Hero Tier List

[PhunnyJesta]

https://tiermaker.com/list/video-games/astronarch-heroes-815828/1125494

Just my gut feels on the heroes of the game so far, 30 hours in level 17 corruption. My 3 go to starting heroes would be blood mage, ranger and brawler.

For those who dont want to click the link

S - Blood Mage, Brawler, Juggernaut, Paladin, Ranger
A - Alchemist, Assassin, Frostmancer, Ronin
B - Berserker, Cleric, Outlaw, Pyromancer
C - Druid, Fiend, Gladiator, Wild Mage
D- Bard, Illusionist, Warlock

[(ง ͡ʘ ͜ʖ ͡ʘ)งBonesMcSpook]

Druid is in 90% of my games either for the heal or the attack buff, Wild mage can turn into a machine gun and can even off tank with his passive giving free shield.

Bard looks required for late corruption runs, board wide healing over time is pretty good, but I actually prefer druid over this. Slightly higher heal per second on a single target, but the damage boost is what I really enjoy.
Illusionist is pretty good with the right items, lich wraps and some damage items or bonus attack on cast makes him ramp up damage A LOT over time while tanking hits from enemies. I find the witch stick with lich wraps to be a good combo for him.

Warlock is a lot better now that his passive goes off enemies killed too.

I actually have 0 wins with ranger.
Assassin is my highest level because I think he's the safest 5th pick and the permanent damage stack is great against the last boss.

My cleric is level 1. I think he's great as a spam caster, especially so with attack on cast. I just dont like how item reliant he is.

Gladiator I want to like, but he feels hard to make great. If you can get some good health based items (for both defense and offense) he's cool. and I think he has one of the highest base DPSs in the game. Ironically I think he's got a weaker kit but he's not level 0-1 like some of my heroes.

I really enjoy fiend. I have not gotten great with him, but its fun to use him. I do have a win with him and got close to a win earlier at corruption 11, but I just didnt have the right items drop to really get past the last 3 boss fights.

Berserker, ironically I love and think he's good, but he's level 0 for me. I dont know what it is. I've gotten some insane builds on him but maybe I just dont have enough power across the board on those games. Maybe I'm unlucky with him.

Outlaw is growing on me. I didnt think he had any use at first, but once I leveled his active up and drop some caster or utility items on him, that poison procs HARD and transfers to the next target.

[Tyrant]

For context, I've gone up to C18 legit, and C18-C20 completed retrying 2-3 fights per run.

Fiend + Bloodmage + Outlaw + Gladiator/Frostmancer got me a streak from C11 up to C17 - It's the most consistent comp I've found and you can run it up to corruption 19.

S - Bloodmage, Fiend, Outlaw, Druid
A - Frostmancer, Gladiator, Berserker
B - Alchemist, Brawler, Ronin
C - Juggernaut, Wildmage, Paladin, Cleric, Warlock
D - Pyromancer, Bard, Ranger, Illusionist, Assassin

Somewhat unsure on Paladin & Warlock, though

Fiend dying not losing morale + reviving is key in higher corruptions, makes it a core main-tank.
Bloodmage is the most consistent healer, that can also off-tank, soft-DPS & self-heal (important to note that it doesn't need to sacrifice healing others to self-heal).
Outlaw's got the best DPS potential in the game with correct items
Frostmancer's got good crowd control + needs no items or skillups
Gladiator's got the best HP and takes almost any tank item + shielding team for % health.

Druid is the only healer that can main-tank + offer damage scaling
Berserker is the only scaling DPS that can offtank + self-heal

With the right items, I'll take Alchemist over Frostmancer & Brawler over Gladiator - but it's rare. Ronin is the best DPS after the other 2, but I never really have a reason to take it over them.

C and D tier just feel way harder to get off the ground to do anything, you'd need very specific items to have any of them be more useful than S/A/B tier characters - not that they're necessarily bad, just extremely less consistent.

[Dale]

I mean there are people who have beaten Corruption 20 with every hero. Personally, my first win on C20 was an Illusionist build. I think there are people on the Discord who would flip your list the other way around entirely haha, I think it goes to show the hero balance is in a good place overall. Every time I see someone say X hero is bad, someone else comes in to defend that hero.

[PhunnyJesta]

I've tried starting with fiend as a "morale tank" but not much luck finishing games with him, same with druid, bard and warlock. It probably is just a few bad runs with them that put me off and like with what Tyrant said its not that C and D is bad just less consistent than everyone else.

