Fighter Subclass Tier Rankings for the PHB 2024 — Transcript

Greetings. My name is Monty Martin, and I'm Kelly McLean, and we are the Dungeon Dudes. Welcome to our fighter subclass tier ranking for the 2024 Player's Handbook. Today, we'll be analyzing the features of the Battle Master, Champion, Eldritch Knight, and S Warrior subclasses to determine which ones offer the strongest augmentations to the core fighter class. There's a lot to discuss, so let's [Music] get our fighter subclass tier ranking.

and S Warrior subclasses to determine which ones offer the strongest augmentations to the core fighter class there's a lot to discuss so let's [Music] get our fighter subclass tier ranking is sponsored by obvious mimic creators of solo Adventures for fifth edition their

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subclasses we rank the subclasses against other subclasses available to the fighters and not across classes well we may occasionally consider multiclassing we primarily rank based on a single class character and we look at all levels of play in our tier ranking

We rank the subclasses against other subclasses available to the fighters and not across classes. Well, we may occasionally consider multiclassing. We primarily rank based on a single-class character, and we look at all levels of play in our tier ranking, considering how the subclass performs in combat, exploration, and social interaction. Although for many classes, their features are combat-oriented, so that tends to get the lion's share of the weight in our ranking.

a class that is extraordinarily powerful with their features that enhance the base class in gamechanging ways they're going to offer overpowered features which can dominate common adventuring scenarios especially combat in most situations a tier is the perfect place

So, when we are ranking the subclasses, an S tier is for a class that is extraordinarily powerful with their features that enhance the base class in game-changing ways. They're going to offer overpowered features which can dominate common adventuring scenarios, especially combat in most situations. A tier is the perfect place. We want to see most classes land in the A tier because they have strong benefits applicable in combat, exploration, and social interaction and great synergy with the class skills, feats, and spells. B tier is also an excellent place for a subclass to land. It has good features which excel with the right build. It offers viable options which contribute to most pillars of play and may even potentially be S tier in the right campaign or with the right party composition.

subass to land it has good features which Excel with the right build it offers viable options which contribute to most pillars of play and may even potentially be S tier in the right campaign or with the right party

C tier is niche, and it has features that might rarely come up in play unless you're doing a very specific build or combo. There might also be a high opportunity cost for a C tier subclass, which means that there's some tradeoff that you have to do in order to make it function well. And D tier is for subclasses whose features are seldom useful and it doesn't synergize well with the base class features, spells, feats, or skills. It may be a trap playstyle which actually weakens the strength of the base class. So if we give a D tier out, that's us saying don't play it with that.

tradeoff that you have to do in order to make it function well and D tier are for subclasses whose features are seldom useful and it doesn't synergize well with the Base Class features spells Feats or skills it may be a trap play

Let's dive into the 2024 Player's Handbook and look at the fighter subclasses. Let's kick things off by talking about the Battle Master. The Battle Master is the subclass that has Battle Master maneuvers and superiority dice. They use the dice to fuel their maneuvers so that they can do extra things whenever they are attacking or possibly as reactions or to just change the way that the fighter interacts with many pillars of play.

talking about the Battle Master the Battlemaster is the subass that has Battle Master Maneuvers and superiority dice they use the dice to fuel their Maneuvers so that they can do extra things whenever they are attacking or possibly as reactions or to just change

So, at level three, when you gain the subclass, you get your first pool of superiority. You're going to start off by learning three maneuvers, so you get to pick any three of the 20 that are in the Player's Handbook, and you've got four superiority dice which power those maneuvers. Your superiority dice come back on a short rest, so you've got lots of ability to use these. They're pretty replenishable overall.

are in the player's handbook and you've got four superiority dice which power those Maneuvers your superiority dice come back on a short rest so you've got lots of ability to use these they're pretty replenishable overall also at third level the student of War feature

Also, at third level, the Student of War feature is going to give you training in an extra skill or tool. At level seven, you gain Know Your Enemy, and now as a bonus action, you can target a creature within 30 feet of you and learn some information about it. You can learn what type of monster they are as well as their resistances or vulnerabilities or immunities, and you can use this once before needing to take a short rest, but you can also expend a superiority die to use it again.

about it you can learn their what type of monster they are as well as their resistances or vulnerabilities or immunities and uh you can use this once uh before needing to take a short rest but you can also expend a superiority

And also at level seven, you're going to learn two more maneuvers, and you're going to go up to five superiority dice. At level 10, you gain Improved Combat Superiority. Now your superiority die is a d10 instead of a d8, and you get additional maneuvers, two of them, bringing you to a total of seven.

of a d8 and you get additional Maneuvers two of them bringing you to a total of seven at level 15 we gained the Relentless feature and this feature is amazing now what we can do is instead of expending a superior or die once per

At level 15, we gain the Relentless feature, and this feature is amazing. Now what we can do is instead of expending a superiority die once per turn, we can just roll a d8 to power one of our maneuvers. This basically means that we have infinite maneuvers, again only once per turn, but this feature is really, really powerful when combined with some of the reaction-based maneuvers as well as the maneuvers that are going to be augmenting your skills or the ones that are going to be augmenting your AC. It gives an extraordinary amount of flexibility.

