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Who does combat better and why? If you think they are equal, tell us why?

Power vs Skills, Feral Reaction vs Training, it's the battle of who's the best melee class.

I got my money on the fighter.  

Feb 1, 2013 -- 3:06PM, powerroleplayer wrote:

Depends on your criteria, of course.  I think the most reasonable criteria of combat effectiveness is the marginal threat level a full party can handle with a fighter vs with a barbarian.  On that basis, I don't think there's any way to argue that the fighter isn't far and away superior thanks to parry, which makes him substantially more durable than even a raging barbarian against melee combatants.  He's also more versatile, and he can keep it up longer because he doesn't have to rage to be effective.  In short, parry needs to be rebuilt from the ground up before any class has a hope of holding a candle to the fighter unless the DM is actively building encounters to nerf it.

That parry ability does make the figther more versatile. If the situation invovles him being a tank
then he can tank while his party kill whatever is attacking him with long range. 

But the barbarian rage makes him do more average damage then the fighter.

@powerroleplayer 

That have always been the barbarian weakness, crowds. Because of the barbarian low AC, a lot of enemies can hit him and do a lot of damage together. Unless the barbarian is 20 Dex/20 Con with ring of protection to put his AC as good as the fighter, tanking crowds is not his thing.

On the bright side, the barbarian is very good against a single target. He got the hitpoints to survive the BBEG's assault and deal plenty of damage with it's rage.  

What I like about the barbarian is that with Primal Might, he can take a 20 if his Strength is 20.
That's pretty power when it comes to grappling. He pretty much turn his strength check into a DC.  

If built right, the barbarian can be a mean skirmisher. 
Out run and slowly pick them off then comes in with rage to wipe them out.

If built right, the barbarian can be like a rogue. Stealth, speed, and power. 
Got the hitpoints and power to handle himself in melee and can weaken the enemy before
the fight starts.  

I would love to try some of these tactics as a barbarian. 
 

1) More hit points: true, but only marginal.  Even adding 3 and 8 (infra), parry produces much, much, much more durability.
2) Advantage: true, but when you're hitting on a 5, advantage doesn't help much
3)  Resistance: true, but see (1)
4) AC: Untrue.  Assuming you prioritize STR, anyway.  The highest a barbarian can get his AC to with the std array is 18, and that's costing him every point and every level bump he's got, points the fighter could put towards building other saves.  Fighter's AC can go as high as 20 without magic.  Oooo, but he suffers disadvantage on stealth checks, that totally makes him inferior.
5)  Initiative: so?  Woohoo, marginally better chance of going slightly sooner!
6) surprise: so?  I don't know about you, but surprise just doesn't come up that often in any game I've ever played in, and when it does, it's really not such a big penalty.
7) Avoid death: only at high levels
8) regenerates: only during the 2 rounds of combat, a handful of times a day, that he is raging.  Also, see (1).

vs:
Massively superior durability, versatility, crowd control, control control, no daily limits, can't be robbed of his best feature for 10 minutes by a hold person or stun...  Plus, marginally less boring to play, because you can at least pretend you're making decisions every round!