Pathfinder: WotR - The Best & Worst Archetypes For Each Class

all right [Music] what's going on everybody mortum here this time bringing you a Pathfinder Wrath of the righteous video on the best and worst archetypes of each class a video I'm sure no one will disagree with me about and everyone will love however obviously we need to cover a few things at the beginning of the video here for starters don't let anybody's opinion really dissuade you from playing something you want to play even if it is one that I consider a worse archetype second best and worst are very subjective depending on what you want something to do and also simply the class they are attached to for instance there are a couple of bad kineticist archetypes but they're still actually pretty good because they're a kineticist they're simply bad in comparison to other things that class can do another thing to keep in mind is that a lot of popular choices that you'll hear here and there aren't classes people actually play but rather classes people dip into for a couple levels for very specific things and sometimes those dips are incredibly useful whereas the actual whole class is just okay for instance so some things to keep in mind while we go through this but with that said we're going to be talking about each class as kind of a broad concept things that are good about it things that does well and just kind of a general summary and then we're going to jump into the best and worst archetypes for each all of it should be time stamped down below so with no further Ado let's actually jump into this starting from the top and that is The Alchemist The Alchemist is an interesting class as the class fantasy is something that is very unique in the sense that you're an alchemist you Chuck bombs at people you also get a bit of spell casting known as spell extracts their spell casting is especially interesting because for the most part it only applies to them until they reach a certain point that they can actually share it with everyone else because of this The Alchemist has very self-oriented spell casting things they can buff themselves with for instance and they only get level 6 spells they're mutagen ability is pretty intro interesting it can give them Buffs to one of their physical scores this can be then upgraded and changed via their discoveries which can augment all sorts of stuff very flavorful class however overall it tends to pale in comparison to a lot of others in terms of the damage it can do however it does have a lot of kind of cool unique things going on again with that class fantasy so you won't really see it used a lot in higher difficulties but still a pretty cool class now in terms of the worst archetype for this I would say metamorph and this is primarily because you trade off your main class feature which is your bombs and their damage for the sake of being able to transform into a few different things you combine that with the fact that you could bring a brown fur transmuter along in your party via say a mercenary and then you could have them do a better version of what you're gaining here and you've got a pretty terrible archetype because again they trade off their sort of main class feature and replace it with something that isn't that good now in terms of the best I think you have a few different options honorable mention for vivisectionist the full class is just kind of okay however you will see people take dips into vivisectionist as a level one it is quite strong because it gets sneak attack damage the mutagen buff which is actually pretty big but when you look at the entirety of the vivisectionist it's kind of just okay and not something you're going to see a lot of people playing as a peer class especially when you consider that it also trades off its bomb ability but gains a bunch of sneak attack damage instead but that brings us to the other two options for best and that is Grenadier or incense synthesizer the incense synthesizer is really interesting because they kind of are a Bard but they use drugs instead of songs and their incense can be shared with your party to give all sorts of bonuses again much in the way that a Bard would they lose a bit of their bomb damage as they level up in exchange for being able to do this but kind of an interesting choice very unique class and then there is the Grenadier they kind of go all in on the bombs and not hitting your teammates with them as well great option if you're super into the bombs specifically but again there's just better ways to do damage so unless you just really like the class fantasy of this probably not a top tier pick and that brings us to The Arcanist one of my personal favorite classes and they're sort of a middle ground between Sorcerer And wizard arcanists are full Arcane casters however they are kind of both prepared casters as well as spontaneous most casters either prepare their spells or they can use everything they have available to them a limited number of times per day and they don't have to use spell slots for instance well arcanists kind of do both they have a limited number of slots that they can put their spells into and then they can cast spontaneously from those slots they also get access to an Arcane Reservoir to make up for this this is a resource pool basically that will allow them to activate their exploits you gain exploits as you level up and they can augment your spell casting in various ways in some ways they are just kind of extra spells but they also have very unique abilities like potent magic which is kind of Mainstay of The Arcanist class pretty cool class overall kind of mixes up the traditional casting that you would expect from a game like this but that brings us to the archetypes and the worst archetype for this you might think is Eldritch font if you watch this channel a lot however I would argue that The unlettered Arcanist is actually probably the worst option because they trade their normal spell list for a witch spell list and the witch spell list in my opinion doesn't really pair all that well with this when you take out the patron that is associated with the witch which is pick a patron which is where they get their spells but The Arcanist doesn't get a patron they just get their normal witch spell list which is very lackluster whereas Eldritch font is actually still pretty useful it just doesn't do much that a bass Arcanist couldn't do now in terms of the best archetype for this it is brown fur transmuter which is essentially the best buffing class in the game you would use this archetype to buff the rest of the party and this is because they get huge Buffs to their transmutation spells which are what allowed them to buff probably not a Class A lot of people want to play as their main character but very very strong especially when they can start applying personal spells to others which means they can turn like say pets into dragons once they get the spells for it just a cool way to go but that brings us to the Barbarian I don't think I need to explain to people what a barbarian is really but if you're not familiar with Pathfinder specifically their rage Powers work a bit differently than say 5e but if you played Third Edition or 3.5 d d you'd probably also be pretty familiar with these and The Barbarians are by design a relatively simple class to play the problem is they're just very average their main ability rage really only applies to them and other classes get in my opinion better versions of Rage in the skald's case they can even give rage to everyone else so the barbarian's not a bad choice by any means but it just kind of gets overshadowed here in Wrath of the