Class tier list

[mic01851165]

Disclaimer, I have every items unlocked, all blessing maxed.
This tier list is assuming with best item setup on the most optional build of that class.
I did a lot of testing trying out different set up on every classes and here is my list.
It will mainly focus on the main weapon, factor in some perk that can buff side weapon. Do note this is only MY OPINION , not concrete fact.

S teir: Top tier clear and single target, able to keep the screen so clean nothing can touch you, good for every situation and does not rely on specific double weapon perk.
- Warlock: main weapon focus build is rly strong, almost always the highest damage weapon in the damage list. With the hotfix, conversion works on Warlock now making an already op class even more op. Nothing can touch you.
- Cleric: there's way to scale its main weapon damage to ridiculous level for both clearing and bossing using rings. Status effect build on cleric is absolutely insane.


A tier: Very solid class that can burst boss down while keep the mob relatively clean w.o too much trouble but requires a little bit of positioning and side weapon luck.
- Archer: Crit speciality. Scale very well with Projectile and can clear screen clean with enough proj scaling. Kill boss super fast.
- Sorcerer: perk is strong for lightning and fire weapons but main weapon is just ok. Piercing limits its target too. Rly high crit damage.
- Exterminator: crit damage has -80% penalty with main weapon so the side weapon choice is a bit more restrictive, however his main weapon is still very strong.

B tier: Good enough class but compare to other class it falls a bit flat.
- Barbarian: tanky, strong and straight forward main weapon, but slightly weaker than cleric in terms of radius and multihit. Mediocre against bosses cuz no status stacking or strong single target

C tier: Can kill boss fine but mobbing is awful in general. Relies a lot from side weapons.
- Shield Maiden: Has high crit damage but clearing it's just so awful you can't rly count on it alone. No synergy perk with side weapons too.

[mic01851165]

Feel free to leave your list too.

[letir]

Yeah, not even close.

S Tier: Shieldmaiden: she deal two strikes (mace and shield bash), which making bosses dead in short manner. Her block scaling also means it's actually useful to hoard block stats and items, which allowing to ignore most of damage in the late game.

A Tier: Sorceres: very high crit potential, roasting both crowds and singles with her shotgun, increasing effect application and magic damage. Good blocking for defence.
Cleric: solid damage and defence, but suffer from his own split damage mechanic. Need some work with elemental damage and secondaries to make bosses easer.
Archer: very high single-target damage potential, high crit and attack speed, can increase number of projectiles on secondaries. With high speed and range hordes she evade early opposition and build up to the late-game hordes.

B Tier: Warlock: his self-guided ghosts are great weapon against crowds, but falter against bosses. Low health and weak summoner perks making him less attractive.
Exterminator: very strong primary, especially with +10 damage ring. Weak crits making him less attractive for secondaries, so build diversity suffers.

C Tier: Warrior: very low range and width of weapon, hard to fix with upgrades. Have troubles with bosses and big hordes alike, even with meta upgrades. Big health upgrades are inferior in survivability to Cleric and Shield Maiden.

[mic01851165]

Originally posted by letir:

Yeah, not even close.

S Tier: Shieldmaiden: she deal two strikes (mace and shield bash), which making bosses dead in short manner. Her block scaling also means it's actually useful to hoard block stats and items, which allowing to ignore most of damage in the late game.

A Tier: Sorceres: very high crit potential, roasting both crowds and singles with her shotgun, increasing effect application and magic damage. Good blocking for defence.
Cleric: solid damage and defence, but suffer from his own split damage mechanic. Need some work with elemental damage and secondaries to make bosses easer.
Archer: very high single-target damage potential, high crit and attack speed, can increase number of projectiles on secondaries. With high speed and range hordes she evade early opposition and build up to the late-game hordes.

B Tier: Warlock: his self-guided ghosts are great weapon against crowds, but falter against bosses. Low health and weak summoner perks making him less attractive.
Exterminator: very strong primary, especially with +10 damage ring. Weak crits making him less attractive for secondaries, so build diversity suffers.

C Tier: Warrior: very low range and width of weapon, hard to fix with upgrades. Have troubles with bosses and big hordes alike, even with meta upgrades. Big health upgrades are inferior in survivability to Cleric and Shield Maiden.