reaction based Maneuvers as well as the Maneuvers that are going to be augmenting your skills or the ones that are going to be augmenting your AAC it gives an extraordinary am amount of flexibility and at this point for

And at this point, for everything else, we've now got two extra maneuvers, so we now know nine out of the 20, and we get six superiority dice total. At level 18, we get the Ultimate Combat Superiority, and now our die increases to 1d12. So not only do we have a ton of maneuvers, a ton of dice to use, they're all d12s now, so you're adding quite a bit to all of your rolls if you want to.

only only do we have a ton of Maneuvers a ton of dice to use uh they're all d12's now so you're adding quite a bit to all of your roles if you want to the Maneuvers that are available to the

The maneuvers that are available to the Battle Master are really amazing. Maneuvers like Bait and Switch and Evasive Footwork actually let you roll the superiority die and add that to your armor class or even an ally's armor class as well, while also giving you a little bit of footwork and maneuvering.

you a little bit of uh footwork and maneuvering I think that if you look at some of the options such as Commander strike and maneuvering attack these are going to Grant attacks or movement to allies so be a better team player as a

I think that if you look at some of the options such as Commander's Strike and Maneuvering Attack, these are going to grant attacks or movement to allies, so be a better team player as a Battle Master.

intimidation and performance and tacal assessment can be used for investigation or uh it can also be used for history incident what's really cool about these is that I like the idea of stacking this extra superiority die roll with second

Maneuvers like Ambush, Commanding Presence, and Tactical Assessment actually let you roll your superiority die and add that to skill checks. So Ambush applies to stealth and initiative checks, Commanding Presence is going to apply to persuasion, intimidation, and performance, and Tactical Assessment can be used for investigation or it can also be used for history.

you are worried that you're missing that attack uh and you're fighting against a high AC Target that superiority die could make all the difference in taking it down mening attack pushing attack and trip attack as well as a bunch of others

What's really cool about these is that I like the idea of stacking this extra superiority die roll with Second Wind if you need it. The combination of these things is going to let your fighter power through some skills when you really need to.

attack and trip attack is that these are the ones that you can really combine with weapon masteries so if you wanted to create a situation a lot of other Fighters they can't do that thing where all fighters gain this ability at Ninth

I also think Precision Attack is just a classic option for a general accuracy boost. If you are worried that you're missing that attack and you're fighting against a high AC target, that superiority die could make all the difference in taking it down.

over and push them uh which is really really good Battlefield control or I really like the idea of pushing somebody back with a push weapon Mastery when you hit them with menacing attack because a creature that is frightened of you can't

Menacing Attack, Pushing Attack, and Trip Attack, as well as a bunch of others that basically add a rider onto one of your attacks, are strong debuffs, but they're also going to add extra damage to every hit that you're making as well.

have the push Mastery or why would I take trip attack when I can use a top of weapon and the whole point of this is so that you can do both at the same time I do think that as the last call Perry and

What I think is really cool about things like Menacing Attack, Pushing Attack, and Trip Attack is that these are the ones that you can really combine with weapon masteries. So if you wanted to create a situation, a lot of other fighters, they can't do that thing where all fighters gain this ability at ninth level wh-

switch where you've now boosted your AC by plus d10 and now an enemy that misses you with your boosted AC you're going to slam them back with a reaction attack it's it's great and this is where like things like

Relentless really kick into overdrive because Relentless is once per turn MH which means that once you get that Relentless feature at 15th level it means that you can you always have those maneuver reactions available cuz repost can have would happen not on your turn

so you can use your d8 on your turn to do a second maneuver and then if you get attacked and miss you can repost using the d8 so you're not expending your superiority dice yeah and like it's really easy I've seen Fighters like Joe

blow through the superiority dice uh by applying like a menacing attack a pushing attack a trip attack on every turn and the mastery help with this because you don't necessarily always need to do that but then again Relentless is going to give you more gas

yeah right it it it's so it's it's such a big boost um and so all of these things together the the Battle Master is the Battle Master like it's so there's so many good things to say about a

fighter fighters are the most versatile class in the game you can build them any number of ways and they're really good in combat and now there are also a lot of ways that they can kind of steamroll through social encounters and help out

with exploration they're best obviously they're best in combat but they aren't they you're not laughing at them anymore in Social or exploration the thing about the Battle Master is that it increases the versatility of the fighter it increases their capabilities in combat

and it increases their capabilities in Social and exploration as well depending on the maneuvers you pick you can double down on all the things you want your fighter to be good at so why are we not all playing Battle Masters well I I I

think that the challenging thing is at least at first it's with only three Maneuvers at third level it's really hard to narrow down your choices yeah right and then only having five makes it really tough but this is where I think

the weapon masteries really help out because it ALS because pre the with the weapon masteries maybe you can delay getting pushing and tripping attack and grab the really juicy ones like bait and switch or commanding presence or repost

early and then when you start to get those higher level features like tactical Mastery online adding push and trip just adds so so much to all of this I really think over and the fact that the Battle Master

