Amateur Classes Tier List

[Wyn The Wolf]

Context

Obviously, details such as the castle construction and the standard gear and runes used will affect the balance of the classes, so I have provided this information here, to give context for my tier list.
Hours played at time of rating: 140
NG Level: NG+8
Castle Construction: https://ibb.co/QMmy8H5
Standard Gear:
Drowned Weapon +4
Ammonite Helm +4
Drowned Chest +4
Ammonite Cape +4
Ammonite Fossil +4
Total Drowned Unity: 50
Total Ammonite Unity: 100

Standard Runes:
note - runes denoted with a * after the quantity indicate runes which I have more of, but am not utilizing my full quantity.
Lifesteal X 3
Soulsteal X3*
Sharpened X3
Might X2
Reinforced X3
Folded X3
Retaliation X3
Magnesis X2
Bounty X3
Haste X4
Dash X1*
Vault X1

Tier List

I have divided my classes tier list into two complementary lists, Exploration and Bosses.
The Exploration tier list refers to how well that class performs at exploring, fighting standard mobs, and basically everything else that isn't fighting bosses.
The Bosses tier list refers explicitly to how well the class performs against bosses.

Please Note - this is the first tier list I've ever made, it's amateur, and it refers to how well the classes have performed for me, with the castle/gear/rune setups I have used.
I am certain I have gotten stuff wrong - I encourage you to explain to me what I've gotten wrong and why, so that I can improve both my tier list and my understanding of this fantastic game.

My tier list in image form can be found here: https://ibb.co/d4KK5ff
The tier lists will be in subsequent posts on this topic.

[Wyn The Wolf]

Exploration Tier List

S Rank: Duelist, Ronin, Ballistic Archer, Fighter
A Rank:Gunslinger, Dragon Lancer, Boxer, Barbarian
B Rank:Assassin, Ranger
C Rank:Valkyrie, Knight, Chef
D Rank:Mage, Waiter
F Rank:Bard, Reaper, Enkindled Boxer, Rock Star
Unranked: Pizza Delivery Person

S Tier

Duelist: Good damage, maneuverability, and the dodge is one of the best class abilities.

Ronin: Good damage and range on the primary attack makes Ronin really strong for clearing enemies.
The class ability is good for evasion, and also really good for getting faerie chests.

Ballistic Archer: Will seem clunky and hard to use at first, but get used to it, and you'll see.
You can one-shot almost anything from across the room and hardly ever take any damage, plus the class ability is good for both defense and getting to high places.
If you get Lachesis' measure, that bumps this even higher, because it's one of the few classes that can get reliable skill crits.

Fighter : Sort of a cross between barbarian and boxer. the light stunlocking on the attack is nice, the damage is good, but the fact that the damage takes time and isn't from a single big hit like the barbarian is a downside. However, like the barbarian, the class ability is top tier, and the fighter is much better for jump attacking than the barbarian.

A Tier

Gunslinger: Really solid attack which does amazing damage - if you can hit with all of it. But that's not generally a problem, because you can usually aim in with enough of the attack to kill any given enemy in one barrage, and hovering while attacking can be useful. Unfortunately, the class ability is not very useful except for attacking through walls, and then only does enough damage to be worth it if the enemy can't attack back.

Dragon Lancer: Solid, high-damage attack and high armor makes the Dragon Lancer pretty solid for exploration, plus the charge attack is excellent for taking out certain annoying enemies, and for maneuverability.
The class ability is solid for defense, but I wish it came back faster.

Boxer: Solid damage and light stunlocking, and knocking enemies away with the class ability is very useful for certain enemies. Plus the up-attack goes through walls pretty well.

Barbarian: The high health is nice, but the big show here is the attack. the attack while on the ground does excellent damage, and has a really great attack arc, plus the class ability is one of the best. The biggest downside to barbarian for exploration is that the jump attack can be really bad for some enemies.
If you can get Lachesis' Measure, absolutely do it, and Barbarian jumps to S+. Barbarian gets guaranteed crits on ground attacks, and has a ton of health, so with that relic, you get almost guaranteed, large heals from every kill.

B Tier

Assassin: The class ability is really good for exploration, and also excellent for helping get faerie chests, but the main attack suffers in damage, and in doing the MOST damage in the last of three hits.

