Ranking all the classes in Pathfinder 2e

Hey everyone, yes, wizards have the most spells! If you look at only the tables it looks like they lag behind sorcerers, but "At 1st level, you can prepare up to two 1st-rank spells and five cantrips each morning from the spells in your spellbook (see below), as well as one extra curriculum cantrip and one extra curriculum spell of each rank you can cast from your arcane school."

At each rank of spell, the wizard gets one more spell slot from their school, catching them up to the sorcerer. Wizards also have Drain Bonded Item, allowing them to recast a single spell.

For example, a level 5 wizard will have:
4 rank 1 spell slots (3 from the table, 1 from their curriculum)
4 rank 2 spell slots (3 from the table, 1 from their curriculum)
3 rank 2 spell slots (2 from the table, 1 from their curriculum)
Plus an extra casting from Drain Bonded Item.
5 cantrips from the table
1 cantrip from their curriculum.
That's 12 total spells from spell slots and 6 cantrips.

A sorcerer at the same level has:
4 rank 1 spell slots
4 rank 2 spell slots
3 rank 2 spell slots
5 cantrips
That's 11 total spells and 5 cantrips.

Y'all are sleeping on the wizard!

Now I want to try that swashbuckler...

It's obviously an opinion piece, so I'm not saying anyone is right or wrong, but you are often judging classes very differently with the same metrics.

For Oracle, you essentially docked them for their curse mechanic twice. There's no reason to give them lower scoring on support and exploration because of their curse, and ALSO -2 mod for curse when they can already do what any other divine caster can do, and some things that they can't. They have some of the best Focus spells in the game, start with 2, have the best off tradition spell access, and like Swashbuckler, have a fun class feature steeped in RP, even though it doesn't give you much raw power for that work. Some of the mysteries even give you very strong personal/party benefits, without inconveniencing you too much. You get to control when your curse affects you, and how much.

Also, Wizards being trained at a school (a choice) is far less interesting RP for many people, than a person born with a gift/curse that they have to balance and explore. Cool, Wizzy had a mentor/teacher. Sorci/Witchy poo over there had to battle personal demons/patrons to wrest their secrets from the universe. Will that come back to bite them in the ass later? Will their patron/ancestor make demands of them in return for their gift? All more flavorful than "books done taught me stuff". I'd argue that wizards have some of the least amount of RP baked into their class. Investigator and Rogue both have more RP baked in, especially around being the smart guy/tactician than a Wizard. Wiz have school and planning their spells. Every other prepared caster has that last feature, so Wizard doesn't even stand out as a Master spell planner.

Witches have more baked in support than Wizards, with more options for spell tradition, which inherently gives them more support and likely as much exploration. Their familiar is also a built in, daily (replaceable) opportunity for scouting/investigation which the wizard can't replicate without a familiar archetype.

Your Rogue analysis misses the mark substantially on their support capability. They have at least as good of a support opportunity as a Swaskbuckler, and possibly more. Only the Thief racket is selfish, with no group support options. Mastermind plays with Recall Knowledge, helping athletes, casters, and with knowledge in general, Ruffians ARE the athletes that MM rogues would help, Scoundrels will be demoralizing/feinting like crazy, and their feinting can help everyone (including those attacking vs reflex if they take a racket feat), and Eldritch Tricksters were abandoned in Remaster (thank Norgorber), so we don't have to talk about them.

Thanks to their increased skill proficiency/feats, they are also one of the most supportive classes outside of combat. They make great medics (the fastest to achieve and branch out with impactful feats), great socialites, great crafters (maybe the best), and great investigators.


In short, even including the Thief racket (which interacts the least), every Rogue has a means, and a reason to setup their allies. Tripping/Grappling/Feinting/Flanking/Identifying is generally good support, and they get more of the skill feats to support those actions. Plus, Rogues are great with bombs for varied weaknesses and debuffs. Bottled Lightning sneak attack makes EVERYONE happy.

Oracle, my love, you deserve a better support score for your full divine spell progression.

