Best and Worse classes

[Powerslave]

ToMe has some pretty strange classes.
Which classes do you think shine as the best overall? And which ones do you think are the worst overall?

[IdealPoint]

On insane-Best is specifically Krog Cursed. Worst is summoner or the new random category class. But please don't buff summoner.

[zoutzakje]

While Krog Cursed is powerful for sure, it by no means is the best. There's a lot of great classes out there. People have great success with many different classes on Insane, it mostly depends on playstyle and personal preference.
Some of my personal favourites are Temporal Warden, Archmage, Oozemancer, Brawler and Doombringer.
Necro is considered an easy win, it's been pretty powerful since the rework. Haven't done much with it myself.
However, there are 2 classes that are clearly more powerful than the others and they're not balanced at all (on purpose). These are Possessor and Adventurer. They're currently the only 2 that have a "reasonable" chance to beat Madness difficulty for as far as I know. Every class is viable on Insane, but Madness is reserved for the elite. Madness is not considered a real difficulty by most, but there you go.
Alchemist and Summoner are contenders for the worst, though they're actually quite fun if you can get them going. Definitely requires more careful play.
Wanderer is kinda funky from what I can tell. Definitely recommend turning off the EoR dlc before making a Wanderer and then you can get some fun builds going. Gotta have some good luck to get categories that work well together. Odds are you'll still end up with a clunky mess that won't get far, but it can be interesting.

[ナルゴ]

Personal List:

1.) Sawbutcher
It's fast, tanky, simple(difficult to screw up), and shreds single targets.
It's the 1v1 competence of a brawler, vitality of a bulwark, and speed of a wyrmic rolled into one. Steamtech is already unlocked which is always great.

General strat is just luring things to 1v1 you, and you will win most times. If you encounter anything too tough, you simply speed away.

My first Insane win was on one, and it was surprisingly easy compared to previous attempts with other supposedly strong classes (like Paradox mage)

2.) Doombringer
My first real win (not exploration mode) was on this class. Not as strong in higher difficulties imo. But it has tools for dealing with most situations.

Can clear rooms with its passives and obliterating smash.
Can safely pick off enemies with abduction.
Extremely mobile for a melee class with rush, fearscape shift, detonating charge, and sustained bonus global speed from flame of urrhok.
Has multiple panic buttons (wraith form, fearscape shift, fearscape, and blazing rebirth) to help with surviving.

As long as you can cycle:
-Abduction -> Cast abilities -> Escape
or
-Go in -> Destroyer form -> Cast abilities -> Escape.
You're going to win.

3.) Annihilator
It has built-in anti 1-hit kill (Exoskeleton and the passive in Demolition tree)
Turrets make good distractions (especially the flame turret) and is extremely useful for saving escorts.
Artillery allows you to deal damage independent of your attacks, even if you're locked-down. So fights become a matter of attrition.
Its only weakness is its lack of mobility, which is easily remedied by inscriptions/items.

Managed to beat Insane difficulty on it with no issues, on an admittedly sub-optimal build.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9r-1zUiSAo

[mbrowne999]

Best isn't necessarily most powerful. Most fun for me so far have been oozemancer, temporal warden, and archmage.

[voronin_mike]

Best class - that which is appropriate for your preferred playstyle. Worst - probably Alchemist right now. It's possible it will be buffed soonish, though. Archer was weak a couple of versions back, but was buffed in 1.5. and is now one of the strongest classes. Rogue is not weak per se, but stealth mechanics are bugged so it's not very fun to play and you need to know just how weak stealth is to not put your trust in it. Some classes are quite powerful but require you to know some weird interactions to really make them shine. Possessor is probably the most difficult of them as it also requires you to know which talents of other classes are worth to steal.

[vorik]

Just starting out and i haven't gotten past level 7 in like 69 hours. Actually not sure i made it that far. hah. I guess the starting classes kinda suck? I think i've only tried bulwark and i tend to favor the swords/weapons that "throw"(?) -- it's been a while since I've last played (maybe 2-3 years).

[ナルゴ]

Originally posted by vorik:

Just starting out and i haven't gotten past level 7 in like 69 hours. Actually not sure i made it that far. hah. I guess the starting classes kinda suck? I think i've only tried bulwark and i tend to favor the swords/weapons that "throw"(?) -- it's been a while since I've last played (maybe 2-3 years).

Starting classes like those in the warrior tree; Archer, Bulwark, and Berserker should still be very solid. Until version 1.7, I considered bulwark to be downright OP.

[voronin_mike]

Originally posted by vorik:

Just starting out and i haven't gotten past level 7 in like 69 hours. Actually not sure i made it that far. hah. I guess the starting classes kinda suck? I think i've only tried bulwark and i tend to favor the swords/weapons that "throw"(?) -- it's been a while since I've last played (maybe 2-3 years).

Archer is still one of the strongest classes though weaker than it was at 1.6. I don't like Bulwark but it's quite strong. Berserker is good though you need to think a bit to see how it works. Arcane Blade is solid though it got boring for me after a year or so. Alchemist is weakish, yes. Though some like it. Throwing knives are domain of Rogue and Marauder and the latter is unlocked quite early iirc, as well as Summoner and Skirmisher. If you got Demons DLC, you also have a Doombringer which is solid. So no, it's not the starting classes which suck.. ;PP

[doingwork]

My personal "worst" classes, don't have a single win in any difficulty I don't think:
Bulwark: good early, weak later. Medicore damage and 0 survivability vs casters and mindpower, get steamrolled mid-late game.
Corrupter and Reaver: Both weak for the same reasons: reliance on dots and debuffs while having almost no survivability. Love the damage and playstyle, but they can't survive for a second mid-late game.
Alchemist: Weak because I get bored and stop playing it before lvl 10.