Ranger: The range of the bow is nice, and the drop shot on it can be useful sometimes, but the ranger suffers because it's attack unhappily falls between the slow-and-heavy, and fast-and-light types; it doesn't do enough damage to be a slow-and-heavy hitter, but is too slow to be a fast-and-light.
The class ability does help it out some, but I've always found ranger to just be an inferior ballistic archer. it's not a bad class, but there's never a situation where I will pick ranger over ballistic archer.

C Tier

Valkyrie: The 4 way attack is nice, but it doesn't do enough damage, and the class ability just seems like a less effective version of other class abilities.

Knight: The health is nice, and the primary attack is fine, but the secondary ability only halves damage when you block, or relies on perfect parries to fully block damage. You can't rely on it to fully stop the damage, meaning dodging is usually a better bet.

Chef: reflecting projectiles with the main attack is nice, and the ability to heal is useful, but the attack has a slow wind-up, and the heal isn't very big, plus meat doesn't drop consistently enough.

D Tier

Mage: Right, so here the thing. 90% of the time, strength scaling is going to be MUCH more important than int scaling, and that's the problem that kills the mage.
As you go further in the game, you will definitely prioritize strength over intelligence, since heavily leveling both damage vectors is economically inefficient, and strength is better.
Because of this, the mage, which relies on spells to be good, is just not going to keep up with the other classes. It plays fine, and having a second spell as the class ability is fine, but it's not good enough to justify heavily leveling intelligence, so it won't do enough damage.
Perhaps once I have built up more of my castle and gotten more int, this may change.

Waiter: The arc of the Waiter's attack is a big hit to the usefulness of the class. You will often find yourself unable to hit enemies directly in front of you, or on a ledge close below you. This limitation can be especially problematic against some enemies or in some situations, and you can find yourself having to dodge madly about an enemy trying to maneuver them into a place you can attack. The ability to heal is useful, but it isn't very big and meat doesn't drop consistently enough.
gets significantly better if you have the Lachesis' measure, because it's one of the classes that can reasonably reproducibly produce skill crits.

F Tier

Bard: The bard's highest damage come from spin-kicking the notes, which not only is really awkward, but scales on intelligence - see intelligence rant on mage.
The class ability is perfectly fine, and could be quite good in the right circumstances, but the attack is garbage.

Reaper: Same class ability as the mage, so it also suffers from the intelligence problem, however, the main attack is worse, because it launches you forward into your enemies, causing you to take damage from collision.

Yes, you can carefully judge the height of your attack to fly just over or just below the enemy, and then it can be quite effective, but having to do so in order to not kill yourself when you attack just isn't worth it.

Enkindled Boxer: The Enkindled Boxer is garbage for exploration, because you cannot reliably control the distance between yourself and the enemies, and sometimes have to fight in tight quarters, so you WILL blow yourself up repeatedly and die, due to your own very good damage output.

Rock Star: The rock star is like the bard in that is requires spin-kicking in order to be effective, but is even worse, because you have to spin-kick something between every attack.

Unranked

Pizza Delivery Person: I haven't played this class enough to comment on it intelligently.

[Wyn The Wolf]

Bosses Tier List

S Rank: Barbarian(Irad), Fighter(Irad), Enkindled Boxer
A Rank: Barbarian, Duelist, Gunslinger, Ballistic Archer, Fighter
B Rank:Assassin, Dragon Lancer
C Rank:Valkyrie, Ranger, Knight, Chef, Ronin, Waiter
D Rank:Mage
F Rank:Bard, Reaper, Rock Star
Unranked: Pizza Delivery Person

S Tier

Barbarian(Irad): The Barbarian is good for bosses, but kicks absolute ass against Estuary Irad.
You just switch between the platforms, land, and get off a couple of high-damage auto-crit attacks, then jump and dash to the other platform. The jump-attack is actually GOOD here, because it's excellent against the red, homing smoke-face attacks.
On top of this, anytime you get overwhelmed by the amount of projectile attacks, which is the biggest threat from this boss, you can knock them out, plus freeze the boss to buy some time, with the class ability; and you get it back every time you get hit, which you can afford to do a lot, because of your high health.