You keep using this term Gish like its something common. I've never heard it before. It would be helpful if you explained that term a bit more. It sounds like sword/caster from what you are saying about Magus, but I'm not sure. My only gripe is Rogue's low support score. They have the most skills of anyone, and support with all the skills. Not sure who you are playing with that doesn't do Anathemas as they come up in almost every game I run or play in. Oracle has the best healing in the game. Curses are easier than the psychic class.

Ranger has a support build that gives everyone bonuses against your hunted prey.

Barbarians are experts in perception. A 1 for exploration is a bad take. They more often than not take nature skill and ive had 2 groups in a row where nobody took the nature skill.

I have personally felt that anathema opinion about the druid. In our year long ruby phoenix campaign the amount of loot I could not use if I were to stay true to my character was critically depressing. Our GM often forgot this so I payed for almost almost all of my gear (my teammates pitched in so I could get the good stuff).

Intersting list. As you predicted there is some disagreement. E.g inventor can have some useful support skills in healing, buffing damage, debuffing enemies gizmos. I think the stregth of the system is that most classes can be played multiple ways (damage, support) without being pushed into a single role and should get some higher scores.
Secondly your personal opinion weighs in heavy. For some classes this doubles up their highest score (i like them because he has good combat utility.
Overall nice thought-provoking video.

Putting the scores beside the names would also be useful.

"I'm going to disagree with me" is really the best way to live life and continue to grow!

Inventor not being a 5 on exploration means you probably never had a situation where the settlements are lower level than the party. The ability to be a true crafting expert from level 1 is cracked. Also in combat, overdrive makes them one of the best ranged damage dealers in the game. Double points for hitting every weakness in the game very easily with the multi-metal options combined with getting to add an elemental d8... It's kinda cracked. Also, with group overdrive and temporary gadget feats, you can turn your other party members into absolute monsters. Also, the construct companion can be crazy even on weapon inventors, but they don't share overdrive, so they're better for support roles.

Yeah absolutely Oracle needed a rework. I don’t even think it deserves 5/5 for roleplay.

PF2E doesn’t use handy infographics or diagrams for help teacher players. It’s all blocks of text or charts.

Oracle could really use a simplified flow process to match the way Focus Points changed, just downgrading curse levels whenever you have time to refocus. On longer day campaigns, it kinda just sucks.

I think it should be changed to a slightly bounded caster (like six spells a day instead of four) that uses its curse like transformation powers with drawbacks or weaknesses. Maybe have really good cantrips that can only be used during curse states, or offer more melee unarmed attacks to represent a curse (tentacular aberrant or void aura or twilight druid vibes etc)

Great video. I’m so glad to see fighter where you put him. Most over rated class of all time.

Wait what? Wizards have most spell slots? Since when?

I do not understand your caster rankings. Drain Magic item gives one extra spell slot, but sorcerer has an extra slot to begin with. And Cackle is a free action. AFAICT the witch, wizard, and sorcerer are functionally equivalent (though not identical) when we consider the arcane domain versions alone. The focus spells are where things get interesting, but even there it’s close.

While I do agree with most of the rankings and placements, Oracle having 1 support really, really is not accurate. Between the massive buffs or heals mysteries like Life, Time, and Ancestors can provide and the equally crippling debuffs mysteries like Bones, Ash, Cosmos give, I personally wouldn't give it any lower than a 4, to say nothing on the sheer amount of hp replenishment having Signature Spell heal/harm can be and the flexibility to grab from deity granted spells it you want.

Ive played a summoner twice now. It sounds clunky, but once you wrap your head around how the Act together action works, its smooth as butter. My turns ended up taking less time than anyone else in my team. I was able to also support my team with some spells that i could use (magic weapon for example), plus the Eidolon was very straight forward.