right AI just by other classes now in terms of their worst archetype you are looking at the armored Hulk this sounds good heavy armored Barbarian right a lot of class fantasy to that but the issue is they trade off some of their better stuff like Evasion for abilities that don't really do much for you like for instance resilience of Steel which gives you bonus to AC only against critical hit confirmation which isn't even that good of an ability when you have things like fortification which just flat out negate Critical Hits but they do get to move faster and armor so I guess that's something overall though just not a very good archetype now in terms of the Best Barbarian archetype we are talking the instinctual Warrior and this is really good primarily because it makes the Barbarian more of a monk when unarmored and not using a shield they get their wisdom bonus to AC they get to use key Powers their rage is changed to work off of their wisdom modifier as well and overall just a cool concept for the class but easily one of the best archetypes for the Barbarian as the rest are just kind of average at best but that brings us to The Bard another class I don't think I really need to explain very much you provide the party passive Buffs via your performance and they also get some limited spell casting pretty cool class overall in the sense that it's very versatile but honestly not a favorite of mine now in terms of their worst archetypes I would say probably flame dancer they trade off one of their main performances for the sake of picking up a couple of fire spells as well as some fire resistance which is not a good trade now in terms of the best Bard kind of depends on what you want to do to be honest but personally I would say dirgebard this will give you an ability at level 2 that allows you to use mind affecting spells on Undead which is pretty strong as you do fight a decent amount of Undead overall and they can even get some bonuses to things like intimidation checks which as a class that uses Charisma can be pretty useful but honestly in my opinion The Bard overall kind of falls short in comparison to say the scald which is available in Wrath of the righteous not that it's a bad class if you want to play it you certainly can but its archetypes are frankly a little underwhelming now that brings us to the blood rager a very cool class that kind of combines sorcerer with Barbarian bloodragers get the bloodline from a sorcerer and the rage abilities from the Barbarian and they even get a little bit of spell casting to boot though they only get level 4 spells so it's not a ton Honestly though really cool class kind of makes the Barbarian much less interesting as a result especially when you start factoring in the bonuses you can get from the bloodline itself overall just a pretty cool class now in terms of the worst archetype probably the Green Ranger which thankfully you don't really lose anything for to be honest with you it's just that the bonuses from Green rager aren't really that good so you could take this without really losing anything from the base class but what you get are based basically free summoning spells however in general summoning spells in this particular game aren't all that strong and without significant investment these particular summons will be quite weak and simply aren't very good so in theory you could play Green rager if you just really wanted to from the base class because it doesn't again really lose anything but it's also just not very good in comparison to everything else you could pick now in terms of the best options you're pretty much looking at primalist primalist allows you to pick up Primal choices this offers you the choice between your bloodline Powers when you would pick them up or picking two Barbarian rage Powers which will allow you to augment your rage ability the primalist is kind of the main thing that makes the Barbarian itself obsolete because why would you play a barbarian when you could play this it's just very strong you get bloodline powers or you can pick rage Powers two at a time it's just very strong now there are a couple of other cool bloodrager archetypes though for instance reformed fiend is kind of cool cool as you get extra bonuses to attack and damage against evil creatures which is most of what we're fighting so you got some cool options there but that brings us to the Cavalier class the Cavalier is a class that kind of is the mounted combat class there are other classes that can do mounted combat very well but the Cavaliers like whole thing is mounted combat so they get an animal companion right out of the gate typically a horse so they can use mounted combat right away though not always beastriter for instance can choose from the whole list they also choose an order which will give them kind of various abilities as they level up pretty cool option and then they also typically pick up tactician which allows them to share teamwork Feats with people but their main thing is the mounted combat which is why their weakest archetype is really the standard Bearer in exchange for being able to give your party a very mild bonus to a few things you completely lose your big charge abilities from being a Cavalier such as mighty charge which allows you to double the threat range of your weapons while you're charging which means the range you need to roll to make a critical attack which is a significant loss especially when at level 20 you also lose Supreme charge which allows you to deal double or potentially even triple damage so needless to say if you're playing a pure Cavalier standard bearish is not very good now on the best archetype side of things I would say probably gendarme which I'm sure I'm butchering the name of and this is primarily because they dropped the tactician thing which isn't all that great anyway when you can get permanent teamwork feeds to your team through various other ways and they pick up a ton of bonus Feats which is going to allow them to pick up either combat or mounted combat Feats as they level up which can remove the need to take the mounted combat Feats through your regular feet progression and can just make a mount focused Cavalier much much more effective because they get all these extra Feats which allows them to do more and their level 20 ability Supreme charge gets replaced with transfixing charge which just deals triple as opposed to only if they had a lance with the regular version and also gives them extra damage on a critical hit as well just a very strong way to go though an honorable mention to Cavalier of the Paw just because it's pretty cool you get to use a halfling to use mounted combat right out of the gate and you do get to pick one of the better animal companion options which is a dog not the best choice in the world but honestly I like it and you don't really lose anything by picking this which is rare because most of the racial archetypes that require you to play a certain race are not good and then we have the cleric another class I don't think I need to explain too much they are a priest more or less of a god they can be any alignment however they can pick domains which can change the abilities they get very flexible class their main thing though is that they can Channel energy either negative or positive typically to either heal or damage enemies they also get to pick two domains by default which gives them various abilities as they level up and they also get their full cleric spell list as they level up as well so they are full casters very versatile class though their class sheet looks a little underwhelming because most of their class abilities come