Since every characters melt bosses in 2 secs and lord in 20 secs for me, bossing dps plays a tiny factor for my ranking, just saying.

Also I barely take any damage now, all defense are near useless to me, UNLESS i'm playing my lower tier ranking class like shield maiden.
The S tier class on my list can keep the screen 100% clean
A tier class can keep the screen 70% clean.
That's what most of my tier ranking factor is base on.

[letir]

Every class can keep himself safe with good combo of damage/control and good footwork, especially with big meta investments. But strong defence allowing to ignore many annoying sources of scratch damage, like poison patches or stray shots. Which making game more comfortable to play, compared to frantic dodging of everything.

And boss damage can matter, especially on the first boss with time limit. Having ability to knock down priority target is helpful as part of crowd control.

Not every player can make mass armageddon combo on the first run, because unlocks and RNG with items. So alternatives which have easer time acutally beating level feel more attractive for me.

[Theodalus]

S = exterminator and shieldmaiden. with both you beat level 3 afk without diying

[mic01851165]

Originally posted by letir:

Every class can keep himself safe with good combo of damage/control and good footwork, especially with big meta investments. But strong defence allowing to ignore many annoying sources of scratch damage, like poison patches or stray shots. Which making game more comfortable to play, compared to frantic dodging of everything.

And boss damage can matter, especially on the first boss with time limit. Having ability to knock down priority target is helpful as part of crowd control.

Not every player can make mass armageddon combo on the first run, because unlocks and RNG with items. So alternatives which have easer time acutally beating level feel more attractive for me.

The disclaimer clearly stated the tier list is base on full completion best setup most op build on each character though. That's why i rank it that way.

[StealthyRaven]

Mine looks something like:

A:
Cleric - Excellent single target damage, with good crowd control potential. AoE buffs must be equalled with damage buffs, or you'll be hitting too many enemies for scratch damage towards the end of a run without good scroll abilities to help.

Sorceress - Fast, with good crowd control ability. A bit slower on bosses than the cleric initially, but her fast movement can easily keep her out of telegraphed attacks. Has a little bit of innate crit chance too, so give her lightning strike, kugelblitz and some lightning and crit boosts and watch the damage soar!

B:
Exterminator - Sheer rate of fire (hehe, fire) make this character quite formidable, and having a fire elemental main weapon makes him an easy choice for dragons breath/meteor combos, which are both great now. Great against both crowds and bosses (you might want extra range for some bosses), but is let down slightly by a poor innate move speed and lack of regen. This means that you crank up his offense to compensate (easily done), or give him a few move speed buffs as he levels. Kit him out with the running shoes and base damage boosting ring for an easier time.

C:
Archer - Decent movement speed and a high crit rate are her strengths. Stack pierce, crit chance, crit damage, and projectile count along with the usual damage and attack speed to play to her strengths, and you should do alright. Her arrows still lack sufficient damage and pierce to clear dense crowds in one shot, but she's fast enough to generally keep out of trouble. On bosses you generally just whittle them down from safe positions, but it can be slow. Patience and positioning are the name of the game with this one, but she can pretty much clear anything the game has so far.

Shieldmaiden - Tanky, with two main weapons. The shield bash hits a cone for weaker damage, the mace hits a small circle in front of you for bigger damage. Using both well will make using her easier. She's easy to make very tanky, but once you build up sufficient offensive blessings, the best defense becomes a good offense. She can be good character either way, but her "flavour" doesn't really appeal to me.

C:
Swordsman - Not as tanky as the shieldmaiden, not as powerful as the cleric. He's sort of an in-between, and isn't really great at either. He can be competent with good items and level choices, but his main weapon is simply inferior to others, and doesn't really make up for this. He's the first guy you get, so getting good with him makes the other characters above seem OP in comparison, but he's just kinda vanilla really. Competent, but that's all.

Warlock - I want to like this guy, really. Summoners are often my fave class in ARPGS, but... he's not reeeeaaaally a good summoner. At least, not yet. His main weapon has targeting issues in certain situations, homing in on invincible targets or just not going for the target you want them to. Lack of target control hurts his viability in my eyes, and he doesn't really bring much to make up for it. His "summons" are weaker than most other characters main weapons to start with, and while they can multiple targets... well so can most of the others, more reliably too. Again, he can be somewhat decent with the right level ups and abilities, but also again... so can the others. I dunno, I feel like maybe the Warlock's main weapon should have been a familiar of some sort. Like the Golem, but not sucky. It would have made him quite unique by having no direct weapon of his own.