Fighter(Irad): Pretty much the same as the barbarian, with the note that you are basically entirely immune to the homing smoky red face projectiles.

Enkindled Boxer: The Enkindled Boxer is the boss killer.
The entire purpose of this class is to first, find the boss with another class, then use the architect to fix the world, and kill the boss with the Enkindled Boxer.
This class out damages every other class against bosses by a country mile, and can just stand at a safe distance and pummel them into dust.

A Tier

Barbarian: Barbarians are good against bosses for a couple of reasons. They have high maximum health, which gives you that many more hits before you die, and the class ability is great for clearing projectiles and freezing the boss to buy time, and you get it back every time you get hit - which you can afford to do a lot, because you have high health.
Finally, if you can sit on the ground in front of the boss and spam your attack, the barbarian does really solid damage.

Duelist: The duelist is excellent against bosses, because of high mobility - they can move while attacking, which few classes can, solid-to-good sustainable damage, and above all, the dodge class ability.
Have one attack the boss does that you just hate and can't seem to evade, or is just a pain in the ass to evade?
Combat-roll right through it. And the cooldown is so low you can do it very regularly.
If you get practiced with the Duelist much at all, you will see how solid it can be as a choice against almost any boss.

Gunslinger: The Gunslinger does fantastic damage, with the downside, for exploration, that some enemies are small and hard to aim precisely at.
Well, bosses are big, so you just have to hit the broad side of a barn, and the gunslinger will tear it up.
The hovering while attacking can be useful as well.
The downside is, of course, the very lackluster class ability.
As a note, the Serquest's Stinger and Boxing bell(especially if you have 2) relics synergize incredibly well with the gunslinger's attack against bosses.

Ballistic Archer: When you see Ballistic Archer rated as A for bosses, you're going to think I'm insane.
The attack only works while on the ground, it's slow to do, you can't dash-cancel it, and you stand there for an annoyingly long time AFTER you fire, too.
Play the Ballistic Archer more, and above all, take advantage of your class ability.
For many bosses, you can hop into an upper corner of the arena, pop your class ability, and then sit there whaling on the boss for excellent damage while protected from many of their attacks.
While the class ability is recharging, focus on evasion and keeping your distance, and you can fire off a few careful shots from long range while you wait for your class ability to come back.
The ability to attack bosses from long range is very valuable, and combined with the good damage output, it can be pretty solid.

Fighter: Pretty much the same as barbarian, possibly a little better, even, against some bosses.

B Tier

Assassin: The class ability is great against bosses, which would bump Assassin to A rank, but it doesn't come back quickly enough, and it can be hard to sit still long enough to hit with all three attacks in the chain with such short range.
Assassin isn't bad for bosses, but basically, what it can do, the duelist does better.

Dragon Lancer: The Dragon Lancer's damage tends to be in the 'okay' range on bosses, but defensively, the Dragon Lancer is pretty solid.
The class ability is great against certain bosses bullet-hell style attacks (Enoch comes to mind), and the extra maneuverability from the charge attack can be excellent - both for giving you more air-time to avoid attacks, and also for getting you right back into the bosses' face after you have to back off from something.
The biggest downfall of the Dragon Lancer against bosses is how long the primary attack fixes you in place - you just can't get out of the way of the return attacks fast enough, sometimes. For melee range classes, maneuverability is extremely important against bosses.

C Tier

Valkyrie: The 4 way attack is nice, but doesn't do enough damage, and the class ability doesn't come back fast enough for what it does.

Ranger: Same as Exploration; The ranger suffers because it's attack unhappily falls between the slow-and-heavy, and fast-and-light types; it doesn't do enough damage to be a slow-and-heavy hitter, but is too slow to be a fast-and-light.
The class ability does help it out some, but I've always found ranger to just be an inferior ballistic archer. It's not a bad class, but there's never a situation where ranger will outperform ballistic archer.

Knight: The Knight is honestly just mediocre against bosses. The attack is okay, but doesn't stand out.
The maneuverability while attacking keeps knight out of the D/F Range, but the class ability, as with exploration, is not consistent enough to be better than trying to evade.