from the domains that they pick so in terms of the weakest archetype for this you're probably looking at demon Bane priest and this is because you have to take diminished spell casting and also only get one domain which is a huge thing to lose all for the privilege of being able to pick up a couple teamwork Feats literally two so just kind of not a good trade frankly in terms of the best option I would consider the Crusader here simply because while you also lose a domain here you get instead five extra combat Feats and one of those Feats can be weapon specialization which is not something available to most classes outside of fighter so an interesting decision however while Crusader is pretty strong I would also consider the Angel Fire Apostle because they go all in on their Channel energy ability and it also gets extra abilities here so if you want to say Be A Healer with your channel positive energy which you have to take with Angel Fire Apostle they can get a ton of use out of a heel that affects the entire party and can also heal and resurrect people at bigger levels very cool archetype my personal pick for the best however another one to consider is priest of balance this one actually gets both positive and negative Channel and as they use them alternatively they get Buffs to each a cool option but again personally I would go Angel Fire Apostle for the best now that brings us to the Druid Druid and Pathfinder is a pretty cool class a full Divine caster which is an important thing to know they get an animal companion typically right out of the gate which is very helpful they can also wild shape and turn into an animal though as a casting class that is typically not very useful because this is not D and d5e and they get spontaneous summoning but as we've already discussed previously summoning is a bit of a letdown without significant investment into it and even then eh now the worst archetype for Druid is very straightforward it is defender of the true world this gets a bunch of bonuses to fighting fey creatures that quite simply aren't really in the game unless you're playing the roguelike DLC but for the main campaign there's not really any fate to fight and thus picking an archetype that gets bonuses to fighting Fae is a waste of time interestingly though the best archetype for this I would say is the Fey speaker which replaces some of your wild shapes with Fey magic this will allow you to every few levels add an enchantment or illusion spell from the sorcerer or wizard spell list to their Druid spell list as a spell of one level higher basically meaning that your Divine Druid spell list gets a little bit bigger if you pick face speaker which can make you a better Caster quite frankly which can expand your spell list especially if you choose to go Angel and merge your spell book with the angel Mythic path Spellbook which can make this particular archetype a very strong Caster though honestly Druids are just okay overall not a bad way to go especially if you're on normal you can have a good time with it but the class itself is just kind of all right now that brings us to the fighter a class I assume I definitely don't need to explain you get a ton of Feats twice as many as everybody else to facilitate everything you need to do you get weapon and armor Mastery and basically you're very very good at hitting things the Base Class won't do the most amazing damage in the world but still very solid to play very easy to play Let's Talk worst archetype surprisingly Dragonair Scion you'd think this would be pretty cool because the name sounds cool and you get to pick a bloodline in practice though not so much you trade several of your combat Feats as well as your Armor training and your 20th level weapon Mastery for a draconic blood line which isn't going to add a ton to what you can do Arcane strike which also isn't that great and a couple of bonuses to intimidate and yeah honestly it's just not very good in my opinion I actually think the base fighter is just better than this you will occasionally see people use this to do a bunch of dips into various classes to make it a bit better because the class fantasy of it is pretty cool but honestly it just doesn't work without a lot of effort that is frankly not really worth it now on the best side of things we have mutation Warrior mutation Warrior trades off Armor training for mutagen The Alchemist class feature however we get some mutagen starting at level seven that are incredible for starters something like Grand mutagen can give you insane bonuses that more than make up for the loss of Armor training especially when you consider that currently unarmored beats armored quite a bit in this game there's just more ways to give unarmored people more AC than armored however it's my understanding there is a fix of some sort in the works for that event so the loss of Armor training might be more substantial in the future but as it stands losing Armor training isn't a huge deal top that off with the fact that mutation Warrior is one of the best dips of multi-class in the game if you will a lot of times people won't play this as the full class but rather dip three or four levels into it which is very strong because it gets its full base attack bonus which means more attacks makes it easier to hit things it gets the mutagen as I mentioned and several bonus Feats very strong dip honestly pretty good class not amazing as a pure class but still quite good and it's probably worth mentioning that the fighter has a couple of other archetypes that are kind of lead-ins to prestige classes the aldori defender tends to be for aldory sword Lord armorger tends to go into hell night and I recommend watching my video about Prestige classes if you want more info about that but that of course brings us to the hunter Hunter's an interesting one it's sort of a mix of Druid and Ranger you get level 6 spells overall and the class itself tends to go all in on its animal companion most of its archetypes and the class itself are quite frankly a bit underwhelming however one of them is amazing but first let's talk about the worst option and that is the Forester the Forester is bad because you basically give up everything to do with your animal companion in a class that is focused on the animal companion and what you get in return for that is a couple of combat Feats four to be specific and some help with moving on difficult terrain it's an archetype that just doesn't make any sense and then on the better side of things we actually have Divine Hound Divine Hound is interesting because it's an amazing archetype that is actually one of the better classes in the game to play that is attached to a class that is typically not that great but Divine Hound specifically is very very good we lose animal Focus which is a set of Buffs you can apply to your pet or potentially yourself in certain circumstances that give minor bonuses that items will likely replace before act 1 is even over so losing animal focus is not a big deal and it gets replaced with the inquisitor's judgments these are Buffs that you can apply in combat and you also get an ability that will give them to your pet as well as you level up you can have up to three of these on you also get a bunch of teamwork Feats as you level up and both of those things combined make the Divine Hound very versatile you do have to pick a dog or wolf animal companion but again dog is one of the better ones anyway and this is a very versatile archetype that can do a ton of stuff and it is very very good at them too now that brings us to The Inquisitor The Inquisitor is an interesting one because it has a