[Flannastri]

I would not put a sorceress and an exterminator on the same level as a swordsman. These two just demolish the guy. I think swordsman is one of the weakest characters in the current state of the game.

[mic01851165]

Originally posted by Flannastri:

I would not put a sorceress and an exterminator on the same level as a swordsman. These two just demolish the guy. I think swordsman is one of the weakest characters in the current state of the game.

I did a lot of end game testing and notice if you pick every trait scaling its radius/ range/ and multi-hit, barb can be a force to be recken with like cleric with his cleave too . It's basically just a slightly weaker cleric with very few downside/ bulky too.

The key difference is Barb can play with crit on his cleave whereas cleric crit dm is always 0%. Barb can crit for rly high damage in end game. That's why it's on the same tier. The cleave of barb is infinite and does not diminish in damage against larger crowd too.
Cleric is still stronger though due to status effect spam on main weapon + larger hitbox.

[Flannastri]

I mean you don't really need big numbers for the crowd, 400 = 1200 in that sense. Dead is dead. And Swordsman can do 1200, that is true, but cleric does her 400 for half of the screen. In terms of "clearing the screen", as you said earlier, Swordsman is one of the weakest.
I like Swordsman, don't get me wrong. He was my favorite in Prelude (and he is really good for the start), but new classes are just too strong, maybe except for the Shieldmaiden. Even Radiant Aura can do a better job now. I feel like he really need some attention from the devs and maybe a lil rework.

[Near]

Originally posted by mic01851165:

Originally posted by letir:

Every class can keep himself safe with good combo of damage/control and good footwork, especially with big meta investments. But strong defence allowing to ignore many annoying sources of scratch damage, like poison patches or stray shots. Which making game more comfortable to play, compared to frantic dodging of everything.

And boss damage can matter, especially on the first boss with time limit. Having ability to knock down priority target is helpful as part of crowd control.

Not every player can make mass armageddon combo on the first run, because unlocks and RNG with items. So alternatives which have easer time acutally beating level feel more attractive for me.

The disclaimer clearly stated the tier list is base on full completion best setup most op build on each character though. That's why i rank it that way.

Originally posted by mic01851165:

Disclaimer, I have every items unlocked, all blessing maxed.
This tier list is assuming with best item setup on the most optional build of that class.
I did a lot of testing trying out different set up on every classes and here is my list.
It will mainly focus on the main weapon, factor in some perk that can buff side weapon. Do note this is only MY OPINION , not concrete fact.

S teir: Top tier clear and single target, able to keep the screen so clean nothing can touch you, good for every situation and does not rely on specific double weapon perk.
- Warlock: main weapon focus build is rly strong, almost always the highest damage weapon in the damage list.
- Cleric: there's way to scale its main weapon damage to ridiculous level for both clearing and bossing using rings.


A tier: Very solid class that can burst boss down while keep the mob relatively clean w.o too much trouble but requires a little bit of positioning and side weapon luck.
- Barbarian: tanky, strong and straight forward main weapon, but slightly weaker than cleric in terms of radius and multihit.
- Sorcerer: perk is strong for lightning and fire weapons but main weapon is just ok. Piercing limits its target too. Rly high crit damage.
- Exterminator: crit damage has -80% penalty with main weapon so the side weapon choice is a bit more restrictive, however his main weapon is still very strong.

B tier: Good enough class but compare to other class it falls a bit flat.
- Archer: The target limit if its biggest drawback (even with high pierce) Base damage is quite a bit lower than other classes. (lower crit damage than sorc too) Good synergy with projectile weapon though.