Chef: Knocking attacks back at the bosses is interesting, and can be quite useful on some bosses, and the fire damage is good as well, but the chef suffers from mobility issues, like many other classes not rater highly against bosses.
You can't move while attacking, and the attack takes too long to wind up.
The class ability, healing a little bit, is alright, but doesn't stand out.
I kept wanting to make Chef work, or find a boss that Chef was perfect for, but it never quite worked.

Ronin: The Ronin's maneuverability and attack range is excellent, and the class ability is great for evading dangerous attacks, but the downfall of the Ronin against bosses is the low health, and the relatively slow cooldown on the class ability (compared to the duelist's, specifically).
The low health just doesn't give you enough margin for error, and while the class ability is nice, the duelist gets their dodge-through-attacks class ability back much faster.

Waiter: The arc of the Waiter's attack may be bad for exploration, but the fact that bosses are quite large and not usually below you means that it isn't really an issue, and the automatic skill crit on bounces from the attack can sometimes be used consistently for a string of attacks if the boss positions themselves correctly near a wall.
The class ability to heal is useful, but against some bosses, you may struggle to find enough time without having to evade attack in order to use it (other than, of course, the times when the boss is switching modes at half (or other, in the case of Tubal) health).

D Tier

Mage: The mage suffers against bosses for the same reasons it does in exploration; it relies too much on int scaling (at least for my point in the game)

F Tier

Bard: The Bard's awkwardness (Explained in Exploration) just becomes that much worse on bosses. No. Just no.

Reaper: Okay, take a primary attack that isn't good, because it's risky; you have to narrowly avoid damaging yourself in order to attack, unless you get lucky and kill the enemy with a single attack before you run into it.
Now use this on an boss, which you will definitely NOT kill with a single attack, and frequently have attacks which strike above their heads with little lead-time.
It's not going to go well.

Rock Star: Alright, so we've got the awkward, have-to-spin-kick-between-every-attack problem, and the bad damage scaling problem.
Now, lets fight in an arena where we don't have any destructible objects to spin kick off of to get the attack back.
You could maybe try just repeated spin-kicking off the boss themself to stack 'dance' high enough that the primary attack does very good damage - but as with the reaper, having to be above the boss is often bad, because they frequently have attacks which strike above their heads with little lead-time.
Again, just no.

Unranked

Pizza Delivery Person: I haven't played this class enough to comment on it intelligently.

[Slyguy]

You're making some fair points on that list, but I would recommend you give Rock Star another go - I've found it to actually perform really well against bosses and I've even completed a run with the Perfectionist trait at some point around NG+5-8 (actually one of the easiest classes for that trait). You can get close up and spam spin kick/shoot repeatedly against most if not all bosses to rack up a lot of damage quickly. There's a reason Rock Star was nerfed a bit in patch 0.7.1. ;)

As for the non-ballistic ranger, the mobility is a great plus over its grounded counterpart - especially hovering in the air and shooting down at targets can keep you out of trouble while doing decent damage.

I've found that some of the trickier classes also rely on getting good relics for them (which you can achieve somewhat reliably as each run provides a decent amount of rune rooms). Something to keep in mind before completely ruling out a class as mediocre tier.

[HeraldOfOpera]

Also worth mentioning that the Barbarian's aerial attack is hilarious when combined with flight (ie. Icarus Bargain). It only stops when you land or get hit, so removing the necessity of the former...

[Wyn The Wolf]

Originally posted by Slyguy:

You're making some fair points on that list, but I would recommend you give Rock Star another go - I've found it to actually perform really well against bosses and I've even completed a run with the Perfectionist trait at some point around NG+5-8 (actually one of the easiest classes for that trait). You can get close up and spam spin kick/shoot repeatedly against most if not all bosses to rack up a lot of damage quickly. There's a reason Rock Star was nerfed a bit in patch 0.7.1. ;)

Yeah, having put in another 20 or so hours since I made the tier list, I've seen how much of an effect heavily increasing my dexterity has had - at the time, I'd slammed a lot into strength, but not much into dexterity or intelligence, yet.

Seeing just how much of an effect the extra dexterity had, I've started to get the impression that under the right conditions, the balance of the classes could shift quite a bit, and that with as potentially good as the 'dance' skill could be, that the Rock Star could be pretty powerful.

Thanks for the info and recommendation! I will try it some more at some point, here.

I probably need more intelligence before it really excels, though, to increase spin kick damage.