will work with any sort of fighting style whether you want to go with the Archer build whether you want to go with the great weapon Master whether you want to go with the defensive Shield Master fighter especially with with the way

that Feats like Shield Master now work and the way that great weapon Master work all of these things the Synergy is just so good I think I think we have to stick the Battle Master at an S tier i i i the I do too I I I really

think that it's still it was one of those things where especially in the 2024 rules you go has had weapon masteries uh Rob the Battle Master of what makes them unique and the answer to that is very much no the Battle Master

just gets to do more yes yes just they they just do more do you want to push and topple at the same time go for it like like you yeah having more options on your single attack you hit with your

weapon and you want to do a bunch of things when you hit with your weapon cool done again I I love like the the the topple and menacing like it there those are just such good things right to

to be having all these together at the same time um it just all really really works well well together so I think unequivocably given the fact that it opens up so many play Styles works with basically every every class and now we

have Maneuvers in here that are adding to your skills and I I also want to point point out that no your enemy is not useless like bonus action just to be like yeah DM what are the resistances and immunities just tell them to me yeah

right great and and we do get the extra skill on the tool which is cute it's it's not much but it's better than nothing mhm I think we're we're still clearly in the S tier for Battle Master right I think anytime you sit down to

play a fighter you're going to be like am I playing a Battle Master again and the answer is often going to be yes now we move on to the champion the champion fighter has always kind of been the

bread and butter fighter they are the Baseline they are what they are they're a champion fighter uh I I I would say I would use another uh B andb term the the basic um basic uh battle person basic

battle person yeah the basic battler uh certain certainly the I I think the Champions are great for like somebody you know what I actually love champions for one shots where I had no time to prepare often a one shot I will have

time to prepare but if somebody's like hey do you want to jump in and uh play D and in an hour I'm like yeah I got a champion fighter let's go um because I don't I don't need to worry

about the champion Fighter the champion fighter is going to do what the fighter does and it's going to do it a little bit of extra sauce on top of that uh so at level three they gain their improved

critical so now they can crit on a 19 or 20 and also at level three they gain remarkable athlete remarkable athlete gives them advantage on initiative and Athletics so at level three we're more likely to crit and we're a little bit

better at a few skills at level seven we get an extra fighting style feed which is is cool the fighting style Feats are pretty specialized right so this is a good place to grab like one of the more secondary ones even just to boost

your AC or if you want to have more of a switch hitter style to it like this is kind of nice if you want to be an Archer or dual wielder and have both the archery and dual wielding fighting

styles at the same time so you can decide I just want to be good at both of these things I think that's actually one of the benefits here is that the champion is maybe the best which hitter amongst the fighters uh at 10th level we

gain heroic Warrior um this is going to Grant you heroic inspiration every turn what that means heroic inspiration allows you to roll a D20 actually it's not just a D20 it's a reroll anything reroll anything you could reroll your damage okay if you I

okay I would use it on a D20 probably like a saving throw to hit I think those are more but sure you can use it on anything yeah I've had to point I just I just say that cuz it's been pointed out

to us in the comments that you use it to roll damage I don't know but you only get to roll one do yeah and if so I'm using if I'm using a great sword but most weapons use one die and there's

just the niche ones that don't but every turn means that if I don't like an attack that I made on this turn and I and I let's say I have my two my extra attack so I attack I hit I attack and it

doesn't look good so I'm going to use my heroic Warrior feature to roll it and I hit again next turn same thing I still got it I got it every turn so if I miss one of my attacks I can just roll and

try to hit uh pretty great this is actually probably the iconic feature of the champion the only thing to note here is that you get heroic inspiration if you start your turn with Co because you can't put stack up so use it every turn

well you can only have heroic inspiration once yeah and normally under the rules if you gain heroic inspiration when you already have it you give heroic inspiration to somebody else so that would be the only thing that like

doesn't work here is just keeping the inspiration and and being the Wellspring of giving it out to everybody else it has to be it has to be for yeah it has to be for you and and so for that reason

like this is this is like the skill thing that makes this trick and use is like if you use it on your attacks to roll a missed attack that's a good use of it keeps you more reliable but there

might be situations where like I'm really worried if I'm going to get hit with a nasty saving throw ability and then so you keep it but then if it gets around to your turn and you didn't use it you're not getting any like I would

say depending on the combat you're in like if I'm fighting a bunch of Orcs I'm going to use it to hit my attacks if I'm fighting the evil Lich I might save it every turn and if I don't use it I'm

still keeping it for like the deadly debuff things that that lch is going to throw at me I would rather not use it and have it just there in case I have to roll against banishment or mind control

of some sort or something ridiculous like that so then at level 15 Superior Critical is now going to be an 18 to 12 you know that's that's actually a pretty awesome range like the amount of critical hits that you're going to be

scoring with this character are pretty good and depending on what rules you use for critical we we have very generous critical rules at our table uh could get could get ugly for the bad guys yeah and then at level 18 you're going to get

