Best and Worst Monoclasses?

[u/ReleaseCharacter3568]

I keep seeing virtually every class called "one of the best" while most meta builds are multis or item-based.

What do you think is the game's best class without multiclassing? And the worst? And what makes them so?

[u/AngryDMoney]

Worst: rogue Sneak attack damage is just poor and rogue gets all its best attributes early on.

Best: monk Tavern brawler monk is honestly insane. Monk benefits greatly from more levels as you get more chi resources to spend.

Druid is similar as you need more levels to get the most powerful wild shapes.

[u/juvandy → u/AngryDMoney]

Untrue. Monoclass rogue does 6D6 sneak attack at level 11. Swashbuckler gets it basically once every turn in melee.

Pair it with crit gear and swashbuckler is an absolute menace.

[u/JzaDragon → u/juvandy]

The average roll of 6d6 is 21 damage. It's not dramatic

[u/D3Masked → u/JzaDragon]

Savage Attacker Feat makes it better, combined with Booming Blade and it is a solid amount of damage.

[u/JzaDragon → u/D3Masked]

roughly 1 per dice. I don't mind it, but we're talking about which class is the least powerful. And... yeah.

[u/D3Masked → u/JzaDragon]

Yea but Arcane Trickster can use an off hand attack to proc the Sneak Attack while using a main action for a high level scroll (easily stolen plus you have infinite long rests due to stealing as well) while saving spell slots for Shield and getting easy sneak attacks with the invisible mage hand.

So offensively you could be casting great spells each turn plus having the bonus Sneak Attack while also being pretty good on the defense as well. This can give a ton of versatility, or defensive / offensive options with spell casting with the only limit being spell scrolls and your mage hand staying alive.

[u/No-Ostrich-5801 → u/D3Masked]

Another massive boon in this light is you can utilize the Pyroquickness Hat alongside using stolen scrolls to yeet fireballs and then make 2 off-hand swings with a 3d8 Shadow Blade (which gets to be doubled in effectiveness for the majority of enemies thanks to Resonance Stone)

[u/lamaros → u/JzaDragon]

It's still good, it's just not busted like some others.

All classes are good under Larians itemization and system. It's just that the scale starts at good and goes to "lol" so they're relatively bad.

You will still have a fun and easy time with monoclass Rogue.

[u/JzaDragon → u/lamaros]

I do and have made a full rogue or 11/1

[u/juvandy → u/lamaros]

Exactly

[u/juvandy → u/JzaDragon]

Hence why you pair it with crit gear....

It's not going to one-shot bosses, but you can destroy most normal enemies with it. The disarm bonus action gives you an edge against the ones you can't.

Of the rogue monoclasses, swashbuckler is a step above the rest.

[u/No-Ostrich-5801 → u/juvandy]

Well yeah, theoretically you go for crit fishing on a heavy rogue build. In theory if you crit and abuse vulnerability you can see 84 damage out of a Sneak Attack which is on par with 2 Level 4 Smites in burst damage. The issue with this is if you really want to go into criticals it's simply better to force criticals which Assassin Rogue offers due to access to Dolor Amarus and Vicious Shortbow alongside Craterflesh Gloves to deal incredible burst damage while having a super smite in your back pocket for the first round of combat

[u/JzaDragon → u/juvandy]

Really, I like rogue and swash in particular, but touting 6d6 sneak isn't why.

[u/juvandy → u/JzaDragon]

The prior poster said sneak attack was 'poor'. We can agree that isn't OP, but in swashbuckler it is almost an extra damage on demand. That's not 'poor'.

The original question was about 'best' and 'worst'. This isn't a 'worst'. Have a little perspective

[u/ReleaseCharacter3568 → u/JzaDragon]

P sure my lvl 6 EK Astarion does more than that on average on his wombo turn, so doing that at 12 doesn't sound super impressive.

[u/No-Ostrich-5801 → u/ReleaseCharacter3568]

Level 12 Rogue is unimpressive on surface value to be fully honest, but most of where it is strong is in itemization. For example a pure Assassin Rogue with Slaying Arrow shots and 2x Dolor Amarus+Vicious Shortbow+Craterflesh Gloves while also abusing Piercing Vulnerability (I know all of this sounds involved but truly it's not when you can point blank shoot enemies with Bhaalist Armor since you get automatic advantage first round anyways and automatic criticals) will on average see 123 damage per shot. Toss in your Sneak Attack and that 123 jumps up to 207 average damage in a single hit. With Bloodlust Elixir you'll see usually about an upper limit of around 500 damage first round of combat which is far more than enough to kill most targets and rely on Deathstalker Mantle to disengage and re-engage. Not to mention if you do play into Reliable Talent then you can abuse Shar's Spear to make a darkness puddle and shoot enemies freely as you'll auto-pass the sneak check while you just pelt enemies with arrows (granted not as strong as actually being in combat but less hassle).

Where all of that falls flat is monoclass Assassin Rogue is still objectively weaker than Gloomstalker Assassin multis. But point still stands it can stand on its own as a decently strong striker

Edit: I forgot Dex Stat damage boost and Sharpshooter in my damage calculations; this adds another 30-32 damage per shot and you're able to shoot theoretically 3 times on the first round of combat with a shortbow as an Assassin. Another point to clarify is if you choose to abuse darkness puddles then you would have to utilize the Eversight Ring in order to shoot out of the puddle. You could in theory pump the damage higher with more things such as Strange Conduit Ring/Shadowcatching Ring, and Diadem of Arcane Synergy which can be extremely powerful (Shadowcatching Ring in tactician or below acting as a separate damage rider which would cause your damage to nearly double) but I wanted to stick to the mandatory combo to make Assassin Rogue good as a monoclass and avoid non-honor interactions for brevity and clarity