I am quite curious to see how the class balances shift once I've completed everything in my manor.

As for the non-ballistic ranger, the mobility is a great plus over its grounded counterpart - especially hovering in the air and shooting down at targets can keep you out of trouble while doing decent damage.

I can see that argument, though I've found that, for me at least, if I just be a bit patient and make sure to use the Ivy Canopy, that fighting downward or from the air hasn't been a problem.

And I do always enjoy the Ballistic Archer a bit extra just getting to see the ridiculous damage numbers you can get.
I've gotten a lot more dexterity and crit-buffing abilities and runes, and last night I was playing Ballistic Archer and found a "The Heavy Stone Bargain" Relic.
It was honestly unnecessary, because I was pretty much one-shotting everything in NG+9 anyway, but it was fun landing 9866 damage super-crits.

I've found that some of the trickier classes also rely on getting good relics for them (which you can achieve somewhat reliably as each run provides a decent amount of rune rooms). Something to keep in mind before completely ruling out a class as mediocre tier.

I have noticed that some classes have really strong synergy with some relics.
I imagine Steel-Toed Boots and/or Weighted Anklets would work really well for the rock star.

Obviously Lachesis' Measure is amazing with any class that can reliably skill-crit, and something like Serquet's Stinger or the Boxing bell (Especially two) can be great for any of the really fast attacking classes like gunslinger, boxer, or fighter.
Though poison isn't seeming to do as much damage as I'd like at this point.

Are there any other major good relic/class combos you can recommend that I might have missed?

[Wyn The Wolf]

Originally posted by HeraldOfOpera:

Also worth mentioning that the Barbarian's aerial attack is hilarious when combined with flight (ie. Icarus Bargain). It only stops when you land or get hit, so removing the necessity of the former...

That is an interesting idea I hadn't tried, though I think that'd be even more effective with the fighter.
I just generally avoid the Icarus Bargain, because my muscle memory for the game is so used to the jumping dynamic that I tend to suffer a bit while getting used to flying when I pick it up.

[ICStars77]

I admit I only briefly read everything, but 2 points I want to call out.

Waiter should be higher for bosses: the added int scaling makes the bounce hit nuts, and for most every boss (namaah and the wizard person blanking on his name not so much but standard attack still easy enough to hit) this is EXTREMELY easy to pull off, makes bosses melt like nobody's business.

Valkyrie: You mention cd doesn't come back enough for her passive, but if you time it right there is no cooldown. This makes so many attacks trivial it's honestly a broken passive. Actually, pretty sure she was the first class I full cleared the entire dungeon (all bosses included) with due to her passive alone, which was on NG+ 7 or something like that. While her damage isn't stellar, build her magic-based, get poison/fire relics, and things just die. Or even just go melee and her range is long enough that you never feel in danger cause of her passive. Slower, to be sure, but stupidly safe and makes most of the game a joke.....

[Wyn The Wolf]

Originally posted by ICStars77:

I admit I only briefly read everything, but 2 points I want to call out.

Waiter should be higher for bosses: the added int scaling makes the bounce hit nuts, and for most every boss (namaah and the wizard person blanking on his name not so much but standard attack still easy enough to hit) this is EXTREMELY easy to pull off, makes bosses melt like nobody's business.

Thanks for the info!
I still haven'y upped my intelligence all the way yet, so that's probably how I missed this. I'm going to do some more comparisons once I get my intelligence all the way up.

Valkyrie: You mention cd doesn't come back enough for her passive, but if you time it right there is no cooldown. This makes so many attacks trivial it's honestly a broken passive. Actually, pretty sure she was the first class I full cleared the entire dungeon (all bosses included) with due to her passive alone, which was on NG+ 7 or something like that. While her damage isn't stellar, build her magic-based, get poison/fire relics, and things just die. Or even just go melee and her range is long enough that you never feel in danger cause of her passive. Slower, to be sure, but stupidly safe and makes most of the game a joke.....

I will take another look at the Valkyrie, thanks! It sounds like I dismissed them before fully understanding the mechanic of their talent.