lot of really cool archetypes and it's a pretty cool class overall as you basically act as The Inquisitor for a deity you get level 6 Divine spells you get the judgments already talked about you get solo tactics which lets you apply teamwork Feats to just yourself without having to have other people who have them near you to activate them you also get Bane weapon as an Inquisitor which is just free damage with the way it's implemented in game when you turn it on and if that wasn't enough you also get to pick a domain like a cleric wood though just one very versatile class much like the cleric itself now in terms of the worst archetype you're probably looking at tactical leader though this is one of those situations where the worst option is still a pretty good option as I've made builds for tactical leader on core difficulty actually so you can absolutely still use it but it's probably the worst overall of all the inquisitors because this gives you the ability to apply teamwork Feats to your whole team temporarily known as tactician however as I've mentioned before there are better ways to give your team teamwork feeds more permanently so well it's an option it's not the best at the thing it tries to do but still a lot of flavor and inquisitors in general are pretty strong now for the best we're probably looking at Sanctified Slayer here you lose your judgments but you pick up sneak attack on top of studied Target from the Slayer class as well as slayered talents from the Slayer class so it can be pretty good and in most cases what you would be using the judgments for are Buffs that study Target will actually give you plus you get the sneak attack damage very very strong way to play the game and actually one of the better dips as well this is a very common three to four level dip as well and it's a very strong one at that because this will give you that solo tactics thing where your teamwork Feats can apply to you without having to have them on everyone else that said though Inquisitor is again one of those classes where a lot of the archetypes are actually really cool sacred hunts Master gives you a pet but you lose judgments for instance judge and Faith Hunter are also really cool a lot of options when it comes to Inquisitor and it's one of the few classes that actually has a lot of really good archetypes and even the worst one is honestly still pretty solid and that brings us to the kineticist interesting one here I've actually made a fairly long video about how to play kineticist they work quite a bit differently than most other classes in the game they use kinetic blasts and they can Infuse these blasts with various abilities as they level up they pick elements to then use as their blast some of which are physical some are energy damage which is to say Elemental it's a complicated class that this particular video does not have the time to go in detail on but I did again make a video about how to play these things and as you may or may not have heard they are incredible in terms of damage they deal intense damage they are one of the best damage classes in the game combine that with a little bit of unresistable damage they can apply through an infusion called deadly Earth and kineticists are some of the best damage dealers in the game which makes talking about their worst archetype feel a little silly but honestly it's a toss-up between blood kineticist and kinetic night blood kineticist I don't think will be the worst for long because they are trying to fix this the reason blood kineticist is even on the worst list potentially is because some of its uh archetype mechanics do not work correctly how however this has been known for quite some time and they've been trying to fix it but apparently whatever is causing the problem is pretty deeply rooted in the system kineticist is a class that is so strong that even its bad archetypes are still very strong I actually did a last zlonte playthrough with a blood kineticist on this channel it's still very playable but honestly probably takes the worst spot just because some of it doesn't work now the other option for Worse there kinetic night I'll go ahead and talk about that one as well it's not a great pick because a base kineticist can pretty much recreate kinetic Knight in a better way if you know what you're doing kinetic Knight makes a melee kineticist easier to play as it does a lot of the lifting for you but it takes away a lot of the good stuff as well whereas with a bass kineticist if you know what you're doing you could also basically make a kinetic Knight the main thing that makes kinetic Knight really good is an ability called kinetic whip but unfortunately that is not actually in the game and thus kinetic Knight is one of the worst kineticist options still playable though because it's a kineticist but generally speaking not a lot of people touch it in terms of best I would say probably Elemental engine just in terms of raw damage but honestly all of the other ones are so good you could pick any of them dark Elementalist is probably the weirdest one to play but all of these archetypes besides blood kineticist and kinetic Knight are solid in fact the base kineticist is actually a class you might consider playing just because of the way the archetypes for kineticists change the gameplay so fundamentally there's actually a strong case to be made for just playing a bass kineticist and what's best here really kind of just depends on how you want to play it though for me definitely Elemental engine that brings us to the Magus Magus is a cool class that kind of goes in on the concept of a Gish character which is to say a character that is good at both spell casting and combat or melee combat if you will this is why they get things like spell combat which allows them to cast a spell and make weapon attacks in the same turn and they also get an arcane pool which gives them access to various Arcana which can augment their abilities somewhat pretty cool class though it is a bit complicated to play they do ultimately only get level 6 spells which kind of balances out the fact that they're very strong otherwise but again one of the better classes there is if you know how to play it now in terms of worst archetype that is definitely spell dancer this is a racial elf archetype which sees them lose their Arcane pool which they can augment their weapons with this is less of a loss recently actually with a change to Elemental barrage and how some of the damage Works however there are still augments you can give to your weapon with Arcane pool that were good and spell dancer throws those away for a little bit of movement and some AC typically against attacks of opportunity it's just a case of trading off a lot and not getting a ton in return now in terms of best uh sword Saint hands down it's not even close sword Saint is the theoretical highest damage in the game obviously that won't necessarily be your experience but in terms of of raw damage potential swords saying is quite literally the best class it is unarmored you're not going to have any armor you only use a weapon in one hand you use your intelligence modifier to your AC you can get insane criticals you get an ability called perfect strike which lets you maximize damage from your attacks you get perfect critical which maximizes your damage from criticals you get multiple increases to the multiplier on your critical damage sword Saint is an insane class if you know how to play it but again it's a little complicated in getting to that level of Competency can be a little rough but it is incredible Magus has a couple of other cool archetypes such as Arcane Rider