A different tier list

[Berenthas]

Hello random person reading this, in case you arrived here by accident know that you shall find below the truth about the current state of classes in ToME, untainted by silly consideration such as madness as in that other tier list where even the guy updating it confessed to savescumming to win this impossible difficulty.

How easy is it to pick up the class and win in AoA? Based on a mix of power (duh), rapidity (longer fights/game = more mistakes = death), tediousness (more tedious = more annoyed/more easy to mess up = death). Only 99% subjective!
Gonna skip adventurer and possessor because lol, unbalanced classes, and tinkers because I don't play tinkers out of EoR (that said, psyshot > sawbutcher >>>>> gunslinger, unless you're a dirty cheater using awesomovementoss)

TL;DR (you lazy ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥) :
Archer
Temporal Warden
Demonologist
Oozemancer
Paradox Mage
-----------------
Sun Paladin
Anorithil
Mindslayer
Brawler
Marauder
Stone Warden
Doombringer
-----------------
Shadowblade
Berserker
Doomed
Rogue
Bulwark
Reaver
Corruptor
-----------------
Necromancer
Archmage
Arcane Blade
Cursed
Skirmisher
Wyrmic
Alchemist
Solipsist

Tier A (aka braindead/full autopilot tier) :
Archer : after unlocking sniper and finding a range 9 bow (surefire or shop can net you one VERY early) you can finish the game using something like 5 skills only and rarely fighting something that can fight back. Nerf when?

Temporal Warden : mobility, debuff removal, damage mitigation, best perma-summons in the game. If you do find yourself in a dangerous situation, which is unlikely, you WILL be able to get out of it. Pretty much impossible to ♥♥♥♥ up your build, you don't have enough bad talents to invest all your points in them.

Demonologist : can only die from oneshot or due to dispel, thanks to osmosis shield. Has crazy armor thanks to hardened core so can't be oneshot. Only defiler with 0 vim issue. They're carried by 3 talents and the demon seeds, rest of the kit is average and they even have two of the worst trees in the game. Meet the class that can enter room of death the first time east and keep '5' pressed while everything around him dies.

Oozemancer : damage mitigation is just stupid on those guys but you might not even be attacked if your summons take the aggro. Once you get going it's basically impossible to die. Subpar damage can make fight longer but you are fully able to bash your head against the keyboard until everyone is dead but you.

Paradox Mage : hands down the best class in the game. Not the easiest but not that hard either. Many ways to reduce damage, can dig, wall, heal, remove sustains... Dispel can ♥♥♥♥ you up and longer fight, which will happen due to lowish damage, can ♥♥♥♥ up your paradox management. Has an answer to everything but blinkwyrm next to the stairs in vor:a 2 madness.

Tier B (strong and slightly tedious, braindead for a good chunk of the game)
Sun paladin : chants and light tree are very good at keeping you alive. 2h for best results. Very strong in general, even though an insane winner recently proved you can die 4 times in final fight even if you have sawrd.

Anorithil : light and chants again. Can mostly spam talents in safety like ooze but need to pay more attention to positionning and can't bump if someone get close. The early game is harder and the mitigation is not as good, but their damage is higher and they have in built pen. Management of jumpgate beforehand is annoying. Rare Orc-mage hunter alone might be more difficult than the whole final fight.

Mindslayer : insane damage ouptut but susceptible to oneshot. Those shouldn't happen before late game though, and a good use of forcefield should cover it. Lots of abilities can be confusing but you won't use that many actives in the end. Do not start final fight without forcefield unless you want a 3k freeze by Elandar. Who said I was salty?

Brawler : grapple, combination kick, axe kick. Congratulations, you know how to play brawler. You are immortal in 1v1 as long as the mob doesn't have spine, or is 2 size categories bigger. Even in crowds grapple damage reduction is fantastic and you have means of getting away.

Marauder : mobility, damage, defense all in one package. Unstoppable to be invincible for a few turns. Slightly heavy in number of skill/trees. Headbutting in real life can cause brain damage, use with parcimony.

Stone Warden : using no skill but halves until the east is a surprisingly valid strategy. You also have access to a windblade without a prodigy point but with better range and worse cd. Trouble is the lack of mobility and defensive tools. The first to say vines and Tarrasca get stone spikes in the♥♥♥♥♥

Doombringer : really good damage output but squishy. I have problem not getting oneshot with one, and they use vim, but they probably deserve this spot since they oneshot 99% of ennemies themselve. Use and abuse abduction, Liam Neeson is not in the game and won't track you down.

Tier C (strong but tedious/average but simple, where the noob and pro classes collide)
Shadowblade : really ♥♥♥♥ing strong and fast, lots of disable, mobility, and defense, but this makes for a class with a lot of hotkeys and hard to get into. If we were talking strictly power they'd be in the top 5. FYI, ogre shadowblade is the reason sawrd is going to be removed from the game.

