The top of the 5e class food chain, Wizards kinda have it all already. The best utility in the game, the best spells in the game, they can very easily get the best defense and damage, and will succeed at basically anything you ask them to do.

Warlock is one of the most polarizing classes in the game. Some think they are underpowered, some believe they are overpowered, but I actually fall right in the middle. I think Warlocks are the most balanced class in the game, providing some incredibly strong options if you know what to pick, while not letting the power level go too terribly high.

As one of the strongest classes in the game, Sorcerers are already pretty well off. They aren’t super hungry for many feats like many other classes, they get most of the best parts of the Wizard spell list, metamagic, and a couple of truly stellar subclasses in Clockwork and Aberrant.

As one of the worst classes in the game, the Rogue really needs some help to truly excel. Normally when I say that about a martial class, I follow it up with something about how Variant Human’s level one feat is so crucial to doing that, but that’s less true for the Rogue.

The Ranger is a half-caster that mixes spellcasting and weapon attacks much more evenly than the Paladin (or at least it should, cast more spells Ranger players! And not just Hunter’s Mark!). This means that there’s a lot of things a Ranger might want from their race.

As a martial class focused on weapon attacks primarily, Paladins are predisposed to races that grant a feat at level one more than almost any other class. This makes races selection tough if you want to play anything other than a Variant Human or Custom Origin.

Monks really struggle, especially past level 5, so I’d recommend you think long and hard about your race selection. You need to wring every drop of power possible out of a Monk to make it compete with other martials, and picking a synergistic race is a good place to start.

The standard martial class that specializes in making a lot of attacks and doing them well, and excels at single target damage above all else. Honestly, it focuses so hard on single target damage that it actually plays to its detriment, leaving many Fighters lacking in areas like support and utility, especially outside of combat.

In this article, I will go over each race very briefly and note what features do and don’t work while Wildshaped. I will also rate each race for their potential performance as a Moon Druid focusing on Wildshape, and then give a quick top 5 at the very end for those of you who just want to know the best of the best.

The Druid is my pick for the second strongest class in the game, just behind the Wizard. The reason being the Druid’s extremely strong spell list, having some of the best summoning and control options in the game, combined with their ability to swap spells out for anything on their class list each day.

Since there are so many ways to take a Cleric, we’ll break these recommendations down into the best races for Defense and Utility. There aren’t really any races that provide extra damage that synergize well with the Cleric’s spells and abilities, so we’ll exclude those for this list.

As one of the most versatile classes in the entire game, Bards can be just about anything you want them to be. They can be good with weapons, fantastic with magic of all kinds, and skill monkeys all at once, or specialize in a couple of those fields.

The Barbarian is one of the weakest classes in 5e, really only excelling at single target damage and physical defense. They offer basically no utility, only slight support through select subclass features, are terrible at the most important saving throws, and they are incredibly feat hungry while also demanding high stats to function as intended.

The Artificer is a class that wants many different things from its race, and each individual Artificer can have very different wants than others. This means that a lot of races can work with the class, it all comes down to what you want your build to accomplish.

Introduced in Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything as a way to create your own race, the Custom Origin is also one of the most busted options in the game. It all comes down to it providing a feat at level 1, and the right feat will frequently be stronger than any combination of racial abilities.

With their penchant for traps and inventions, insatiable love for all things draconic, and a reckless abandon that would make a daredevil blush, Kobolds can work well for a wide variety of classes and builds thanks to their versatility, but they likely will never be the best choice for your build.