Interesting. Your reasoning for not liking summoner is why I love it so much. I love the idea of having to rely on my summon to get the job done. Oracle (specifically life oracle) is my most favorite class in the whole game. The curse system could use a bit of an overhaul though when it comes to combat. Outside of combat that curse system is one of my most fav things. So much flavour and RP. I do feel like other classes do what they do better and without the negatives the curse adds. Bard is easily in my top 5. Can't really disagree with anything you said. We've all got our likes and dislikes which helps round out parties when you got a group going.

afaik sorcerer get the same amount of spellslot as wizard but less choice with chosen tradition where as wizards get fewer spellslots but more choice in their tradition

A good structured video, I agree with a lot of the rankings and really liked the stable presentation style.
I noticed that some of the rankings of the "objective" categories, especially support were quite inconsistent. As an example, the champion got high support for a healing focus spell while the Kineticist with 4 heals every 10 minutes without resource cost some of which are better than lay on hands does not get that. Some classes got pointed out that its great that they have the most spellslots (btw, the class with the most magic/spellslots is the sorcerer, not the wizard) while others like the psychic or magus were not pointed out to have fewer and the different spelllists and spellcasting modes (prepared vs. spontaneous) were not weighted consistently at least in my feeling.

I have 3 ratings I really disagree with:

The witch, with the resentment being the by far best debuffer in the game now (e.g., slow even on a success will last forever now if the resentment witch is near, funnily enough making it exactly the sustained debuffer you were asking for when complaining about the witch) seems to be highly undervalued, it should have 5/5 in support and another +2 for the resentment being the best boss fighter in the game (and at least as written the witch has infinite wands over the course of a longer campaign, making them the best exploration character as well since their level 6 feat does not end on daily preparations). I also think you undervalue the ability to have a familiar that comes back for free every day in exploration as a scout and traptrigger as well as a roleplaying tool of having an emessary of your patron to speak to and roleplay with (though that is probably just not interesting for you since you said you dont like pets.

The kineticist in my opinion was also sorely underrepresented. They have literal infinite healing that works just on a timer so no refocus nessecary. The way you graded champion that alone should bring them to 5/5 support with a +1 for the stackability with a champion or similar archetype. And then they have infinite walls, protector trees, a better stoneskin for everyone who wants it and so much more. For exploration they also deserve higher in my opinion due to the access of PERMANENT flight and insibility at level 8 with air and the ability to create permanent infinite walls within minutes with extended kinesis proliferate of stone or steel.

Finally, giving the gunslinger just 1/5 in support when they have the best support action in the game with fake out that just dwarfs any other support (1 Reaction, no action cost for a guarantueed +4 to an attack at level 13? Yes please!) is a bit surprising to me.

One thing that I personally include in my rankings is stealability, e.g. I don`t value champions reactions so much because they are easily taking via archetype, but that is purely a question of what question to ask.

Rogue should get +1 general bonus for being a Skill Monkey.
Without the -1 Rogue would be 5th on the list ^_^ but I think 16.3 would be fair with shared rank of 9th, so 10th.

Simple reason. Rogue has ability to gain more skills and feats which is why it is Skill Monkey. This benefit can be applies to any part of game Combat/Explorer/Support/Roleplay to make it +1 in my opinion.

Rogue can take Field Medic for Battle Medic and Assurance for Medicine level 1 and by taking Expertise Medicine lvl2 and then lvl3 you can add War Medic and Continual Recovery. This allows level 3 Rogue to heal 2 people with Treat Wounds every 10 minutes without failing and is able to heal people once in battle using 1 Action to Treat Wounds. Support 3. Not the best but by far not the worst. But this is ONLY Thanks to Rogue being Skill Monkey. Thus General +1.

How about Rogue with Trap Finder feat taking Expertise in Stealth lvl 2 and Quiet Allies? Party can now sneak using single +4 stealth roll while also searching for Traps using +9 Perception. Again thanks to Rogue being Skill Monkey I consider this to be +6 Exploration activity.

You can also invest this to Role Playing by being a Smith or Singer and investing all skills and feats around that. There are also options for making the Combat better like Legendary Stealth allowing to stealth anytime in combat for Sneak Attack if you can't do it otherwise.