which allows them to get a mount Eldritch Scion and Eldritch Archer are also pretty cool but all of them kind of pale in comparison to sword Saint though they do have significantly different play Styles so something to keep in mind there and then we have the monk an interesting one to talk about kind of the unarmed King and surprisingly defensive they hit things with their fists and they are very good and and doing so they have a lot of interesting archetypes some of them are very very good one of them isn't though and that is the student of stone we trade off multiple things all to pick up a little bit of Elemental damage to our unarmed attacks that most enemies will likely resist anyway because it is acid damage you trade off a lot for this archetype and what you get in return is simply not good another one of the racial archetypes that is just not worth playing to be honest now in terms of what is best for a monk that is harder to answer to be honest it depends on what you want to do currently though I suspect for not much longer based on what alcat has been saying recently the scaled fist is a very popular dip because it will change your decks to AC to Charisma to AC this Stacks with a another thing from the Oracle class where they can pick a certain mystery that also gives them Charisma to their AC again which gives them double AC from Charisma which can be outrageously strong however that might not be in the game for too much longer and things like that are getting nerfed from what I hear or at least they're looking to do so whether or not it happens who knows but scaled fist is pretty great because of that specifically but if you're not doing that then the rest of the peer class is kind of just okay but even if they take that away still not necessarily a bad option as a one level dip because for instance Sorcerers use Charisma so do a lot of other Caster classes and taking a one level dip and scaled fist will give you plus to your AC from your charisma which for an unarmored class anyway is still going to help you out quite a bit so even if that sort of exploit gets removed this still isn't a bad level one dip one level does not necessarily make an archetype so what is actually the best well it depends on what you want to do but in my opinion it is actually so hey and that is because you trade a ton of what the monk actually does and it swaps it out for mounted combat and you get a ton of the prominent mounted combat Feats for free at as you level up which means you don't have to spend your feeds on them which means you can spend them on other things you of course also get an animal companion specifically a horse to facilitate the mounted combat and this is actually a really strong way to go if you want to play mounted combat and it's one of the classes besides Cavalier that is actually very very good at it because you get all of these free mounted combat Feats which you're gonna need still not going to do quite as much mounted combat damage as say a Cavalier simply because they get those charge abilities as part of their class kit typically but still a pretty good option for it also something about a horse charging someone just so you can punch them in the face is hilarious to me so that's a thing other options though are the Sensei the Sensei can pass the amongst key Powers onto the rest of the party which can be very good very strong option there then there is the Zen Archer though you have one of these in party already so you're unlikely to use it for yourself this is land so if you have land with you you're probably not going to use this in Archer but Zen Archer is pretty solid you're gonna make a very good Archer you're going to get a ton of attacks but a very popular thing to do with Zen Archer is take a few levels in it and then put the rest in Divine Hound which we talked about earlier and because of this I wouldn't consider this the best monk archetype because you're not really using this archetype but rather a dip and then changing it to another class but even the class as itself is quite good but that brings us to the Oracle the Oracle is a full Divine caster and they make amazing healers they can do Blaster Caster to an extent but they're also one of the more complicated classes in terms of what they have going on every Oracle has a mystery what that mystery is gives them various benefits especially as they level up via Revelations however they also have to take a curse at character creation which replies penalties Etc so it's a slightly complicated class but it can be very strong especially when you pair it with the angel Mythic path for the merged Spellbook now much like the cleric their actual class sheet is relatively blank because a lot of what they get depends on the mystery that they pick but in terms of the worst archetype you're basically looking at enlightened philosopher you don't lose much for taking it but all it gives you is mental acuity which is a bonus to intelligence as you level up that you don't need because this is a Charisma based class so enlightened philosopher does next to nothing for you now in terms of the best Oracle archetype kind of depends on what you want to do there's a couple decent ones but I would say overall probably Seeker simply because you lose two Revelations and pick up three bonus Feats which are just you know decent and you don't need a ton of your Revelations anyway though if you wanted to go full healer with this class you'd probably pick Divine herbalist instead something to keep in mind there and as I mentioned earlier with the monk as well if you take the nature mystery you can take Charisma to your AC again which even outside of an exploit is actually a pretty strong option because as an oracle you're going to have high Charisma anyway so changing your Dex modifier to your charisma instead to your AC is still a great way to stack some AC as your charisma is likely going to be one of your highest stats anyway but beyond that they make fantastic casters now let's talk about paladins these are an interesting one they're good in the sense that they fit into the theme of the game very well but overall they tend not to be the most amazing choice at almost everything that they do though they're certainly pretty solid they of course get to do things like Smite evil lay on hands to heal they get to form a Divine Bond and either get a mount or a weapon bond that will allow them to do more weapon damage but usually the Animal Companions the better way to go and it's worth remembering that in this particular rendition of the game paladins were lawful good now in terms of the worst archetype it is again the racial archetype Stone Lord this is a dwarf archetype this sees us lose our Smite evil and Mark of Justice all for some defensive benefits that quite frankly aren't worth the trade if you're playing on like normal you could still make this work if you just really wanted to but generally speaking this just is not a very good archetype now in terms of the best personally I would say Divine Scion interestingly enough this also loses Smite evil as well as Mark of justice but it replaces it with studied Target from the Slayer as well as some sneak attack damage studied Target will basically give you an equal if not better attack and damage bonus to an enemy that Smite evil would except you don't only have limited uses per day you can use study Target all the time probably going to be a better damage and attack roll bonus unless you have just an outrageous Charisma score on a paladin which you likely won't because they still need to make physical attacks so their Charisma is likely only going to be roughly