Check it, I made a Perk Deck Tier List

[Ricken]

Note that this is not only based on my own opinions but also on the general opinions of forum members that I happen to read. That being said, I'd appreciate feedback and critiques, especially from players better than me (and there are a lot of you out there).

S+: Anarchist (armor), Rogue, Armorer, Hitman
S: Kingpin, Anarchist (dodge), Yakuza (stealth)
A: Sicario, Burglar (stealth), Ex-Pres (dodge), Grinder
A-: Crew Chief (stealth), Muscle, Crook, Burglar (loud)
B: Ex-Pres (armor), Maniac, Gambler, Crew Chief (loud), Sociopath, Infiltrator
C: Yakuza (loud), Biker

Tier Guide:
S+: Decks that dominate the meta, usually due to either powerful mechanics or a "get out of jail free card" (a large dodge bonus, 2 seconds of invincibility, forced armor regen).
S: Decks that are strong and considered part of the meta, but not as good as the top.
A: Strong decks that are a little more specialized in their use than the above tiers. They get the job done in any difficulty, but require a little more investment to do so.
A-: Decks that are incredible in lower difficulties perhaps even outclassing S+ decks on Mayhem and below, but require heavy skill investment are easily outclassed on Death Wish and above.
B: Subpar decks that are okay at best--and handicaps at worst.
C: Just bad. Avoid at all costs. They're basically memes.

[Ricken]

Originally posted by Yamaha:

Burglar was and is my go 2 deck for stealth. The pager/lockpicking speed boost is good on its own, but now that we have Quick Interaction for bots, that speed boost significantly increases, and stacks.

Again, Burglar v Yakuza is a whole can of worms. Yakuza makes you faster and allows you to avoid detection entirely, Burglar is for when you get detected. This is probably one of the more questionable things on my little list here, IMO, because you could really go either way.

I guess perk decks are kinda balanced in stealth, at least.

[Yamaha]

Originally posted by Ricken:

Yakuza makes you faster and allows you to avoid detection entirely, Burglar is for when you get detected.

Depends. Are you playing solo or with people, are you playing as host or client, are you the type of person to restart if a stealth run fails -- there's a few things to consider. Given the nature of stealth in this game, being faster doesn't nessesarily excuse your own mistakes.

[Sep]

Originally posted by Doc Doc:

Hitman can work, maybe it lets you abuse armor a little better in OD but in every other dificulty is always a worst option, you can make it work but the amount affort barely makes it relevant.

When is the last time you use Hitman perk? The cool down for Tooth & Claw deck is now at 1.5 second instead of 5 second.

At difficulties death wish or below, even sniper & dozer have a hard time taking you down.

If I am to make my own list, it would be

S+: Hitman, Yakuza (Stealth)
S: Rogue, Armourer, Anarchist, Kingpin, Burglar (Stealth)
A: Sicario, Burglar (Loud), Grinder, Muscle, Crook.

At least this is how I see for the top tier.

The weakest perk for me is Gambler, it lack of protection & carry a high risk just by trying to salvage the ammo.

Let's not forget that you are not the only one picking up the ammo. If your crew member use weapon with high ammo consumption, you are literally ♥♥♥♥ up.

[DressedUpDog]

one more useless post

[Somebody:tm:]

i kind of liked to use biker when i first got UE

[Richkiller]

Burglar (stealth) should be S+. Answering faster to pagers is critical

[Ralph]

Depends of the difficulty, using sicario on normal-overkill is just invulnerability hacks at that point.
Hitman is not that much of an S+ too. Burglar on stealth should be though.

[agent0125]

So...kingpin's injector doesn't count as a "get out of jail" free card? Like i know people probably don't use it often, but it does offer a duration of practically no damage.

Yeah biker isn't too damn reliable, too bad. I honestly don't get the point of the perk deck.

[The Least Interesting Chibi...]

ahahahaha... This is so... so bad. I mean most Tier rankings are because they attempt to reduce a set of features down to single one then compare them at that.

For example, a crew of Maniac, Crew Chief, Gambler, and Sicario can easily dominate most heists because all the perk bonuses syngerize well with each other. As long as each crew member knows it's role, and doesn't act like an Anarchist-Suit player on DeathWish. The only reason why Armorer, Hitman and Anarchist do well is because of the guaranteed armor, and grace periods. Kingpin is similiar because it also grants an invulnerability period but it's not often as the others. Rogue can be almost as reliable with Bullseye, but frankly it's more a gamble. Muscle grants a decent health regeneration, along with highest health pool, and it also gives the 'panic' debuff on kills which is a huge plus (since it can affect elites). Really the only difference between Muscle and Kingpin is that Kingpin has burst healing and aggro management. And Sociopath is a fantastic sub-DW perk deck if you want something different.