Berserker : straightforward and good tools, blinding speed, fearless cleave, unstoppable. Average power for a melee, best noob class.

Doomed : Cursed aura is an excellent tree and the shadows are too once you've invested enough. It takes a while though, and then you spend a lot of time resting, waiting for them to finish killing and then heal. Then you press '5' one too many times and.... saving game

Rogue : ok, I'm not really up to speed on new rogue, but it can't be better than shadowblade. They might be on par with marauder but that would only be because of "exploit" weakness. And they are way more annoying to manage (artifice/poison/traps) so they're lower.

Bulwark : easy to pick up but lacking in defense in end game, which makes the name confusing. Imo a bit underrated *block criticism and counterstrike with ghoulwark. It's surprisingly effective*

Reaver : again, not really up to speed, I never get far enough to get rot going so I find them too squishy. Bone shield is good but overrated *wait for the flaming to fade out* Early game is a pain, partly thanks to vim. Rework seems amazing.

Corruptor : lesser reaver although the early is better. Reworked alongside reaver.

Tier D (really bad/tedious/both)
Necromancer : Impending doom carry you early against strong ennemies and chill of the tomb against crowds. Just put at least one point in your dark beam for those white wolves... starts being a pain during dreadfell. Lich quest is a massive pain too, having to do graveyard and nur before level 24, having to boost with cat point. And is lich even better than non lich? Never find out because both will die later in the run anyway.

Archmage : range 10 beam carry you through the T1 (wow!) Then you realise you don't deal damage and are as durable as wet tissue and things get real tedious as you start questionning autoexplore. And purposefully draining your mana every other turn for disruption shield. And since you're using mana say hello to the inscription tax too!

Arcane blade : harder early than archmage because no mana regen but ends up oneshotting everything. So I have been told, I am incapable of reaching that point because that early is awful *pretend not to hear the cries of "you're awful!"*

Cursed : hard early, is a melee who is at his worst against other melees. Loving cursed aura and it's strong but it's a tedious tree too. Narrowly escape the "worst melee" spot.

Skirmisher : low damage, can selfshoot to death if tp'd/pulled/pushed. Bad in general (2 good talents? 3?). Also not fun, I want to have fun with a sling but that's just impossible by playing skirm. Please give tireless combattant to other class though. Pretty please?

Wyrmic : breaths are bad, melee damage is not that great compared to other melees (big % weapon damage on talents but not as phys damage and bad weapon mastery). No defense but icy skin. Icewall and burrow are good but having to use them every fight because the rest of your kit sucks... bleh. Strategic retreat is one thing, running around after every weapon strike is another.

Alchemist : low damage class, made more tedious by the fact that you have to think how to maximise bomb damage, and manage golem. Their early (and even the T2s!) is surprisingly good though. I lied about managing golem though, I tried several times an alch in insane RL and the only time I managed to win I started to put points in golem at level 47-48.

Summoner : tedious by definition, requires great positionning, and reliant on impermanent summons that might get one shot, might decide to attack the wrong target, might decide to move rather than attack... and you keep summoning them because there isn't more you can do. Great class for sadist (sending waves and waves of innocent creatures to their deaths) and masochist (have you not read how tedious this class was?) alike though.

Solipsist : Finally, the pinnaccle, the most annoying class of the game, the one who start with a skill that makes them worse, has no damage, no defense, no movement, and of course, the class that ignores all of that by repeating itsinotrealimagoodclass, itisnotrealimagoodclass over and over ignoring all common sense. I'll give them that inner demon is great when it happens but it's about 30% chance at 100mindpower... without counting saves/immunity and that you can reduce ennemies saves if you spend 20 turns doing that. Oh and mind damage can be saved against, 5% chance minimum. And when you lose ressource you get slower, making it even harder than usual to get out of a tight spot. ITISNOTREALIMAGOODCLASS


Congratulations to anyone who manage to make it this far, here is an ascii cookie.

















I lied, cookies are actually hard to draw.

[Luh Wyte Nazgul]

Archvirgin and Arcane Blade are both arguably worse than Solipshit, but it's possible that the chance to save against mind damage makes them objectively the worst class in the game

[Leto]

I was really dissappointed that the cookie was a lie...

Other than that, I disagree with a couple of things in this list, mainly the Reaver and Rogue being in tier c. I think Reaver is an amazingly strong class in both early and endgame, where it can deal insane amounts of damage with a single bonegrab and carrion worms to provide damage mitigation, healing and even movement. Especially Ghoul Reavers can become nearly unkillable endgame.

[boozermonkey]

I pretty much disagree with almost your entire ratings list. You are flat out wrong about at least half of your descriptions. More like assumptions made from lack of knowledge about those classes in general.

IMO, completely ignore the OPs entire writeup as ignorant hogwash.