two or three anyway and studied Target will get better than that so while Divine Scion does also drop a main class feature for Paladin it replaces it with something that is honestly just better now there is a case to be made for losing Mark of Justice specifically which gives your entire party Mark of Justice the Smite evil ability but honestly even this isn't that amazing and there's other ways to get a bonus exactly like this so personally I think it's absolutely worth the trade-off the rest of the Paladin archetypes are okay some of them go a little more in on the healing part of the class itself one of them is more of an Archer which is an interesting take but honestly all of the paladins archetypes are a little eh overall and the class itself is again kind of average now that brings us to Ranger Ranger is a very cool class again one of those ones I don't think I really need to explain all that much but they get a small amount of divine casting they get combat Styles they can fight typically with a bow is the most common but they can also pick other combat Styles if you will to end it fighting two-handers that kind of thing they also get the favored enemy ability as well as favored terrain which makes them very good at fighting certain types of things solid class overall but they especially Excel here in a game where the majority of what we're fighting is a lot of the same stuff which means means we can stack their bonuses against that thing but first let's talk about the worst archetype for this and that is pretty much the Nomad and that's because it doesn't really do much of anything you're forced into the archery combat style that you could have taken with the base class anyway and you get your animal companion at level one instead of level four and that's that's pretty much it that's what the Nomad does for you exactly where the Base Class Ranger would have gotten anyway so it's just not a good pick unless you just really want that animal companion at level one but it really doesn't make much of a difference now the best Ranger archetype is definitely Demon Slayer and that is because of the AP we are playing the game in and that is Wrath of the righteous now this would have been good because we are playing Wrath of the righteous but it's actually made a little bit better by the way the game handles favored enemy for demons typically this is just one thing evil Outsiders but Wrath of the righteous actually splits it up into three subsections Demons of Slaughter magic and strength I think and if you play other Ranger years you have to choose one of those three subtypes well Demon Slayer gets all of those as their favorite enemy which means they do something the rest of the Ranger class cannot which is get all of those as their favorite enemy and they also pick up a couple of other bonuses as well to fighting specifically demons and because most of what we are fighting in this game is demons it's a very very effective class you get a ton of passive bonuses to killing the thing that most shows up very strong way to play the game there's also a couple of other pretty solid archetypes here as well freebooter is a decent one actually and at least it can be but all of them kind of pale in comparison to Demon Slayer simply because of the AP we're playing in and that brings us to the Rogue Rogues are kind of eh overall like there's a couple decent ones they're easy to play at the very least but honestly I think overall Rogues don't get a ton of mileage in this particular game the obvious thing about them is they deal tons of sneak attack damage they take Rogue talents which can help them in combat and I think most people understand the class fantasy of a rogue pretty well now in terms of the worst option it's basically underground chemist this trades off some of our Rogue talents for basically nothing being able to toss a bomb every once in a while it's just not very good because if you wanted to do this you'd go get an alchemist and honestly you probably won't even miss the Rogue Challenge you're giving up for this it's just what it gives you is so comically small there's just no point and honestly just a strange option all around but that brings us to what is the best rogue archetype that's an interesting question to be honest with you and it really depends on what you want to do exactly like you know most archetypes in general but an honorable mention to rowdy rowdy is very very strong at the early game where they get a ton of damage right out of the gate however it tends to fall off later game in comparison to others another option I personally enjoy is Eldritch scoundrel but you get one of these as a companion so you're unlikely to pick it for yourself however they get spell casting at the cost of some of their Rogue talents and a little bit of their sneak attack damage but again you get one of these anyway so you're unlikely to play this knife master is a really cool way to go it's very easy kind of goes all in on the sneak attack damage they deal 1d8 sneak attack damage per sneak attack dice whereas everyone else deals 1d6 provided they are wielding knives that's basically it that's pretty much the only change straightforward class to play does a lot of really solid damage especially because the game is very liberal with sneak attacks but Rogue is one of those classes that in my opinion has a lot of really underwhelming archetypes and most of them are just kind of shades of okay frankly but that brings us to the shaman Shaman are an interesting case they get hexes and Spirits they are kind of a mix between a cleric and a witch they are full Divine casters so they can merge with the angel if you want to give them the angel Mythic spell book which can be very strong actually by the way and they also get hexes which will grant bonuses to things like AC give them some spell like abilities they're pretty useful overall their big thing though is their Spirits shamans can pick a spirit that will then give them abilities as they level up similar to a clerics domains a lot of how good a shaman is depends on the spirit that they actually pick and then they have the wandering spirit and wandering hexes as a shaman levels up they can take temporary bonds with a spirit or a Wandering hex to get extra abilities this way interesting class to play takes a bit of know-how to get used to but once you do they're pretty cool overall especially because they're a full Divine Caster their spell list overall though is a little wishy-washy to be honest but in terms of archetypes let's talk about it the worst one is probably unsworn Shaman you trade all of your hexes for basically the ability to not have to commit to a decision you can pick wandering spirit and wandering hexes kind of at will so you can kind of pick and choose what you want but of course you lose all your hexes in the name of Versatility so it's kind of whatever now the best option is probably Spirit Hunter but much like eldert scoundrel we already get one of these as a companion right out of the gate so we're probably not going to be using it for ourselves this trades our wandering stuff for Arcane bond which will allow you to recover a spell once per day as well as the spirit enchantment which will augment your weapons with various things overall pretty solid especially since a lot of people won't make the most use out of their wandering stuff however we already get a spirit Hunter you're more likely to play a shadow Shaman this trades a hex as well as your wandering Spirit stuff for sneak attack dice which is a fantastic way to go especially if you're leaning more into the melee side of things now that