What are the overall best/worst of flat 20 classes/trees?

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Spellskite

Member
To make a note, I do understand classes/trees specialize in different things (Single Target/AOE/Crowd Control/Healing). But what I am asking is in your guys opinion what are the overall best and worst of the following things for a player:

- Best/Worst flat 20 class (20 monk, 20 barb, 20 wiz, etc.)
- Best/Worst Class Trees and there respective capstones (No falconry for example, ninja assassin, air savant, palemaster, ravager, etc.)
- Best/Worst Epic Destinies (Shadowdancer/GMoF/Macrotechnic/ etc.)

Some things to keep in mind are things like ease of playability, gearing/life/ap requirements to make work even decently, is the payoff at the end worth it and do you feel like your actually contributing to the group?

I'm just curious to see what more experienced players feel about these things as they make a huge difference to playing experience for new/old folk as well. Especially with the game being balanced around tring and trying new builds to see how they function.
 
C

C-Dog

Well-known member
"Best" and "Worst" is so subjective as to make the question almost meaningless. "Best/Worst" for pure DPS, solo-ability, grouping, survivability, fast leveling, what?

BlightCaster is kinda FotM, Alchemist maybe close second, Artificer always strong (esp w/ WF/BF), etc.
 
P

PurpleSerpent

Monster Hunter of Moderate Renown
Spellskite said:
To make a note, I do understand classes/trees specialize in different things (Single Target/AOE/Crowd Control/Healing). But what I am asking is in your guys opinion what are the overall best and worst of the following things for a player:

- Best/Worst flat 20 class (20 monk, 20 barb, 20 wiz, etc.)
- Best/Worst Class Trees and there respective capstones (No falconry for example, ninja assassin, air savant, palemaster, ravager, etc.)
- Best/Worst Epic Destinies (Shadowdancer/GMoF/Macrotechnic/ etc.)

Some things to keep in mind are things like ease of playability, gearing/life/ap requirements to make work even decently, is the payoff at the end worth it and do you feel like your actually contributing to the group?

I'm just curious to see what more experienced players feel about these things as they make a huge difference to playing experience for new/old folk as well. Especially with the game being balanced around tring and trying new builds to see how they function.
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Ah! Well. This one is going to be... tricky to answer.

See, the thing with DDO's character meta is that it is constantly in flux, as new expansion content makes different builds viable for endgame play. This has been particularly the case with the recent updates to character balance with U61 and U62, which have given several of DDO's worst trees much-needed boosts which may well have brought at least a couple back into endgame play.

As such, it's a very dedicated player indeed that has used all 20 classes recently enough that they can compare them using the current meta, and there's the constant risk that this information will be outdated in a couple of months.

However, we can at least get a good look at which classes are in vogue at the moment by heading to ddoaudit.com, a third-party site which tracks server populations and has a chart showing class distributions. (Note that Archetypes are not included in the stat line, instead being treated as their base class.)

At the bottom of the table, we find Alchemist, Favored Soul, and Monk. The former result is unsurprising, as Alchemist is DDO's only remaining paid-only class, and accordingly is going to be in or near last place no matter how good it is. Favored Soul and Monk both track too, as FvS has to be manually unlocked and also got stomped into the dust by a balance change in late 2022 from which it is yet to recover, and Monk, both in DDO and D&D itself, has a reputation for being tricky to build for.

At the top, we find perennial tanking favourite the Paladin, closely followed by current DPS favourites Warlock and Ranger. Between these six, the other classes are all pretty much on the same level (Artificer is a bit behind the curve, but then that class is pretty tricky to unlock.)

It's interesting to note a slightly different distribution of characters recorded on Hardcore, as that server's environment favours classes that do well in heroic content, even if they fall off on Epic. Rogues are everywhere on Hardcore, as trap-disarming is vital in early content, and Wizard and Artificer also get much bigger pieces of the pie. Favored Soul, meanwhile, doesn't even show on the chart.

(There is a similar chart showing race distributions, but this is a bit harder to draw conclusions from, because a lot of DDO's race options are store-bought or tied to expansions.)
 
Terpilar

Terpilar

Well-known member
That"s an artificial question as there are no absolutes here - one player's best/worst is another's worst/best - it all boils down to what play-style(s) you happen to enjoy.
 
S

Spellskite

Member
PurpleSerpent said:
Ah! Well. This one is going to be... tricky to answer.

See, the thing with DDO's character meta is that it is constantly in flux, as new expansion content makes different builds viable for endgame play. This has been particularly the case with the recent updates to character balance with U61 and U62, which have given several of DDO's worst trees much-needed boosts which may well have brought at least a couple back into endgame play.

