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?

[Athos the Mad]

Is it possible or not possible to win with every class on insane? I keep hearing conflicting accounts of that.

[Fenix-Venix]

Insane? Sure. Madness - no.

[LordKarasuman]

It is in fact possible to win with every class on Insane. A cursory look at the vault shows that even Alchemist, probably the worst class in the game, has had a small handful of Insane winners over the course of the past year.

Famously, someone won with an Antimagic Archmage back in 1.5.x; I think that's still possible in the current patch despite the weapon damage changes, which goes to show the game gives you a lot to survive even if you intentionally gimp yourself so badly that you can't even use your class Talents at all.

[Athos the Mad]

Antimagic Archmage? How would that work?

[Fenix-Venix]

Strike them with a club!

[Athos the Mad]

I have a lot to learn about this game. 230 hours and still a noob lmao

[mbrowne999]

Originally posted by LordKarasuman:

It is in fact possible to win with every class on Insane. A cursory look at the vault shows that even Alchemist, probably the worst class in the game, has had a small handful of Insane winners over the course of the past year.

Can save scummed characters or edited chars end up in the vault? If so, how to separate them when you're looking for good info?

[LordKarasuman]

Originally posted by mbrowne999:

Originally posted by LordKarasuman:

It is in fact possible to win with every class on Insane. A cursory look at the vault shows that even Alchemist, probably the worst class in the game, has had a small handful of Insane winners over the course of the past year.

Can save scummed characters or edited chars end up in the vault? If so, how to separate them when you're looking for good info?

Unfortunately there's no way to truly know for certain, and so it's impossible to completely parse out cheaters from non-cheaters. Some cheaters have a tell at least; for instance, if their stats are way inflated that's really easy to notice. But even recorded/streamed videos can technically be doctored because you can edit stuff under the hood to make it easier for your character during a run, even if that sounds like a pain in the ass to do.

That said, despite notoriously large gaps in the kits of the lower-tiered classes it's still possible to close up those gaps. For instance, in Insane, Bulwark has essentially no true intrinsic defenses and only has GWF + Assault to do big damage; however, there's so many defenses that are generically available to many classes (Stormshield, etc.) that you can reasonably put workable protection together eventually.

[tieros]

Alchemist is one of my favorite classes. And he was one my easiest win in insane. It was a few years ago but I clearly remember my run, around level 40 he became the most powerful character I had.

[Ghom]

I can't really speak to best/worst as I'm not a pro at ToME or anything but I sure do love a Drem Cultist of Entropy. They're just super fun.

[LordKarasuman]

This isn't to say that Alchemist is unwinnable or even incapable of being fun. It has some incredibly cool tricks (removal of non-magic sustains, an LOS-blocking skill, LOS cornersniping, etc.) but it simply suffers from having a lackluster damage rotation full of empty turns in the first 25 levels, a minion whose best use is largely considered to be a target for a pseudo-Jumpgate by keeping it place with Overburdened status, and defensive capabilities that do not feel nearly as good as others.

The main priority problem is the damage rotation. Their main attack is on cooldown for perhaps way too long, and Staff Combat is mediocre. They would be much better if they either had more to do or had more oomph to those attacks, and this can be solved at L25. However, before then they are oftentimes up the creek without a paddle, and the leadup to L25 contains much of T2 dungeons, which are widely considered the most difficult part of the game.

[Rand]

Over 50 hours in I haven't unlocked/tried every class but while I've had good but failed runs with Temporal Warden and a couple others right now, with long runs of seeming invincibility before running into things that counter and murder you, it's my dwarven brawler run right now that seems capable of taking on everything.

I've tanked her up on health/resistances /regen and am suplexing my way through the game, it's awesome.

[mk11]

Originally posted by mbrowne999:

Originally posted by LordKarasuman:

It is in fact possible to win with every class on Insane. A cursory look at the vault shows that even Alchemist, probably the worst class in the game, has had a small handful of Insane winners over the course of the past year.

Can save scummed characters or edited chars end up in the vault? If so, how to separate them when you're looking for good info?

On Insane or Madness one tell is if they saved all the escorts.

[Doom_Cookies]

On Madness, maybe. But on Insane? Eh... If you keep a solid AoE healing totem handy, you can save all escorts pretty reliably even on Insane depending on your class.

[BoogieMan]

I don't have extensive experience, but I find the reworked Necromancer to be fun and quite powerful. I like having swarms of minions. Archmage seemed powerful as well.

Originally posted by ZirzoR:

Originally posted by Judas Iscariot:

If you want a decent class that turns into a monster in the end game, I cannot recommend Doomed enough. The class starts out fragile as all hell but by the time you pass the Master and when you're at level 50 then only a clone of you can kill you i.e. anything that can cast Inner Demons on you :P

My first win on Normal was with a Doomed and the final bosses basically just died as soon as I looked in their general direction.

The logic behind that is sort of flawed though, doomed is one of the weakest classes in insane+ any class can walk through normal pretty easily, even an melee archmage without any offensive spells, just a bump wizard.

So giving the example that you beat the last boss on normal is a pretty longshot, anyone can do that with any class eventually, on insane you wont survive at all with a doomed unless played on a high level. (And with a good race on top of that)

So I would watch out with recommending classes based on normal difficulty.

Indeed, on normal my Necromancer deleted the final encounter in a few turns, and it was my first time so I personally didn't know what to expect going in to it. I don't think I even took any damage.