brings us to the skulls skalds are an interesting case they are barbarians if you will they get inspired Rage which is to say that they apply rage to the entire party and they get a bit of limited spell casting they are again a mix between bards and barbarians overall very strong class they are capable of providing huge Buffs to the entire party they can actually be pretty good in combat themselves but in terms of the archetype that is the worst for them this is the hunt collar this is because they trade off several of the rage Powers they're going to get as they level up for the privilege of transforming them or their companions into beasts which as we've discussed up to this point is not a great way to do this the best way would be to go get a brown fur transmuter and do it that way so a very Niche thing that is just not very good overall not a great archetype now in terms of what is best for the scald that's a tough one truth be told I think there's a case to be made for the court which I think flips the script a bit and actually kind of gives bonuses to your casters rather than your melee guy so instead of inspiring rage you get insightful contemplation which gives bonuses to intelligence and Charisma and saving throws so a useful option if you don't want to go the rage route but rather buffing up casters though I do think there is at the same time a big case to be made for demon dancer provided you kind of want to go into natural attacks now I've made a build that actually kind of deals in this and it's very very strong but it's also not particularly newcomer friendly and requires managing a lot of stuff a lot of people might not be familiar with how to manage frankly but it is capable of being incredibly good though but for most people kind of just depends on what you want to do here it's called in general though is a very strong class that can buff a party quite well in some pretty unique ways now that brings us to the Slayer the Slayer is a very high damage class that is incredibly easy to play most of their benefits that they get happen passively meaning that you don't really need to do anything besides hit things their main class feature is studied Target which allows them to to get a bonus to attacks and damage roles against said Target and if you deal sneak attack damage to things it just gets applied automatically you don't even have to do anything you also get sneak attack damage you also get a high base attack bonus it's just a very good martial class that is again very easy to play now its worst archetype is easily the imitator this is because is again a racial archetype and you give up most of what makes you a good Slayer you give up your entire studied Target bonus half of your sneak attack dies some of your movement ability known as Slayers Advance all for the sake of taking on some stances via the ability imitation it's a unique concept but quite frankly the pros don't outweigh the cons which are significant now in terms of the best archetype I would say deliverer this is because we can get determined Zeal and divine anathema so on top of our already substantial passive bonuses to killing things deliverer if they are two steps away from the alignment of their enemy will get just passive bonuses and damages which makes it even stronger than the Slayer already was the Slayer has some other kind of cool archetypes but they tend to be a bit more Niche whereas deliverer is very easy to apply to basically the entire game by just being two steps away from chaotic evil and that brings us to the sorcerer now this is again one of those classes where it is so incredibly strong you'd be hard-pressed to make a wrong choice but this is like a wizard but you get spontaneous casting which means you don't have to manage your spell slots but rather your cast per day however you typically get less known spells which means your overall ability is a bit smaller but in the trade-off you get Bloodlines which allow you to do all sorts of unique things the worst archetype for this is probably nine-tailed air this is because your bloodline spells that you get just additionally by having a bloodline as you level up get replaced with magical tail because this is the Kitsune racial archetype however match Magical Tale is a feat that gives you magical abilities that are basically just jankier versions of spells that already exist and by the time you get them because there's a set progression to it they don't really make a lot of sense and because of that nine-tailed air while not a bad class because it's still a sorcerer it's just kind of a weird one and most people aren't going to pick this now in terms of what is best that is actually also a very difficult question because again most of the sorcerer archetypes are really really good if you forced me to choose I would probably go cross-blooded and this is because you get to pick two Bloodlines at the expense of a few spells known which means you have a smaller pool of spells but with the second bloodline you only get the spells from that and just because of that you're likely to make up for the reduced spells known anyway you combine that with an ability called abundant casting from the Mythic paths and you're kind of in the money cross-blooded is just amazing but again all of the sorcerer archetypes are really really good good you'd be hard-pressed to pick one and not be in a good place if you know what you're doing a lot of them are just very very strong and that brings us to the war priest the war priest is a mix of cleric and fighter and kind of winds up being a slight bit clunkier than both you're not going to see this on very high difficulties to be honest but it's certainly not bad either now unlike a lot of hybrid classes which tend to just have abilities kind of shoved together from different classes this is a little bit different in the sense that the fighter and cleric portions of this that we got were altered a little bit War priests don't get domains they get blessings which Grant abilities at specific levels in a similar manner to domains but it is a bit different they don't get weapon training but rather they get sacred weapon which just increases the base damage a weapon can do overall it's just an odd class it's not bad by any means you can definitely use it but it's a weird one now in terms of its worst archetype that would probably be feral Champion you lose one of your blessings which is substantial and you also lose your sacred armor bonus all for all for the sake of again turning yourself into a beast which as we've discussed several times and this video is not a very effective way to do it now the best archetype for this is probably cult leader now here we lose a few of our extra combat Feats for the sake of picking up sneak attack damage and at will Fascinate ability and a couple of other stealth things that are kind of whatever but honestly the sneak attack damage is very very helpful but this is one of those classes that has a again just very average archetypes overall cult leader is probably the best again just because the sneak attack damage but kind of just an odd class all around but that brings us to the witch the Witch is one of my favorite spell casting classes actually and that is because they again use hexes and they get their spells via a patron or at least more of their spells the hexes are the same thing as the hexes that shamans get they're the same sort of class feature and do basically a lot of the same stuff which is pick a patron and a familiar the patron for which tends to be things like elements death or fate this will grant them abilities as well as access to new spells