Survivor which is actually two features def death which makes you more likely to succeed death saves and basically means that you get up you you could normally when you roll you have to roll a 20 to get back up on a death save defi death

gives you a larger range for that and heroic rally gives you kind of a regeneration when you're bloodied this is one of the few class features in the game that actually cares about the bloody condition yeah yeah so Champion

overall listen here's the thing Champion is in no way a bad choice no it's fine it's also in no way the best choice yeah it's just fine it's it's good at what it does uh do you want to not worry about

words on your character sheet do you not want to like oh try not to forget that you have a crit range that's better than everybody else's and that's really all you need to keep track of in your head

when you're playing a champion fighter so there's nothing about the champion fighter that is bad um and and you're right so it by by definition it cannot go in the D tier because there's nothing is being taken taken away here there's

no also nothing about the champion fighter that is Niche so C tier because it's useful it's always every single feature here is useful it's just that there's the the biggest detriment to the champion is that well the features that it gets work

with and everything you know what the champion lacks Synergy it it doesn't have anything that interacts with other fighter class features um or other Feats in a particularly notable way like rolls are good critting more often is good but

there's there's no like crazy combo or build here that we're going to suddenly be able to do that we couldn't do before the champion always makes me feel and I know that there's there is stuff here but the champion makes me feel like it's

asking me do you like the base fighter would you like to be the Bas fighter with like some cream on top yes and like that's the champion the champion is I am playing the base fighter with more of a

chance to crit and but I don't hate that again I have played Champion Fighters I've brought them to tables when I'm playing in like uh quick Adventures League game or like a quick one shot Champions actually might go to because I

forget things on a character sheene unless I've done a lot of research and tried to memorize it all Champions I never have a problem with remembering what to do and that is where I think think the champion falls into that

criter one of the criteria of our B tier ranking is it depends on the build and I mean the champion you can't really build it wrong um and it also is s tier in the right campaign and when is the champion

s tier in the right campaign well I would say in this case it's s tier for the right player the champion is an S tier choice for the type of player that is actually going to have trouble managing their other abilities or

forgetting to use them you know who those are you know who they are right and and and because a champion the the only thing I will say is that the only risk is with a champion that you forget

to use your rroll or that you forget that you crit on a 19 yeah and which those are those are two things that are pretty hard to forget they're they're as prominently in your face as like if you

forgot to rage as a barbarian which you probably won't do and there's no wrong way to use them like with with a with a Battle Master it is technically possible with a battl master to choose Maneuvers that don't synergize that don't

synergize like you could you it it's hard but you can build a bad Battle Master yeah Champion you can't actually build it bad but I do think it's a b tier because it's not really excelling at anything it's just good yeah it is

Baseline good b b b next the eldrich Knight the eldrich Knight adds wizard spellcasting to the fighter so at level three you start off by learning any two wizard caner trips of your choice um and you get three first level wizard spells

prepared you can choose any wizard spell there is no spell School restriction so if you want to grab transmutation you want to grab illusion you want to grab enchantment you even want to be a necromancer you could be a necromancer

elrich KN if you if you want to uh you regain these spell slots on a long rest only but of course your cantrips are at will and you can use them all the time at level three you're going to gain war

bond now your weapon is bonded to you and if you're separated from it or anything like that you can actually call it back so you can kind of Thor your way through things like if you want to throw

your sword at somebody and then call it back or Trident or a trident uh returning Trident is really cool or if you're crafty like Aldrich Knights that I've seen at the table and somebody takes your weapons away and tries to tie

you up you can still call it back to your hand it is cool in certain situations now here's one interesting thing to uh the war Bon feature doesn't let you treat your sword or your weapon as an Arcane Focus you're still using regular

Arcane folky or material components so some dungeon Masters might be a stickler about sematic components uh or material components and what you are holding in your hands so this is an important thing to note with the El Knight fortunately a lot of the best

spells available for El Knights only have veral components the other thing as well is that the rules around drawing and sheathing weapons as part of the attack action are very are actually quite forgiving with eldr knights so if

at the start of your turn you need to cast a spell you can sheath your weapon and then you can do your spell casting and then when you take the attack action you can draw another you can draw your

weapon before or after making the first attack anyways so it's one of those things that um it it sometimes gets brought up as like oh but watch about what's happening in your hands but the the rules for equipping and unequipping

weapons kind of work out in the ELD Knight's favor and it's kind of possible to choose a selection of spells where it it doesn't matter too much this is the other component where your intelligence can matter yeah because your spell

casting is based on your int but it's also possible to take an Elders Knight that to play an Elders Knight especially with no spell School restrictions where all the Spells are just passive Buffs that do not care yeah if most of your

spells are focusing on you then you don't really care what your intelligence score is it's really only if you're whipping out Fireballs or things like that that you're going to need other creatures to make saves against your intelligence so you know just depending

on your build at level seven you gain War magic this is a very important feature for Alish Knights because it's going to let you replace one of your attacks with a cantrip when taking the attack action note that because we're

level seven that means that we already have extra attack from our level five fighter feature so you are inherently at the two attack Mark and you're only going to get more as you level up so replacing one of them with a canant trip