So 15,3 could be considered 16,3 or even 17,3 without your -1 complain about "there are too many Rogue" which is my point. They get +1 for being too good at everything. So I would say 16.3 is fair assessment.

Wow, Bard as #1??, Fighter at #21?? All other Martials middle high in the ranking ? We all have our biases but if you can't be more subjective than why bother making a list? So many of the rankings had nothing to do with the categories but were instead decided by your Opinion. You should have just started and ended it with your Opinion and forget about pretending that you were honestly ranking the classes.
So having said that. It was fun watching your video (while getting outraged, lol). Keep up the good work.

Cleric with a 2 in combat? I guess it depends, we did curse of extinction and I had a Cloistered saranrae cleric, might have been the heaviest hitter in the party (with a champion and a barbarian in the party!)

I’ve been playing a rogue (levels 1-3) lately and I like it a lot… Until we get into combat. I do a lot of damage, but it’s kind of boring. I just walk behind the enemy, so I’m flanking it, and stab until I run out of actions. I want something more to do or to mix it up.

Shout-out to your GM for sharing this on Reddit where I found it. When you eventually do this again I'd suggest a 10 point scale because of the number of classes. That might help with the tiebreakers and the big middle pack.

I'm just now getting back into pathfinder with probably some society or beginner games so I can get a feel for mechanics again. Some friends got me into some 1-shots and very short games several years ago in 1e. Played in a couple meat grinder style 1-shots also around then at a con. Biggest thing for me that I learned from a GM of a meat grinder was to think of the classes as a base for whatever I'm trying to do with a character as a whole. That totally changed how I looked at it then and is shaping how I'm doing my light theory crafting now. There are a ton more options on how to accomplish a given goal with any class than it would seem at first glance. Best example I can think of is the value in what is basically a skirmisher character. Anyone that diverts enemies away from your other party members and gets enemies to burn actions on them is providing opportunity to the other party members. Maybe that keeps the front liner from getting overwhelmed or engages someone targeting your back liners to keep them going.

It's always interesting for me to see how other people view different things around character builds. Those kind of perspectives can really shape how a party will handle all the challenges thrown at them.

Overall I really enjoyed that. My personal ranking would be quite a bit different. I'll be keeping an eye out for when the 2 new classes and player core 2 get released to see how your lost changes.

Hm, lot of witch & familiar criticism here... perhaps you are simply jealous? 😅

Overall, i would prefer for Fighters to have defined subclasses, but one advantage of the current fighter design is they have the least opportunity cost for using Archetypes in Pathfinder 2e - and Archetypes are one of the real strengths of the system!

However, given the overwhelming popularity of the Free Archetype variant, this point is far, far less impactful.

At the end of the day, i prefer the interesting options to be baked into the class, rather than designing a class with "more room for interesting options."

But the critical hit machine is always going to have at least some appeal!

I appreciated the honesty of your opinions and enjoyed your presentation style in this video!

+1 pizzazz

Now I have to run a 1-shot for a fighter, summoner, oracle, and witch 😂

Ranger can get the soothing mist focus spell, which heals hp and persistent damage effects. That's pretty similar to lay on hands, so I think they should get a higher score in support!
Also Sorcerers have more Spellslots than Wizards. Arcane Sorcerers can even learn spells with a spellbook, similar to wizards, when they take the arcane evolution feat.

I think you really undersold the ratings of Witch and Sorcerer compared to the other casters with set spell lists. It’s odd to talk about how powerful the arcane or occult spell lists are at something, then not give that same credit to either when they easily could have those same benefits.

Lots of stuff to agree with; Thaumaturge, Kineticist and Psychic are awesome.

Summoner, Alchemist, Oracle, Inventor, Gunslinger are a quite janky.

I really don't agree with the comparison of Wizard and Sorcerer. I find prepared casting so tedious and I don't think "🤓" is awesome roleplay. Are Sorcerers not at least as supportive as a Wizard if they go arcane, and more if they don't.

I do kind of agree that the oracle belongs at the bottom, but at the same time. They can be some of the best healers, so I'd not put it at a 1 for support.