You can't just compare each perk deck on a single vector. They are created for different playstyles, some created for co-op and others for solo play. Some are created for the new player and some for veteran. My initial recommendation for starting players will always be Muscle because it gives some a large buffer to health with a regen that new players can mistakes without costing them the heist. In the end, all the decks are pretty good/balanced.

[Malidictus]

Originally posted by Ricken:

Note that this is not only based on my own opinions but also on the general opinions of forum members that I happen to read.

Then you've done some pretty slective reading. There are a bunch of people who insist that Yakuza's movement speed buff is the bee's knees of stealth - usually people who go for speedrunning attempts. In terms of actual stealth utility, Burglar has a lot more to offer without restricting your running speed. Realistically speaking, success or failure in stealth comes down to hiding and sneaking, not running pell-meld through the maps. ECM rushing may lend itself to Yakuza but ECM rushing isn't stealthing.

You seem to include Anarchist Armour and Anarchist Dodge (not really sure how that even works) yet I don't see Frenzerker Anarchist, which is obscenely powerful and easily self-sustaining. Moreover, Anarchis with heavy armour is absolute garbage. Armour regeneration is for absolute ♥♥♥♥ and the extra armour bonus isn't that significant.

You list Armourer as da best thing evar, which leads me to assume you're talking One Down, where its armour break grace period is significant in relation to damage taken. On lower difficulty settings where heavy armour doesn't pop in two hits, though, that utility doesn't work quite as well. In fact, I'd accidentally swapped my Muscle deck with Armourer for all of one heist and noticed only because I was dying constantly due to lack of self-regenerating health.

I could go on, but I have to ask - what's the point of this exercise? You act as though you're creating some kind of objective comparison between the Perk Decks whereas it seems more like "Perk Decks in the order in which I like and use them."

Originally posted by Ricken:

Yakuza makes you faster and allows you to avoid detection entirely

No, it doesn't. Running fast doesn't help you not get spotted when taking out the camera guard or picking locks or murdering civs for their key cards. Stealth is not a speed run.

[Ralph]

Also I don't get why people think armor is so good, I've used it for a while and just couldn't get any utility from it compared to sicario, maniac, ex-pres, crook or crew chief.

[Kisela Mačka]

Originally posted by Malidictus:

No, it doesn't. Running fast doesn't help you not get spotted when taking out the camera guard or picking locks or murdering civs for their key cards. Stealth is not a speed run.

Yakuza can be very useful for doing some achivements such as completing scarface mansion under 13 minutes or yacht heist under 6.

[Malidictus]

Originally posted by Party Breaker:

Yakuza can be very useful for doing some achivements such as completing scarface mansion under 13 minutes or yacht heist under 6.

Right, which is why I deliberately excluded speed runs. Speed-running is not stealth, it's speed-running. Having a speed-running Perk Deck isn't the same as having a good deck for stealthing.

[X-SR71]

Also would like to add decks dont go alone by themselves, and they can be made more or less powerful depending on skills and weapons.

Grinder goes great with dot weapons for example, dragons breath.. poison. Very DWishable. Gambler goes great with GLs and fully loaded. DWishable too, plus you regen your team.

Crook used to be very good too. Not sure if it still is after the latest dodge nerf. I did all my diff achievements with crook.

As for the yakuza for stealth usual debate, lets not forget you need to trigger it in stealth at 50% hp. You either have to waste a lot of skill points and take frenzy, or hurt yourself. Personally, I just use burglar for a single general purpose stealth profile.

[Ralph]

Originally posted by X-SR71:

Also would like to add decks dont go alone by themselves, and they can be made more or less powerful depending on skills and weapons.

Grinder goes great with dot weapons for example, dragons breath.. poison. Very DWishable. Gambler goes great with GLs and fully loaded. DWishable too, plus you regen your team.

Crook used to be very good too. Not sure if it still is after the latest dodge nerf. I did all my diff achievements with crook.

As for the yakuza for stealth usual debate, lets not forget you need to trigger it in stealth at 50% hp. You either have to waste a lot of skill points and take frenzy, or hurt yourself. Personally, I just use burglar for a single general purpose stealth profile.

Crook's been working better than rogue for me at all difficulties, 10% dodge traded for 110 armor is a fair trade.