pretty awesome now if you're keeping only to the player's handbook you might be tempted to put um it's it's hard to use War magic because of a couple different reasons most of the craps in the game are spell attack based which

are based on your intelligence which unless you're building an El Knight around your intelligence which there's pros and cons um it means that for example your attack bonus with your basic attack is going to be based on your strength or dexterity which is

going to be really good but then you're going to have this much low accuracy with like Firebolt or something this is where it's worthwhile going back to the zanthar Guide to Everything blade cantrips like booming blade and green

flame blade and picking up one of those because those allow you to attack as part of the attack and add additional damage as well so check with your DM if you are using books from the 2014 fifth edition rules such as xanathars and

tash's because there are some really good spells for alrich knights in there yeah also at level seven you're going to gain your second level spell slot uh which is valuable uh and now you got five spells prepared as well now at

level 10 you get eldrich strike and what this does is that when you hit someone with an attack they actually have disadvantage on their next saving throw against a spell that you cast so this can allow you to sort of power through

circumstances where your uh saving throw DC is not that great to stick a saving throw spell this is one of those features that again depending on how you build your ELD Knight you might get a lot out of it or you might might not get

that much about it but also at level 10 we get an extra wizard cantrip so yay and at level 13 we're going to get third level spell slots and I'm not going to lie third is probably one of my favorite

yeah spell levels uh something about third level spells just they they up the potency of of spellcasting this is now Fighters don't normally get another subass feature at level 13 but Elders kns are kind of special because this is

when they are getting their their third level spell slots and it is like getting an extra class best feature at level 13 because third level spells are so juicy yeah like let's be real I mean Fireball isn't always the best choice for alrich

Knight but Fireball is a third level spell and that kind of is like the poster child for Like O Yay third level spells but you also get things like haste and hypnotic pattern uh a lot of a lot of my favorite spells are third

level at level 15 you get Arcane charge uh what this does let you teleport 30 ft as part of your action surge which is just extra Mobility it's sweet uh at level 18 we get improve improved War magic so with improved War magic you can

forego two attacks to cast a first or second level spell I wish it was third cuz I want to throw a fireball and then attack again but again we're at 18th level so the fighters going to have lots

of attacks and they can spare maybe a couple if you have the right spell that can dismantle the combat encounter at level 19 this is also when the Elder Knight finally gets fourth level spell slots they actually only ever get one

fourth level spell slot um and at this point you'll have 12 spells uh known or prepared uh you do get one more at 20th level so for 13 known spells total the fourth level spell slot for the eldrich

Knight can be pretty impactful even though you're only going to be using it once per day uh mostly because of some pretty sweet Spell choices that you get there on that note let's talk about what some of the spells that we can get here

are because it really is relevant to how this subass ranks up blade Ward is an amazing cantrip now um because blade Ward um is a concentration cantrip that subtracts D4 from Attack rolls against you so basically while you're

concentrating on blade W your AC is plus one D4 yeah that's that's the shorthand way to put it so if you are playing that uh maybe the shield bear style fighter or or you just want to up your defenses

uh blade Ward's incredible there's also a lot of utility can trips that you can look at here things like Mage hand and minor illusion are just excellent choices is for outof combat options Mage hand the amount of times that that spell

has been useful for fiddling around with a trap or uh grabbing something from across a pit of lava or something there's lots of options for how magean and minor illusion can be Val invaluable to a fighter now there's a lot of attack

cantrips and and you might be tempted to grab something like Firebolt or acid Splash uh but or or even true strike the thing to note with true strike is that when you use true strike it it you you

make a melee attack but it's using your spellcasting ability modifier which in many cases for eldrich Knights is going to be lower than their strength or dexterity so that's why the uh blade canant trips from xanathar's Guide to

Everything like booing blade and green flame blade are better because those attacks actually use your your at least because they haven't been reprinted at time of filming um these canps use your regular ability score modifier but what's notable booming blade is that

what happens is starting at fifth level it adds an extra extra damage to the the base hit meaning that you're just getting extra damage on your extra attacks especially once you're you're at seventh level and you've got War magic

booming blade is also really sweet because it if the target then moves they take extra damage and this is sweet with the push weapon Mastery because you can hit someone with with booming blade and you get to activate the weapon Mastery

as part of booming BL blade as well so you hit them push them now they're 10 ft away from you and if they want to walk back up to you they're going to take even more damage and you're also sitting

there with AC a billion because you got uh you've got the shield spell which you're going to get for your first level spell yeah for first level spells again the great defensive option here is Shield take it just an armored Knight

with Shield is is better than anybody else taking Shield it's scary uh find familiar is another great choice here who doesn't want a pet and the one thing to note about you're familiar is they're they're very helpful for first of all outof combat uses they

can also take the help action which gives you advantage on an attack so uh find familiar whatever you want your pet to be is it an owl find familiar is a ritual so it's not going to cause your

use your spell slots to cast it and you just get to have your little your little buddy absorb elements also from xanathar's Guide to Everything so if you are playing with that book in in the in play uh then absorb is also a great one