[RamenAndVitamins]

I just had an amazing run (at C7) with Paladin/Bloodmage/Warlock + Fiend + Assassin. It was when I grabbed Fiend and put Plate of the Fallen on him that it turned into easy mode. I just got as many enemies targeting Fiend as possible at the start, and by the time his divine buff was gone, the whole party including him were buffed up with shields, and with two healers, he didn't even die every fight. But if he did, the rest of the party were shielded up and easily mopped up the leftovers.

Fiend + Plate of the Fallen was so good I'm going to be looking out for it in all my future games.

[ProfessorCookie]

Ranger should probably the "best" as you can really "cheat" the system with fragile items

Just put tons of high damage or defense items with fragile on the ranger, then see a pet that goes mental

[Tyrant]

Originally posted by Dale:

I mean there are people who have beaten Corruption 20 with every hero. Personally, my first win on C20 was an Illusionist build. I think there are people on the Discord who would flip your list the other way around entirely haha, I think it goes to show the hero balance is in a good place overall. Every time I see someone say X hero is bad, someone else comes in to defend that hero.

I think that's fair, I honestly don't understand how to get the illusionist off the ground. personally. Best idea I had was to have as much stat-scaling as possible + cost reduction?
So it just makes stronger copies all over the place - but it's hard to get there.

I do think they can all do some heavy lifting, lower tiers for me are just feeling like they can only do work in very specific conditions.

[HoHoHO]

Originally posted by Professor Cookie:

Ranger should probably the "best" as you can really "cheat" the system with fragile items

Just put tons of high damage or defense items with fragile on the ranger, then see a pet that goes mental

works even better if there's a healer there too. I managed to get 3 tower shields and the turtle pet had over 300def. It could survive from beginning to the end without ever dying with a bloodmage healing it.

[bushsam]

I think your sleeping on Warlock. He's very cheap to get rolling and can absolutely clutch fights you'd normally lose with his buffs.

[Pickle Bath]

Originally posted by HoHoHO:

works even better if there's a healer there too. I managed to get 3 tower shields and the turtle pet had over 300def. It could survive from beginning to the end without ever dying with a bloodmage healing it.

Ranger with maxed Full Plate gets pretty crazy, like 402 defense Turtle:
https://i.imgur.com/o2Ufofr.png

[HoHoHO]

Originally posted by bushsam:

I think your sleeping on Warlock. He's very cheap to get rolling and can absolutely clutch fights you'd normally lose with his buffs.

the problem is that if you lost that many heroes for the warlock buff to activate, then your team is already too weak to survive for long.

[Casey]

Originally posted by HoHoHO:

Originally posted by bushsam:

I think your sleeping on Warlock. He's very cheap to get rolling and can absolutely clutch fights you'd normally lose with his buffs.

the problem is that if you lost that many heroes for the warlock buff to activate, then your team is already too weak to survive for long.

I had a Cleric/Warlock roll a series of bosses by themselves, but he was partly the focal point of the party and this was low corruption.

[Rikard]

Guys I'd love to have a more in depth description to you tiers, why you feel a hero is A tier etc would be nice plus what corruption level you are doing.

I'm on corruption 10 so far.

Blood Mage: B
People say he is crazy but it's just one of those heroes I haven't used for some reason. I'm not saying he is bad I'm just saying I don't really get him and I'm too busy to look into my current strats.

Brawler: B+
Ok tank, I guess the idea with him is return damage but I just cant get it to be a relevant strategy and its usually way easier to just get crazy burst/dots to do the job of damage. The shield is nice though, I always upgrade that. Can be really nice with the strawberry since you dont take damage from the absorbed attack but still get the shield.

Juggernaut: A
Really consistent tank, nothing else to add really, I usually go with this guy.

Paladin: B
Really wish I could make him work but I can't, sadly. He is good but you will have to invest a lot of ability orbs to get his damage and shield work "ok" and I usually just get Juggernaut instead.

Ranger: B
Appearantly broken but I havent played him at all yet since I kind of feel he is a bit boring with just maxing attack/def in order to have crazy high dito. Currently saving him for later levels if I cant make my strats work.

Alchemist: A+
Fun and consistent. S+ tier if you get those items that gives 50hp/sec poison damage that he can multiply 9 times. His passive is kind of bad though but in a good way because it does what its supposed to do on lvl 1 so you can invest that on other heroes/sell for 200g extra per run.

Assassin: S
Almost always my number 5.
Usually ends up on 2nd place in damage even without any orbs inveested in him, freeing orbs up for selling meaning two more free upgrades. This guys i nuts, its like free damage with no drawbacks.