C tier: Can kill boss fine but mobbing is awful in general. Relies a lot from side weapons.
- Shield Maiden: Has high crit damage but clearing it's just so awful you can't rly count on it alone. No synergy perk with side weapons too.

dunno why you are so desperate to go crit with exterminator tho,
exterminator + thunder conversion ring and attackspeed-on-kill crown + ignore all crit+dmg and go full attackspeed, radius, range, elem.chance and you get the most busted char ticking for 10k/sec lightning+ 5ksec fire because flamethrower stacks so fast lol
(flamethrower will stack fire and lightning at once)

my last viaduct run ended with 10 MIL lightningdmg :D

[mic01851165]

Originally posted by Near:

Originally posted by mic01851165:

The disclaimer clearly stated the tier list is base on full completion best setup most op build on each character though. That's why i rank it that way.

Originally posted by mic01851165:

Disclaimer, I have every items unlocked, all blessing maxed.
This tier list is assuming with best item setup on the most optional build of that class.
I did a lot of testing trying out different set up on every classes and here is my list.
It will mainly focus on the main weapon, factor in some perk that can buff side weapon. Do note this is only MY OPINION , not concrete fact.

S teir: Top tier clear and single target, able to keep the screen so clean nothing can touch you, good for every situation and does not rely on specific double weapon perk.
- Warlock: main weapon focus build is rly strong, almost always the highest damage weapon in the damage list.
- Cleric: there's way to scale its main weapon damage to ridiculous level for both clearing and bossing using rings.


A tier: Very solid class that can burst boss down while keep the mob relatively clean w.o too much trouble but requires a little bit of positioning and side weapon luck.
- Barbarian: tanky, strong and straight forward main weapon, but slightly weaker than cleric in terms of radius and multihit.
- Sorcerer: perk is strong for lightning and fire weapons but main weapon is just ok. Piercing limits its target too. Rly high crit damage.
- Exterminator: crit damage has -80% penalty with main weapon so the side weapon choice is a bit more restrictive, however his main weapon is still very strong.

B tier: Good enough class but compare to other class it falls a bit flat.
- Archer: The target limit if its biggest drawback (even with high pierce) Base damage is quite a bit lower than other classes. (lower crit damage than sorc too) Good synergy with projectile weapon though.

C tier: Can kill boss fine but mobbing is awful in general. Relies a lot from side weapons.
- Shield Maiden: Has high crit damage but clearing it's just so awful you can't rly count on it alone. No synergy perk with side weapons too.

dunno why you are so desperate to go crit with exterminator tho,
exterminator + thunder conversion ring and attackspeed-on-kill crown + ignore all crit+dmg and go full attackspeed, radius, range, elem.chance and you get the most busted char ticking for 10k/sec lightning+ 5ksec fire because flamethrower stacks so fast lol
(flamethrower will stack fire and lightning at once)

my last viaduct run ended with 10 MIL lightningdmg :D

? I said exterminator has crit dm penalty so side weapon choice is a bit more restrictive .
I didnt say i'd go crit for exterminator. I go lightning conversion + base damage.

[Incocknito]

lightningstrike + kugelblitz + lightning conversion ring makes every class s++++ :D
well, maybe not warlock cause the ring doesnt work for the main weapon sadge

[Near]

Originally posted by mic01851165:

Originally posted by Near:

dunno why you are so desperate to go crit with exterminator tho,
exterminator + thunder conversion ring and attackspeed-on-kill crown + ignore all crit+dmg and go full attackspeed, radius, range, elem.chance and you get the most busted char ticking for 10k/sec lightning+ 5ksec fire because flamethrower stacks so fast lol
(flamethrower will stack fire and lightning at once)

my last viaduct run ended with 10 MIL lightningdmg :D

? I said exterminator has crit dm penalty so side weapon choice is a bit more restrictive .
I didnt say i'd go crit for exterminator. I go lightning conversion + base damage.

try not caring for basedmg, will feel a lil sus the first levels, but scales way way better since you can dish all the dmg% choices (+ all the gold for the dmg% at shrine if you dont have gold for everything yet, since you need lightning% + fire% + procchance fully bought, and maxed area and range are pretty nice/necessary too )
level up lightningstrike + dragon breath ( or wth its called lol) + obv go lightning strike thunder rune and dragons permanent breath rune.

needs alot of progress, but is pretty much the most busted thing in the game

[Near]

Originally posted by Incocknito:

lightningstrike + kugelblitz + lightning conversion ring makes every class s++++ :D
well, maybe not warlock cause the ring doesnt work for the main weapon sadge

luckily warlock is pretty busted even as baseline char anyways :D