to deal with those Elemental attacks and then you get to soak up some of that damage and deliver it back second level spells which come online at seventh level for the eldrich Knight really are where things are going to get taken to

the next level and the choices here get tough because you got only got a couple spell slots here but um almost all these are going to have a massive impact Misty step first of all manuverability just to B around yeah is is always a great bread

and but butter here um I think that also again I like the defensive play style here so mirror image is one that like not only can you bust out your shield and your blade Ward but you can also Mirror Image so that

there's like four of you or five of you or however many of you there are and uh that makes it way hard like a mere imaged Elder Knight who also uses shield and blade Ward and is in full plate with

a shield and the fighting style that just gives them plus one AC how do you hit them you're you you don't you don't you don't you don't um I also think that for for more outof combat options enhance ability can be really helpful

for just making sure that your fighter shes up those social or exploration options now the real sauce here and I I think that this one is Gem for for the El kns for second level is enlarge reduce enlarg reduce has so much weird

utility because it can be used on objects and people to shrink them down or or make them bigger but if all you do with an larger Deuce is cast it on yourself to igif you so that you become

large adding 1 D4 damage to the damage of all your attacks and giving you advantage on strength checks and strength saving throws uh you are large and in charge it is great it like it it's simply good or for bonus points

play a Goliath Elders KN and cast in large ruce on yourself so that you are now huge yeah and and carrying capacity like what do you want to lift yeah anything cool uh so yeah that's that's a really fun option when we actually get

to the uh third level spells uh a lot of the classics are here counter spell Fireball fly haste all third level spells all great on a fighter nobody expects the fighter to be the one to counter spell the deadly spell from the

evil wizard but you could yeah counter spell bu is a con saving throw so it is a little again if you don't have the good saving throw DC it's a little bit harder for you to land that one flying

haste might be the better options for somebody who doesn't invest in their in their intelligence uh but still a flying fighter is scary yes and haste is everything you want just don't lose concentration well you got a good con

you got a good con saving throw I also think that if you're going to zanthar guy to everything especially if you're playing a dual wielder fighter Spirit shroud is going to be adding a lot of extra d8s on all your hits um it so it

it is very worth considering uh and for for a dual wielding fighter Spirit shroud might be more damage than haste yeah yeah uh and then finally for fourth level spells again upping the damage with conjure minor Elementals or if

you're looking for maneuverability Dimension doors up conjure minor Elementals is a bit of a ludicrous spell with the way that it's written because it's adding 2 d8 to every attack of course we are now a 19 or 20th level

fighter so by the time you get four attacks and action surge uh yeah yeah it's gross yeah it's it's pretty disgusting yeah so okay I think that the Elish Knight is s TI now I can't even argue with that um

the amount of spell options and let's be real I would include Zan's guide unless if you're just getting into DND D you may even want to look back at Santa th's guide for from the 2014 rules and uh

maybe Implement that because that has a lot of great options oh yeah you know what caveat asteris s tier with the Zan xanathars in play A+ without it without it yeah I I think that's fair um for our

purposes let's slot it in s year um but I I do think that regardless of whether you're using SARS or not the the flexibility of spellcasting and your ability I think think aldrid Knight works with any play style but I especially like them with

the shield Bearer it's an it's it's a very obnoxious amount of armor class yeah Armor class and just tricks to and like you combine them being completely defendable with blade Ward Mirror Image shield with things like having a

familiar to give them Advantage maybe conjure minor Elementals to Dish more damage like you are a damage dealing tank you hit like a truck and you're as hard to hurt as a truck I don't know I don't I I've never hurt a truck a truck

hurts me so yeah uh there you go uh they're they're amazing like I think that the the tough part with the Elder's Knight is that your spell slots are a long rest resource and you don't have a lot of them yeah right so it really

behooves you to be like okay so what is my my main play here and that tends to be concentrating on something like en larg reduc or spirit shroud or Contra minor Elementals and then using Misty step or mirror image or Shield when you

really need them and then you've always got blade Ward and booming blade as your fallback and just looking at those two things on their own especially because eldrich Knights do get the weapon masteries the booming blade plus push

weapon Mastery propert combo is good yeah right yeah it is that that is strong on on its own and especially when when like potentially you are combining that with different types of weapon masteries like you know if you can throw

a topple in there somewhere like knock somebody prone with a topple um switch the weapon Mastery over to push hit them with booming blade and push them back like you you get some just nice obnoxious plays yeah um that I that I

quite like I think it's again s tier for me S tier yeah next up we come to the Sigh Warrior as our final subass in the 2024 PHP uh they use their psychic capab abilities to enhance their combat Powers

so let's talk about what the side Warrior gets at third level they get their psionic power this is their ability to use psionic energy dice which they use to fuel the multiple psionic Powers into their attacks and and

otherwise um right away at third level you're going to have four D6 for your psionic energy dice but this goes up and it goes up fast and the die size scales up fast yeah so so by 9th level you've

got 8 d8 psionic energy Dice and by 17th level it's 12 D12 um you only get one of these back per short rest yeah but you get all of them back on a long rest so you can run

out of gas if you're using them on everything but yeah uh the three capabilities that you get right away at third level are protective field protective field allows you to uh use a reaction to decrease the amount of

damage by your superiority uh for either you or another creature within 30 ft of you so you can protect your allies a little bit with that psionic strikes very simply you're adding it to your damage Roll On Your