[Darx]

any second opinions about the mage? i want to play as one but if its really that badly implemented i give it a pass

[Vilks]

Playing on NG+30, the Mage is the most imbalanced class for me if I have good spells. No other class can even compare to Mage, and having a lot of Capacity and Siphon runes allows me to cast spells like I'm a machinegun

[Wyn The Wolf]

Originally posted by Darx:

any second opinions about the mage? i want to play as one but if its really that badly implemented i give it a pass

Yeah, I've not had quite as much time to play since as I did before, but I've got another 50 hours in and am currently in NG+13.

I have upgraded my manor further, including putting a significant amount of money into int, which I hadn't done, yet.

And honestly? I haven't gotten int as high as my dex and strength, but the mage is definitely getting much better with the increased int. I can absolutely see where it could get to the levels that Vilks is talking about.
I am getting the feeling that it will likely be quite capable with int levels matching my strength/dex.

However, and this is important, I still think that mage is bad because of the int scaling problem.
You still will want to prioritize strength and dexterity over int as you are building your manor, because int just isn't a key stat for the majority of classes.

And while, though I haven't verified myself, Vilks' claims seem plausible based on the available data I have, I still think the int scaling issue is a major problem that relegates the class to low tier.

Why? Because Vilks is in NG+30.
I'm 200 hours into the game, and am just now seeing the mage start to pull up into being decent/potentially good.

I don't know what the average playtime per player per game is, but I can guarantee you it's not even close to 200+ hours.
Most players, unless they put their money into a clearly(at low levels) sub-optimal distribution, are never going to play long enough to see the mage become good.

I see that as a fairly significant problem with how the class is balanced.

Now, to be sure, once I have spent some more time and properly re-evaluated the mage with a more representative distribution of stats, I will reconsider it's tier, and likely make at least a notation about it's efficacy at higher levels.

[Vilks]

Well, that's quite fine that almost everyone finds Mage to be the weakest. From the beginning everyone upgrades STR as all of your damage comes from your main attacks.

But later on you see that weapon damage scales only from STR and DEX, but magic damage isn't restricted with only INT and FOC, it's also upgraded via Capacity runes, Siphon runes...

Later on, when you have equal stats into physical and magic sides, you can better rank every class. It's not correct saying that "Mage is the worst" only because you didn't upgrade your INT at all. The class is not getting worse only because you prioritize physical damage over magic damage, it's more this class is not as physically strong as other physical classes.

[Vilks]

For comparison, my Barb with physical setup is doing approximately 3.8k+ damage by his base attacks. Magic Mage is doing 8k+ crit damage with 8 ball spell. Duelist's base attack's damage is 1k, crits are 2.8k.
The difference is huge.

[Wyn The Wolf]

Originally posted by Vilks:

Well, that's quite fine that almost everyone finds Mage to be the weakest. From the beginning everyone upgrades STR as all of your damage comes from your main attacks.

But later on you see that weapon damage scales only from STR and DEX, but magic damage isn't restricted with only INT and FOC, it's also upgraded via Capacity runes, Siphon runes...

Later on, when you have equal stats into physical and magic sides, you can better rank every class.

Yes, I recognize this, and am planning to revisit the tier list at that time.
I realize that at the time I first made this list, my stats were very much disproportionately physical, and that this will dramatically affect the balance of some classes.
I have since come to realize just how MUCH it's going to affect the balance.

It's not correct saying that "Mage is the worst" only because you didn't upgrade your INT at all. The class is not getting worse only because you prioritize physical damage over magic damage, it's more this class is not as physically strong as other physical classes.

I agree with you, of course, that the fact that my specific stat distribution was heavily weighted towards physical stats (specifically strength and to a lesser extent, dexterity) at the time I wrote the tier list making the Mage much less effective for me does not mean that Mage is a bad class.

My proposition is that mage is a lower-tier class because under 100 hours in-game, almost every player is going to heavily weight the physical stats over the mental ones, and the significant majority of them are not going to play the game long enough for the Mage to catch up.

I didn't rate Mage badly because it wasn't effective for me at the time I made the list; I rated Mage badly because I believe that it's going to be worse than most of the other classes, most of the time, for most players.

You certainly seem to be an exception to this...but most players aren't going to hit NG+30.

[bkerns2]

How do you know that most players under 100 hours are going to favor str over int? That seems like quite the assumption. Especially since the way costs go up encourages a balance of stats.