Class Tierlist

[Pure_Poetry]

Hi all,

Just sharing something that came back every now & then in hte forums, the guide or in some of my vids about classes "rankings" :

I finally did a humble small Tierlist (it is a tricky exercise though, so that's just my personal opinion), that I also added it to the guide. Inputs much welcome, especially if your opinion diverge from mine, in order to upgrade it. You'll find below the link to the said tierlist video, and I'll just Copy/paste here what I quickly wrote in the guide.

Cheers
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Video :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16s1AuIKNNA&list=PLwtXBJSNRgmIbKEbNl-a1pF0FdfRGvyc0&index=141

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Guide comments :

The following Tierlist is a personal opinion based on multiple Ironman playthroughs including one at absolute custom max difficulty (see my 2nd Let’s Play Series). It is based on v1.50, although classes balance has not changed since v1.0.

Ranking and comparing classes is a tricky exercise, as it depends a lot on how far you are in the campaign, which title you combine them with, their current level (some classes take time before they shine), your playstyle, and especially your difficulty settings.

As a result, I humbly complement my ratings with the following indicators for how classes perform :

Base ranking is supposed to work for Hard or Very Hard difficulties
At the top right, how classes perform vs even higher difficulty settings
At the bottom right, how they perform later in the game (= at high level), except for T1 and T3 classes that are respectively not supposed to be used late or early game.

Also, As T1 and T3 classes are not meant to be compared the same way, I chose to apply the following rule :

T1 classes get a +1 rating (ie : C-rating becomes B-rating)
T2 classes are rated “as is”
T3 classes get a -1 rating penalty

As a result, if you find let’s say a T2-High Mage and a T3-Witch rated equally, that still means the Witch is better overall, and that the class upgrade roughly works as intended, as the Witchbenefited from a -1 penalty.

It is also worth noting that on very hard or above difficulty, since enemies have high accuracy and high damage (up to +50 and +100% respectively, and even more if you activated the doomclock), positioning becomes key and trying to kill enemies while staying out of their attack range (/counters) is key as well. Notably, this implies that :
Melee characters : they tend to be weaker in higher difficulty. Counter over counter attacks will have them killed and it is better to kill enemies while they are away without any possibility to attack to prevent One-shots (OS).
Dodge : Dodge builds tend to be weaker, as enemies have +Accuracy and will rarely miss.
Moreover, if they happened to hit, being OS can be painful (no pun intended).