As such, it's a very dedicated player indeed that has used all 20 classes recently enough that they can compare them using the current meta, and there's the constant risk that this information will be outdated in a couple of months.

However, we can at least get a good look at which classes are in vogue at the moment by heading to ddoaudit.com, a third-party site which tracks server populations and has a chart showing class distributions. (Note that Archetypes are not included in the stat line, instead being treated as their base class.)

At the bottom of the table, we find Alchemist, Favored Soul, and Monk. The former result is unsurprising, as Alchemist is DDO's only remaining paid-only class, and accordingly is going to be in or near last place no matter how good it is. Favored Soul and Monk both track too, as FvS has to be manually unlocked and also got stomped into the dust by a balance change in late 2022 from which it is yet to recover, and Monk, both in DDO and D&D itself, has a reputation for being tricky to build for.

At the top, we find perennial tanking favourite the Paladin, closely followed by current DPS favourites Warlock and Ranger. Between these six, the other classes are all pretty much on the same level (Artificer is a bit behind the curve, but then that class is pretty tricky to unlock.)

It's interesting to note a slightly different distribution of characters recorded on Hardcore, as that server's environment favours classes that do well in heroic content, even if they fall off on Epic. Rogues are everywhere on Hardcore, as trap-disarming is vital in early content, and Wizard and Artificer also get much bigger pieces of the pie. Favored Soul, meanwhile, doesn't even show on the chart.

(There is a similar chart showing race distributions, but this is a bit harder to draw conclusions from, because a lot of DDO's race options are store-bought or tied to expansions.)
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I do appreciate you taking the time to give your opinion on the question I asked. It is really appreciated to get opinions about the various classes a bit more indepth and what maybe people about capstones, flat 20 classes and there respective upsides/downsides.
 
H

Hoccleve

Active member
I've just completed the slowest ever Heroic completionist (years!) and completely agree that (a) it does, as your OP recognises, depend what you want and (b) various game changes have radically changed what is popular and / or powerful over time. FWIW, the only build I've tried which was basically unviable was a summoner wizard (I know, I was told), and beyond low levels for some time is has been caster > ranged > melee. I've done both sorc and alchemist relatively recently, and both were powerful. Paladin I found one of the most disappointing builds. I like melee most, and wis based monk works for me at present (great AC, great running and leaping). Oh, and game knowledge matters hugely, gear, PLs and RPs all matter a lot, and build less so unless you really stuff it up.
 
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paddymaxson

Well-known member
For heroic lives I'd say "worst" is anything that can't self heal really effectively....but that really depends on the difficulty you play.

Fighter does really really good damage but second wind is not enough for reaper difficulty solo so I'd say that. It's actually only an isuse in a handful of quests as fighter's damage mitigation is also good but I really do feel that if you can't somehow top your health up any longer quest or quest with many enemies is a battle of attrition.

Of course, the halfling dragonmark (which a fighter has room for) makes up for it.

As for pure 20s....again for heroics, Bard or warlock I guess? Warlock has so much utility, temporary HP buffers, competitive damage dealing in heroics.

idk much about destinies.

Edit: I'm under the impression that the general consensus at epics is the "best" is ice druid 20, though.
 
saekee

saekee

long live ROGUE
Assassin by far, how is this even a discussion?

Ok you can’t assassinate until level 12…so you are a gimp melee until then…and no self-healing…and you can’t sneak by many reapers…and most quests require a tanky fight in the end, GL in a glass cannon, and the tree really needs the support of Vistani and trance damage from elsewhere. On nvm I take it back. Why do I always play this then?
 
morningfrost

morningfrost

Well-known member
Hoccleve said:
I've just completed the slowest ever Heroic completionist (years!) and completely agree that (a) it does, as your OP recognises, depend what you want and (b) various game changes have radically changed what is popular and / or powerful over time. FWIW, the only build I've tried which was basically unviable was a summoner wizard (I know, I was told), and beyond low levels for some time is has been caster > ranged > melee. I've done both sorc and alchemist relatively recently, and both were powerful. Paladin I found one of the most disappointing builds. I like melee most, and wis based monk works for me at present (great AC, great running and leaping). Oh, and game knowledge matters hugely, gear, PLs and RPs all matter a lot, and build less so unless you really stuff it up.
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You have second place, I'm two levels away from a 15 year completionist, but too little time to play right now, so it will be probably 16.
 
Jeronimo

Jeronimo

Well-known member
I enjoy playing lvl 20 sorcs. Not sure why it's not more popular. UMD helps with healing in heroics. So much DPS, not really any disadvantages. :)
 
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