Weapon attack in telekinetic movement uh you kind of expend the psionic energy die to move a creature uh 30 feet it is as an action and it has to be either a creature a willing creature or an object

so you can only do this to move your allies around teleconnect movement is weird because it uses the word transport so it doesn't say move and it doesn't say teleport it is transport so the only thing I don't know is whether you are

and I think the implication here is that it's telekinetic so you are like lifting them up and moving them physically like they're not being teleported but it it's just an interesting choice of words I have used this ability though in the

past to get my allies out of Harm's Way yeah the crazy thing about telekinetic movement is that it's a size restriction not a weight restriction so large or smaller yeah so in theory if you like if the object occupies a 10x 10 that's a

large object and so the sarcophagus which was arguably a few hundred pounds I just slid it under the door and it yeah so there are a lot of tactful uses for telekinetic movement yeah now at level seven you got telekinetic adapt

this is going to do two things first it's going to give you s powered lead which as a bonus action you can give yourself a flying speed of your movement speed till the end of the turn so you're

not permanently aoft it is like a super jump which is why it's called s powered leap it's not flying it's falling with style well if you're still in the air at the end of your turn you do just fall

and I was quoting Toy Story I knew that you were but yeah it is you know I always think of uh I don't know why this jumps into my head but it's doomsday uh Superman versus Doomsday Superman can

fly doomsday doesn't fly he just jumps miles um and so they do fight in the air because doomsday can just like leap up into the anyway big fan of the death a Superman comic it's a good one then we

got telekinetic thrust this uh means that when you do use your psionic strike you can force the target to make a saving throw either to be pushed or knocked prone now we've talked about again how good this is with weapon

Mastery because you can do both you get if you are using a push weapon or a topple weapon you can now push and topple at the same time incidentally the target's going to get to make multiple saving throws in that case uh and the

only downside here is that the saving throw DC is based on your int so you are going to with the side Warrior you may want to invest a little bit an INT as well maybe instead of wisdom or maybe you want it to be one of

your better stats yeah it's a strength saving throw for them to make against your int so unless you are really like stacking your int up which is hard to do for a fighter uh it's your saving through DC is not going to be great you

know what a s Warrior loves a headband of intellect yes they do yes they do now with guarded mind you are resistant to psychic damage and if you start your turn under the influences of a fear or Charm effect you can expend a sciatic

energy die to just get rid of that no action required level 15 you got bull workk of force this one is kind of weird to understand what actually is happening here um it it is allows you to spend a pionic

energy ey choose a number of creatures equal to your int mod so again I hope your int mod is at least plus two so that's it's not just you uh and those creatures all get three4 cover what does

three4 cover do it's basically plus 2 AC I I I I wish it just was like plus they could have just said plus 2 AC but yeah they didn't and but we we we figured it out we figured it out for you it's plus

2 AC uh and finally at level 18 you get kinetic master and this lets you spend pic energy die to cast telekinesis as the spell uh again it's going to be based on your int mod so good luck

sticking this but at least as long as you're concentrating on it you get to make U melee attacks as a bonus action yeah so with the S Warrior pros and cons my big con for the S Warrior is that you

will want to invest in your intelligence but that's doable that is completely doable we had a 13 in our wisdom in our build guide but you could just put a 13 in intelligence you could also boost your intelligence using one of your uh

options you get more ability score increases than any other class so Fighters do have the capability of boosting ability scores more than any other class does also if you get your hands on a headband of intellect so there are many ways to solve that

problem and that's my only negative my positive is that as a fighter what do we want want to be doing we want to protect our friends we want to hit hard in combat and if we can we love Battlefield

control the S Warrior pushes us in a better Direction in all three of those things yeah yeah so and you get to fly at later levels jump good you get to jump really really good but let's talk about this let's say oh no we've come

across a pit of lava that is like 20 feet wide what are we going to do you could telekinetic movement all of your allies across and then jump over uh so there you are solving problems yeah the the fact that you can move your friends

30 fet telekinetically is the utility aspect of that is really powerful the downside to it in combat is that it's a magic action yeah in combat it's tough but like even I'm thinking get your Archer to the Vantage

Point get your Barbarian into like there are reasons why and it and it does just though being able to telekinetically interact with the environment and objects in that way has a lot of potential I think the S Warrior is

actually one of the better options for outof combat uh features and I I I think that if you're a creative player as well the telekinetic movement is going to offer a lot I think that there's there's less Synergy with build

options than the s tier options and I don't think the S Warrior is close to the S tier but I like the S Warrior enough that I'm willing to say it's an a tier option it excels the base class in

meaningful ways in almost every category yes I I agree with you on that I sometimes we like to say something's like an A minus or an A+ and my leaning with the S Warrior is that it's like an