My personal "Best" classes (besides possessor and adventurer obviously), beaten insane with all of these:
Doomed: If you can get past the early struggles, this guy demolishes everything in the lategame. Antimagic obv.
Solipsist: Same issue as Doomed, get past the early game and you demolish everything. "Turret build" with dreamforge is insane; I've cleared entire rooms on insane by just standing still. Antimagic obv. Its probably my favorite build.
Oozemancer: Tanky as hell, good damage, strong all around, tons of summons, etc.
Annihilator: So much good synergy; tanky, good damage, tons of summons. Great playstyle.

I clearly have a tendency for mindpower based classes, mostly because I think antimagic is blatantly OP. The problem with physcial and spell classes is they get demolished by mind users, but mind users with antimagic don't get demolished by casters; they are kind of good vs. everything.

[pEEtrs]

My top classes:
Archer - If you're lucky enough to get Surefire soon, you'll destroy everything before it gets close. Can dish out very serious DPS endgame.
Temporal Warden - This dude can deal with just about anything game can throw at you, super strong with or without dogs.
Archmage (Lightning) - Best element imho, as it get nice buffs and has best damage spells (Chain Lightning is just awesome).
Oozemancer - Has no burst damage, but very tanky and sustained damage is not bad either.

I can't really tell much about worst, I haven't played all classes (those just don't appeal to me), such as Alchemist, Summoner, Warrior category (except Archer).

[Fenix-Venix]

I won a figth with Atamaton without even going to High Peak, and wasn't even damaged once - with Alchemist. On Insane of course. And I did Dark Crypt with him many times.
So I dunno about "weak Alchemist" guys, I never managed to transfer to Far East with Brawler for example, or Sawbutcher.
Eliminated Lina 4 times btw.
So...

[Fenix-Venix]

Also, one of the best classes is Psyshot - relatively simple, powerful and tanky.

[mjkittredge]

The strongest I've played are Annihilator, Temporal Warden, Paradox Mage and Sun Paladin.

Annihilator has the best combination of offense, defense, versatility and utility. The shield, the shots, the turrets, the talents... it's a brilliantly designed class and super fun. I got to ID 115 with my first one.

Temporal Warden has super range and mobility while also having the option to melee. Their damage is excellent while also being very safe. Rare monsters fighting your tanky temporal hounds while you shoot them to death. It feels like cheating.

Paradox mage has to be the safest and most unique feeling caster class. The damage mitigation skills are amazing. Their offensive spells are excellent and scale enormously & synergistically with each other. The various AOE talents work just as well against single targets too. This may be the best designed class in the game.

Sun Paladin has an awesome skillset of great Survivability, powerful Offense, with a bit of ranged, mobility and utility mixed in.

Weakest classes - Bulwark, Cursed, Cultist of Entropy, Demonologist, Mindslayer, Shadowblade. They all struggle early game due to weak starting skills, do relatively well in the midgame, and then suck in the lategame.

Bulwark has very limited mobility, no ranged attacks aside from a shout, is completely reliant on physical damage and accuracy. They are melee so they need tons of immunity and status removal. They have a very poor skillset outside of a few great talents like Assault. They do decent single target damage but TOME is a game about mowing down huge hordes of enemies, doing it one at a time is dangerous and tedious. They rely on Stamina which is a terrible resource, super high drain from talents and extremely slow recharge. Two of the 3 talents that recharge stamina faster are a waste of talent points.

Cultist of Entropy has very little defense. The obelisk and two other talents. Which only help a little. Their offense is only okayish. And only 1 mobility talent, if you unlock a tree. They are reliant on high HP and HP regeneration to survive the self damaging talents.

Mindslayer has an overall weak skillset. Their defense is good early game but doesn't scale well for late game. Offensively they have a couple great talents but are limited. Same for demonologist. Cursed are weak early game and take too long to get powerful. Shadowblade is a Rogues mini-me, they start off weak and never gain much defense/survivability. Their offense is decent mid to late game but Rogues are just plain better.

[voronin_mike]

Originally posted by Fenix-Venix:

I won a figth with Atamaton without even going to High Peak, and wasn't even damaged once - with Alchemist. On Insane of course. And I did Dark Crypt with him many times.
So I dunno about "weak Alchemist" guys, I never managed to transfer to Far East with Brawler for example, or Sawbutcher.
Eliminated Lina 4 times btw.
So...

Which again shows that the best class is that which playstyle appeals to you.
One of the reasons, of course, is that when I play something with style too removed from what I like, I get bored after some time, yawn heavily while clearing up some rank-and-file, then Bam! - Headshot! Which happened repeatedly with Alchemist, among others. ;) While Brawler feels much more alive and interesting for me. Butcher is less so, but still OK.

[fulf]

(I play on normal roguelike, and am talking about personal preference as opposed to objective bests)
Sun Paladin ticks all the boxes for me. Melee/magic hybrid, reasonably tanky, thematically interesting, and I think the Far East starts actually provide a better flow to the game, giving an in-character sort of impetus to keep exploring. They've also got a crutch to avoid death so that's cool...
I enjoy Doomed. Fallen mage harnessing dark psionic powers really showcases the game's creativity with classes.
Writhing One's another favorite, thematically, but I don't like managing permasummons.
Wyrmics are cool and I've had luck with them.

I like most classes to an extent but some I either cannot wrap my head around or get bored of quickly. I lose interest in Anorithil after the first few initial skills, which is disappointing because I- again- like them thematically. Rogues and Shadowblades feel like they need to juggle too many different abilities, for too little payoff. Possessor, Summoner, Corrupter and Solipsist- and aaaalll of the steampower classes aside from sawbutcher- are probably my least played. I don't like too many of the vim classes except maybe Reaver.