D&D 5e Rogue Subclasses Ranked Worst to Best
by Prince Phantom
The Rogue has a very unique relationship with its subclasses. It has the largest gap between its first two subclass features, gaining them at 3rd and 9th level respectively. This is a massive drought of features, with very little good stuff provided by the base Rogue in the meantime.
This puts a ton of pressure on the 3rd level feature to perform, and to stay relevant for 6 whole levels. That’s asking a lot, and most of these subclasses fail to deliver on that front. This is a problem, compounded by the fact that the Rogue sits comfortably in the bottom 3 of classes in 5e. We’ve got a lot of trash to wade through here, but there are one or two gems to pick out.
9: Inquisitive
Inquisitive is the most useless subclass in the entire game. Maybe not strictly the worst, as there are a few subclasses that make you actively worse, but this is the most useless. Insightful Fighting is just an additional way to get Sneak Attack (you’ll see that come up a few more times today), and does nothing to add damage or utility in combat. Sneak Attack is not hard to trigger, you don’t need this.
Ear for Deceit is just worse Reliable Talent for Insight checks, and becomes redundant once you get Reliable Talent. Eye for Detail isn’t necessary, as you don’t need Perception checks to be bonus actions outside of combat, and when was the last time you made one in combat? That’s everything until level 9, where all we get is advantage on Perception and Investigation checks, which we can already get through the help action from a teammate.
Unerring Eye is anything but, letting you know that you are being fooled but not how or by what means, or even what it is that’s attempting to deceive you. This is just Find Traps all over again! We don’t get a damage boost until level 17, and even then it’s a paltry 3d6 assuming we are using Insightful Fighting, which we probably aren’t because it sucks. This subclass is so “nothing” that I’m not convinced that it actually exists. Maybe I should hire it to find itself.
8: Swashbuckler
Sorry pirate fans, your subclass sucks the big one. Swashbuckler commits the unpardonable sin of all Rogue archetypes: forcing you into melee as one of the squishiest classes in the game, and giving you nothing to help you survive.
Fancy Footwork only does anything if you attack with melee, Rakish Audacity only helps you get Sneak Attack in melee (and at that, ALONE in melee, plus we don’t need help getting Sneak Attack!), and none of this is actually increasing our damage or helping us survive while the Ogre is breathing down our neck! Panache at level 9 has the audacity to ask us to tank, all while giving us no durability to tank with! Elegant Maneuver will rarely come up in combat, and is useless outside of combat thanks to the help action!
The capstone is a slap in the face. Once per rest, when we miss, we can roll again with advantage. Why such harsh restrictions? Why not just give us an auto-hit? Casters are rewriting reality and all we can do is try again to stab a guy?! The only reason that this ranks above Inquisitive is because of Panache’s out of combat utility. Yes, that is literally the only good thing about this subclass. Yikes.
7: Mastermind
We have another subclass that has exactly one good and interesting feature, but at least Mastermind gets it right away at level 3. Getting the help action to grant allies advantage on attacks as a bonus action and with 30ft range is at least fairly unique, even if it isn’t all that powerful. You are likely better off attacking with that bonus action with Crossbow Expert, but I suppose it’s a nice option to have for when you need it.
Everything else here is worthless. We can mimic accents, but not actual voices. We can determine after a minute of conversation if someone is smarter than us, but me, the normal human, can also typically do that. Level 13 only has text if we are standing next to at least one enemy, likely needing two, and even then can only redirect one attack per round.
Our capstone is just that people can’t tell when we’re lying through magical means, and our mind can’t be read. That’s the lamest capstone I’ve ever seen. If this is the Mastermind, I’d hate to see the lackeys. Poor suckers probably can’t even tie their shoes.
6: Scout
People used to call Scout a better Ranger. I want whatever they were smoking, because this subclass sucks. A few skill proficiencies and a reaction to move half our speed is all we get at level 3, and we don’t have much to look forward to. Level 9 just increases our speed by 10ft. Ambush Master sounds cool, but if you get a surprise round then everyone likely already has advantage anyway.
The capstone is somewhat neat, though it has a few too many strings attached for my taste. The only use I can find for this is for the extra movement reaction for something like the grapple and drag build that I made for this site. Aside from that, this just feels like a bunch of unrelated small bonuses that don’t add up to much.
5: Assassin
The power of Assassin’s 3rd level ability has been wildly overblown for the majority of 5e’s lifespan. Advantage on all attack for round one is all you are guaranteed to get from this, anything more requires extensive party coordination. Every other feature is an out of combat function that you could probably do without this subclass, or the capstone that will likely never function because it relies on a Con save. There are some builds that want 3 levels of this for Assassinate because they are designed to get surprise consistently, and that is the only reason that this subclass ranks this highly.
4: Phantom
Phantom is a subclass that is begging and pleading to get its 9th level feature sooner. Your 3rd level feature is actually pretty great, we just don’t have enough uses of it. That doesn’t get fixed until level 9. The 13th level feature is also amazing, letting you fly and giving all attacks against you disadvantage. The capstone is great too, again upping our damage and giving us more trinkets. This subclass starts really slow but actually gets quite good, but barely functioning until level 9 can only get you so far.
3: Thief
The only reason Thief ranks so highly is its potential. The best way I can convince you is to just point to my own build on this site that takes full advantage of Fast Hands and all the wacky things it can be used with. A new player coming to the table and selecting this subclass will not have near the success as that build will.
The only really good feature here for that new player is the capstone, which is admittedly very cool. Getting to take two turns in one round of combat is wholly unique to this feature and genuinely feels awesome in play. Only pick this one if you know what you’re doing, but if you do know what you’re doing, the ceiling is very high.
2: Soulknife
Soulknife is most easily compared to the Psi Warrior Fighter, which ranked near the middle of Fighter subclasses. This almost makes the top of Rogue, so that should tell you about all you need to know about the average power of Rogue subclasses.
Still, I appreciate every feature on offer here, and there are a lot of features. Extra damage, tons of utility, telepathy, and teleportation just to name a few. We have plenty of dice to power these features, and many of them either only expend the dice if it succeeds or give us one free use then charge you one afterwards. It should be no surprise that the Rogue whose abilities mirror spellcasting so closely ranks this high.
1: Arcane Trickster
Spells. That’s really all it takes isn’t it? Find Familiar, Invisibility, Hypnotic Pattern, an upgraded Mage Hand, and any other great spell you can think of from the low level Wizard spells. The actual features of Arcane Trickster are decent, and Spell Thief is really interesting, but who cares?
All these other subclasses have the problem of the gap between level 3 and 9, and this is the only one that fixes that. Where all other subclasses get nothing, we get new spells, more spell slots, and more cantrips between those levels. This is so far and above all the other subclasses that I genuinely can’t see myself playing any other Rogue than this.
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