Frostmancer: C
Really want to like but something just isnt working for me. Tried meme-strat with shell giving more def per freeze stack and have had my tank have 450 def during fights because of that but vs bosses he is basically just a +5 chill stack,

Ronin: A
Crazy damage but preferebly needs 4 ability orbs to be online. Making him your spell spammer gives him bananas damage.

Berserker: A
Same as Ronin. If invested into properly he is bonkers, but dont pick him unless you want to save money, has little utility unless you focus on him as core.

Cleric: S
Has no downsides except that he is weak tank. Core in almost all compositions. Purge debuffs is extremely important. Heal is extremely important. Passive is bonkers and damage on triggered heal, not used ability making heal over times from items trigger like a million times. Give him cooldown decrease/cast and +damage/cast and turn him into a minigun that has your team at 100% hp at all times AND no debuffs.

Outlaw: A/B.
Can be semi-tank to set your real tank up. He can take a couple of hits and then stealth away having your main tank buffed with some heal over times already. Usually dont care about this guy though since other people do what he does better.

Pyromancer: S
Max active, give other people flame swords and attack speed and make him blow up bosses with one cast.

Druid: A
I always use this guy, he is more fun than cleric. Only downside is that he is slower to have come online if you want to out heal your enemies. I mostly pick him up as number 4 when I already gave a cleric. Pretty good temporary tank as well.

Fiend: D
His role is to die and take up opponents time and to not cost morale. That's about it. I'd rather have a team that does not rely on a guy dying to begin with. Very nice initially but useless late game. Upgrading him with orbs/items does not seem worth it either.

Gladiator: C
Useless passive and active as far as I can see. Even when upgraded his ability is on par with having 10 seconds/ticks for free from the item that gives you 30hp/second. I don't know, will try again I guess. I can see the potential in being able to stay alive long enough and not have to dip under 50% hp like the Juggernaut which can be a bit risky.

Wild Mage: S
Very meme-tastic. Not as good as tank after newer patches but still ok very early on in the game. Can take you past the first boss clear if you want to try to not have a tank until then. Obviously invest heavily in reduced cooldown and attack and watch him chainsaw enemies down.

Bard: A/B
Very good aoe heal, usually pick him as 5th member if I'm being out healed instead of assassin. Basically a walking heal/damage buff, used for nothing else but he is good at what he does.

Illusionist: B
Can work. Sadly his passive which has 30% chance of making him teleport away from damage relies too much on chance a the moment. I had him get pummeled 10 times three battles in a row without it triggering and then you're just screwed.
Can be fun to work with though. Give his illusions +hp and +damage since thats the only thing that carries over. This guys is made for those items you take from the hyena and rhino. Pair him with bard aoe heal for potential luls.
Should be treated as damage dealer, he wont be able to tank since he teleports around so much and it can make battles a bit chaotic.


Warlock: C
I used him a lot until I got druid.
Passive is usually useless sadly, I was hoping that having it trigger 4 times would make him into a super buffed demi-god that takes out that last enemy with 30% hp making you win against all odds but it never happens. If the enemy is like on 5% hp maybe it will happens but that is a very edge case scenario.
Maybe you could build him as a super tank/dps but then you would still have to invest heavily in him and also lose 4 morale every battle to have him "online".

[Rikard]

Update: Ok so I tryed the Gladiator and if you upgrade his passive it turns 10hp/win into 30 hp/win so towards the end thats like 750hp which makes him pretty ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ good with some def/attack speed and a giants club making him hit for like 200 per hit. and priest healing him for 700 hp per heal.

I'll say that hes A-tier if you manage to putt it off but he is pretty ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ weak initially.

Maybe a 4th or pissibly 5th pick up if you find the items for him to snowball like i did.

[Casey]

I had a low HP Fiend steamroll a 3-corrupt if that counts. He had three upgraded items: gain armor for every frost, gain attack based on armor, and gain major blessings for morale. Even with low HP, he could face tank everything and because he was so immediately durable, he could start pumping in his active ability and begin healing many times over.

Other characters were a Bard using a Frost weapon & the frost magician who obviously helped applying more Frost. A Brawler for backup tanking and also a zerker on backup duty DPS, over a long battle, could basically attack every 0.3s which is pretty nice. Yet even with the Zerker wound up the Fiend was still dishing out WAY more damage simply because when you get 200+ armor, and are doing 90% of your armor as extra damage, and rolling that into heals, you're basically unkillable. It may have been the case this setup was even better on the Zerk himself, but I was too scared to go away from what was already working heh.

I still don't find use of the Bard, though. His heals and damage alike were extremely forgettable. Perhaps I'm missing some Bard-centric setup where he can shine.