A minus I can agree to that I I can get behind that but um when we give minuses or pluses it's still safely fits into that Spectrum we're just trying to show whether or not it's a strong a or a weak

a still an A but the side Warrior is like leaning towards B but it is it is definitely there's nothing here that isn't pushing it in a direction that we want fighters to be pushed in and that's that's where it's like I agree yeah um I

I think that there is there there's there's a case to be made that it's it's all kind of like I think that the S Warrior is absolutely better than the champion yeah me too um and but I don't

think it's as good as the eldr Knight and I don't think it's anywhere close to the Battle Master which works because yeah are we ready to look at our final rankings let's take a look at the final rankings overall so up on screen right

now these are the final rankings battl master and eldrich Knight might be the best options for your fighter or which you put on the top of the S tier battle or I'll just you know it's tough it is

tough the so this is the thing is I think there two different flavors of ice cream that are both amazing the battl master is I want to be a fighter I do not care about magic magic is not the

fantasy I want to live out with my fighter battle Master's your go-to I do like magic and I want to play a spell sword or Gish type character Elder Knight is the best uh so I really do think it's two two amazing flavors of

ice cream okay so I I'm not going to officially change my ranking but I'm just going to be the pessimistic Monty okay the pessimistic Monty says that um okay or maybe not the pessimistic one one of the qualities of s tier is that

we said that things are overpowered and dominant yeah and I do think the battl master and the Elder Knight can be overpowered and dominant but not to the same degree that say if we were looking at other classes s tiers are I I agree

th this is they're both basically s minuses in the sense that one thing that you want to be careful of sometimes s tiers can be a bad thing for the game sometimes an S tier means that there's a

gap and that one option is standing out so far beyond the others that there's it almost becomes pointless to play something that isn't the S tier this is not the case with the fighter the ones that we're giving s tier to are strong

in every situation there's almost no wrong way to play them and when if you are playing into their strengths uh you are dominating the battlefield but if you do have a s Warrior or a champion at the table they are not going

to be hurting for doing what Fighters love to do yeah so there's the the the pessimistic part of me says you could bump everything down a tier and I would I would not I I you could make a convincing

argument that everything should be bumped down a tier and I would also say that the Elder's Knight comes out ahead of the battl master whether or not the Elder KN comes out out ahead of the Battle Master is dependent on are you

letting the Aller Knight use the content from other xanathars and and things like that I think that when you are yes it it it absolutely had like this the the top tier alrich Knight builds I think are going to be stronger than the top tier

Battle Master builds I think the other thing that the eldr Knight has going for it is that if you sneak in uh Fay touched and grab Hunter's Mark and do a dual wielder build so you completely out ranger the ranger I think

you're you're really doing pretty nice as the Dual wielder I think that the dual wielding Elders Knight or the sword and shield Elders Knight are amazing I don't know the Elder Knight is fine with the other builds um but I don't think

it's as like the the eldr Knight the least exciting eldr Knight to me is the Archer eldr Knight whereas the battl master Archer I think is I actually think the Battlemaster Archer is one of the best builds in the game um for a

ranged combatant um my pessimistic take would be to bump the Battle Master and Aldrich Knight to an a leave the champion in a b but put the S Warriors a B plus yeah um so then but really what

that tells you is that the fighters in the 2024 rules are really welld designed and there's not much of a gap here no if somebody came to my table playing a champion I'm not going to be like oh bad

choice like you come to my table with any of these Fighters it's a good choice it's really more about play style well and and and when it comes down to play style there's just way more customization to the Battle Master and

the eldrid Knight because you've got Maneuvers and because you've got spells there's more opportunity for a synergistic combination of spells Maneuvers Feats and weapon masteries to launch them into the SS tier if you say that if you look at if you look at the

way we rank this the rankings go up based on how versatile it is Champion is the least versatile and so it's a b s some versatility because you do have options on what you use your pic it's just that there's everybody gets the

same thing yeah so it's an a battle master and alrich Knight complete customizability which means that they are Ester so that's actually really interesting yeah and and and so I think within the Battle Master and the eldrich Knight um could you build an eldrich

Knight in a battle master that through through a not great choice of spells and Maneuvers are kind of eh yeah yeah like if I'm an eldr KN and I take I I don't know I know that you pointed out the

necromancy Aldrich Knight but I don't think it's the right choice but it could be fun honestly okay hold on though you could do animate dead on the ELD Knight Army of skeletons yeah actually now I want to play a necromantic KN okay take

it back it's awesome it's so awesome yeah oh man actually you could Army of the Dead you are the leader of the army of the Dead Oh I want to play a grim dark Elder let me do it my little emo

heart my little emo heart you could also be a Summoner Elder yeah okay okay I take it back Al KN is just so good but yeah yeah um so these are our rankings for the fighter sub classes in the 2024

phb tell us your thoughts and what your favorite sub classes are in the comments below the videos that we create on our channel are made possible thanks to the incredible generosity of our patreon supporters if you enjoy the work that we

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can check out our uh adventures in the world of drine which is Tuesday evenings here on YouTube you can check out all the previous episodes right up over here and we've got plenty more class guides and tier rankings for the 2024 rules you

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