose consensus on this thread that it is not ideal for those two classes to be the top damage dealers, on the strength of their not-the-worst saves, AC, HP, and in the case of monk myriad situational abilities and dazing/stunning fist.

From my perspective the correct question is what the floor should be for Legendary equipped players. I think on a Crit all classes should do at least 100 points of damage. If we all do triple digits on occasion, then I think that play style and fun become more important than who is tops in damage.

While I could do some calculations, I'm not supermotivated.

I built an UR Ranger and an UR Wizard (withs Charms of Avarice to not eat other slots). Ranger +19/+25 Deadly Blood Mace, Wizard +19 spell. Wizard doesn't have MEC because I didn't think about the Int requirement until I was done. But, then, to have MEC be so essential to damage is itself a problem. I just swapped out Crown of Expertise for Hat of Intellect to enable MEC. No ear bonus to damage as needed Charming Earcuff for level bump and Arcane Earcuff for both effects as it was intended to be a real build not just max damage.

As 7 rounds of combat strikes me as only plausible at sealed pack level, I'd imagine seeing how 3 rounds of combat turns out would be a clearer indicator of how much damage would be done.

Ian Lee wrote: While I could do some calculations, I'm not supermotivated.

I built an UR Ranger and an UR Wizard (withs Charms of Avarice to not eat other slots). Ranger +19/+25 Deadly Blood Mace, Wizard +19 spell. Wizard doesn't have MEC because I didn't think about the Int requirement until I was done. But, then, to have MEC be so essential to damage is itself a problem. I just swapped out Crown of Expertise for Hat of Intellect to enable MEC. No ear bonus to damage as needed Charming Earcuff for level bump and Arcane Earcuff for both effects as it was intended to be a real build not just max damage.

As 7 rounds of combat strikes me as only plausible at sealed pack level, I'd imagine seeing how 3 rounds of combat turns out would be a clearer indicator of how much damage would be done.

At sealed level, I would expect 3-4 rounds of combat per room based on past experience. That would be anywhere from 9 to 16 rounds of combat.

My V1a nightmare run had a total of 11 rounds of combat.

For any calculation that I would do, I would plan on 9 rounds of combat on a given 3 combat dungeon, and 12 on a 4 combat dungeon.

I would also plan on 1 flying creature, 1 multi monster room, and 1-2 standard melee rooms.

I may have misunderstood what MH did in another thread. I was wondering at how combat could ever last 7 rounds at Nightmare or Epic levels. I didn't realize it was total number of rounds across all combats. In that case, while I can see it at BiS level, my combats almost never go as quick as those who finish up in one round of combat.

So, in terms of total number of rounds, I could see something like 9. It would be more likely to be 2 rounds in one fight, 3 in another, and 4 in the last than 3/3/3. 12 for four fights seems not crazy, either.

As for sealed play, average I'm used to is probably 4.5 per combat or so. And, that's only because one fight might be much sooner than the others.

OrionW wrote: From my perspective the correct question is what the floor should be for Legendary equipped players. I think on a Crit all classes should do at least 100 points of damage. If we all do triple digits on occasion, then I think that play style and fun become more important than who is tops in damage.

If that was the goal, some classes definitely need more work than others. For Clerics, the best damage build I've been able to come up with is about 20 points shy of that on a crit. And that is sacrificing a lot of healing boosts to bump up melee.

I'm saying "if" that was the goal. I'm not sure it should be, but since it was raised as a potential goal I wanted to respond with where one of the classes falls on the spectrum.

Fiddy wrote:

OrionW wrote: From my perspective the correct question is what the floor should be for Legendary equipped players. I think on a Crit all classes should do at least 100 points of damage. If we all do triple digits on occasion, then I think that play style and fun become more important than who is tops in damage.

If that was the goal, some classes definitely need more work than others. For Clerics, the best damage build I've been able to come up with is about 20 points shy of that on a crit. And that is sacrificing a lot of healing boosts to bump up melee.

I'm saying "if" that was the goal. I'm not sure it should be, but since it was raised as a potential goal I wanted to respond with where one of the classes falls on the spectrum.

This cleric build should crit for max of 104 and has +22 heal

tdcharactercreator.com/#/character/edit/120af523-e98b-478b-acd9-be2f6f00df22

Endgame wrote:

Fiddy wrote:

OrionW wrote: From my perspective the correct question is what the floor should be for Legendary equipped players. I think on a Crit all classes should do at least 100 points of damage. If we all do triple digits on occasion, then I think that play style and fun become more important than who is tops in damage.

If that was the goal, some classes definitely need more work than others. For Clerics, the best damage build I've been able to come up with is about 20 points shy of that on a crit. And that is sacrificing a lot of healing boosts to bump up melee.

I'm saying "if" that was the goal. I'm not sure it should be, but since it was raised as a potential goal I wanted to respond with where one of the classes falls on the spectrum.

This cleric build should crit for max of 104 and has +22 heal

tdcharactercreator.com/#/character/edit/120af523-e98b-478b-acd9-be2f6f00df22

I interpreted "at least" meaning min damage on the weapon, whereas you look to be assuming max weapon damage in your 104. So that is 14 points of the difference. But yeah, I did miss a few points in there. Forgot about the new Jasper ioun stones for one thing.

Fiddy wrote:

Endgame wrote:

Fiddy wrote:

OrionW wrote: From my perspective the correct question is what the floor should be for Legendary equipped players. I think on a Crit all classes should do at least 100 points of damage. If we all do triple digits on occasion, then I think that play style and fun become more important than who is tops in damage.

If that was the goal, some classes definitely need more work than others. For Clerics, the best damage build I've been able to come up with is about 20 points shy of that on a crit. And that is sacrificing a lot of healing boosts to bump up melee.

I'm saying "if" that was the goal. I'm not sure it should be, but since it was raised as a potential goal I wanted to respond with where one of the classes falls on the spectrum.

This cleric build should crit for max of 104 and has +22 heal

tdcharactercreator.com/#/character/edit/120af523-e98b-478b-acd9-be2f6f00df22

I interpreted "at least" meaning min damage on the weapon, whereas you look to be assuming max weapon damage in your 104. So that is 14 points of the difference. But yeah, I did miss a few points in there. Forgot about the new Jasper ioun stones for one thing.

Messed around with it a little more, and I think I have landed on the truly max damage build while keeping heal at 20+. By making some truly poor decisions for the character over all (ex, swapping SRoEC for Ring of the Drake), I was able to push it to +41 damage. That means min crit of 94 with the baton without using consumables. With 2 rune stones and potions of bull strength, you can get min crit damage over 100.

Ideal Damage Ranking:

1) Druid
2-12) Everyone Else

(just kidding)