similar to the way a domain Works a familiar will also give minor bonuses and acts as the character's spell focus which in the game doesn't really matter so much because the familiar can't be killed or anything but more of a thing in the tabletop but they are also full Arcane casters typically speaking which makes them potentially very high damage however in comparison to a wizard or a sorcerer their overall spell list tends to be a bit on the less amazing side we'll say however this can be again augmented a bit through their actual Patron now in terms of the worst archetype that's a toss-up between Elemental witch or hagbound for me I would say Elemental Witch is probably the worst because hack bound while honestly not very good does get an at-will bestow curse ability which can be kind of interesting but hagbound is hard to build around because they get a bunch of bonuses to their strength at the cost of several of their hexes but this is a class that doesn't need strength and has a low base attack bonus so it's just a very odd mix of abilities and is honestly as a result not very good Elemental witch on the other hand trades a bunch of their hexes for a very weak Rey attack and is forced to take an elemental Patron now the ray attack for the elemental Witch is a cantrip which means they don't have to you know put it into spell slots but it is still a very weak ability that is easily outpaced by spells in a game where spell slots aren't much of an issue past the first few levels and because of that it's just not very good now in terms of the best witch archetype you are looking at leyline Guardian this trades a couple of their hexes for conduit surge this will allow you to as a swift action increase the Caster level of their spells by a number of rounds however if they fail a fortitude save they become staggered so once you can kind of guarantee that you pass that fortitude save conduit surge can be very very helpful because of the relatively significant increased Caster level and then as an honorable mention stigmatized Witch is pretty cool as well it actually changes your casting ability to Charisma but again this is a class that actually already has representation via a companion Ember so you're probably not going to play a stigmatized witch though to be fair with two classes in your party capable of using hexes you're unlikely to play a witch personally at all so that you know there's that but that brings us to our last class the wizard The Wizard is of course the classic spellcaster a full Arcane Caster they get both a lot of really cool archetypes and some honestly weaker ones but I would say the worst is probably Arcane bomber but before we get into that it's worth mentioning that Wizards specialize in schools of magic and you know just casting magic all around their school of Magic the one they choose to specialize in will give them extra abilities depending on which school of magic it is again kind of similar to the way domains work strangely enough but they also have to pick opposition schools which are schools that if they choose to use them will will cost double the amount of spell slots to use which basically just means two that's important to know because a lot of the archetypes for the wizard increase the amount of opposition schools you have to take from two to potentially three or even four and Arcane bomber specifically sees us take four opposition schools for the privilege of throwing a bomb very very badly the amount of bombs they can throw is set it's their class level plus their intelligence modifier per day and the damage is incredibly underwhelming to just casting an actual spell it's not the worst idea but honestly it just doesn't really make up for the fact that you have to take four opposition schools for this and you can't take a specialist school so it's just it's just bad all the way around I would not recommend it now in terms of what's best for a wizard that is certainly debatable but for me it comes down to two in particular the exploiter wizard and the elemental specialist the exploiter wizard is practically just an upgrade from the base wizard to be honest as it allows us to take a few Arcanist Expo voids and some of those are very very good however you also can't pick a specialist school if you do this but in my opinion the exploits kind of make up for that and then the other option is Elemental specialist this allows you to specialize in one particular element and change all of your spells to that element should you so choose you have to take the evocation specialist school but it's not much of a trade-off you do have to take a third opposition school but not a big deal at all especially because this is probably one of your best options for a blaster Caster because you can really focus in on one particular element using basically every Elemental spell available to you because you can change their elements to what you need it to be to make use of the ascendant element ability which will allow you to bypass all resistances with a certain element type just a very very strong way to go the wizard also has a lot of other really cool archetypes but those are the ones I would focus on scroll Savant is probably also a pretty weak one because you're honestly probably not going to be using a ton of Scrolls if you're a wizard you'd probably just learn the Spells and cast them regularly but they specialize in using Scrolls as items karuramancer is the damn pure racial which is actually not a bad way to go but if you don't want to play a damp here which is negative energy Affinity you're probably not going to pick that and spell master is a Universalist which makes them just really good at casting spells and a Thessalonian specialist is an interesting one that replaces The Specialist school with a different type of magic a lot of cool options for the wizard but again best choices are probably Elemental specialist and exploiter Wizard and that guys is finally going to do it for this list of best and worst archetypes for every class in Pathfinder Wrath of the righteous if you're curious about Prestige classes I have previously made videos for that as well and I'll try to remember to link it down below but beyond that I certainly hope you enjoyed the video I'm sure people have all sorts of thoughts about this down in the comments section talking about their very specific bills in mind for things that I said were bad but as I mentioned all the way back at the start of this video don't let anything I've said here dissuade you from playing something you want to play well I've talked about things on a more technical aspect of what deals more damage what performs the best there's always the case to be made for playing something purely because you want to play it and after all basically everything is viable on normal but with all of that said guys I certainly hope you enjoyed the video if you did like comment subscribe all that YouTube jazz but regardless of any of that truly just thank you so much for watching I really do appreciate it may you wander in wisdom and have an amazing day [Music] foreign [Music]

Channel: Mortismal Gaming

Views: 245,476

Keywords: Mortym, Mortismal Gaming, pathfinder, pathfinder wotr, pathfinder wrath of the righteous, wotr enhanced edition, pathfinder wotr enhanced edition, pathfinder wotr consoles, pathfinder wotr update, pathfinder wotr classes, pathfinder wotr mythic paths, pathfinder prestige classes, pathfinder wotr prestige classes, prestige classes, pathfinder best classes, pathfinder best class

Id: cQf8shmW08E

Length: 56min 54sec (3414 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 29 2022