Psolopsist is arguably the strongest class in the whole game. It was insanely wildly OP before the nerf, and is only marginally weaker after. A true one trick pony class. One skill in particular will take you from the very beginning of the game all the way through to the end.

Reaver and Arcane Blade are without question the best dps melee classes in the whole game. I thought everyone knew this. If you can't win the game easily with a Ghoul Reaver, you have not played this game and don't know anything about it.

Corruptor. I read your description and could not stop laughing. Corruptors are what Archmages should have been. True powerhouses. In fact, the OP proves pure lack of knowledge about this game of any kind here, because Corruptors literally steamroll their way through the game almost laughably easy. Highest pure dps caster in the whole game WITH boneshield to boot.

Doomed. Arguably the hardest class to get started along with Arcane Blade, but once you get this class up and running it is also one of the strongest classes in the game. Absolutely amazing dps potential combined with unbelievable damage mitigation and status clearing. A very fun, if complex class. Definitely not a one button wonder as the OP alludes, but more of a combo caster with strong melee dps potential.

Alchemist. Here is another one that had me laughing. As a pure AoE dps mage, this class beats them all - hands down. The easiest mage class to play as a noob and win the game first time through with, the OP obviously never played one. Stupidly overpowered AoE spammable dps that you become immune to, so you can even bomb yourself and your golem without fear. Your golem is itself a melee and caster dps powerhouse if managed properly. Easiest and most likely class in the game to easily get insanely rich with and use to craft stupidly OP items for your other characters stashed in your vault.

Summoner. Another description that had me chuckling. This class is not just OP, but way over the top. Think mindstar melee powerhouse surrounded by stupidly OP melee, ranged, and support summons in every fight you get into. I have even cleared whole dungeons with nothing but mindstar melee and no summons at all. Pop a dragon out with some enhancement skills and it will even clear whole dungeons just by itself while you just stand there and resummon as needed. Are you kidding me with rating this class at tier D? No clue. Whatsoever. About this game.

Necromancer. I had to reread the OPs description a couple of times, because I have never known anyone to play the class that way. Nobody. Impending Doom and Chill of the Tomb in early game? Lich not being better than non-lich? Pure ignorance.
Necromancers can be played a couple of ways - pure mage, or summoner/mage. I have had most success with the summoner/mage route, but there are let's plays on youtube with even average players absolutely dominating the game with the pure mage build.

Summoner/mage builds synergize very well because you get some crazy OP minions combined with high dps nukes that your minions are immune to. When you get your aura up to skill 4+ you can have quite a lot of minions on the field and keep them there through several fights without having to summon again. Oh, and Bone Giants are incredible.

Skirmishers. Literally everything posted by the OP about this class is wrong. They have strong ranged dps combined with the strongest crowd control and escape options of any class. Not a one button wonder class like some are in the game, but a very strong class all the same and easy to play as long as your not asleep at the wheel.

Beserker. A tier C class? Really? LOL! Enough said here.

And this is just a few of the flat out falacies posted by the OP about virtually every class in this game.

[Berenthas]

Originally posted by boozermonkey:

trolling

Thanks, it was entertaining. For further troll though, I advise you are a bit less obvious and/or shorter. The best troll are those where you're never quite sure if you're led on or the person is actually serious(ly stupid).
Still, good try.

Originally posted by Leto:

Other than that, I disagree with a couple of things in this list, mainly the Reaver and Rogue being in tier c. I think Reaver is an amazingly strong class in both early and endgame, where it can deal insane amounts of damage with a single bonegrab and carrion worms to provide damage mitigation, healing and even movement. Especially Ghoul Reavers can become nearly unkillable endgame.

In power rogue is likely tier B, but it is NOT easy to pick up, and can be confusing to play. Reaver has great damage but I seriously think it's early is weaker than a lot of classes. Not sure why ghoul reavers would be better than other races, I don't see synergy, and so ghoul drawbacks make it way worse than any other races.

[Berenthas]

Originally posted by boozermonkey:

Alchemist. Here is another one that had me laughing. As a pure AoE dps mage, this class beats them all - hands down. The easiest mage class to play as a noob and win the game first time through with, the OP obviously never played one. Stupidly overpowered AoE spammable dps that you become immune to, so you can even bomb yourself and your golem without fear. Your golem is itself a melee and caster dps powerhouse if managed properly. Easiest and most likely class in the game to easily get insanely rich with and use to craft stupidly OP items for your other characters stashed in your vault.

Sorry, i forgot I wanted to answer this specific complaint. The following link : https://te4.org/characters/101797/tome/c43ae01e-9166-4a75-b57c-8c1185b028d5 is the first EVER alchemist insane/RL win. This is my character. I know alchemist. I won with it. I tell you it's ♥♥♥♥. Trust me or not.
And, obligatory : "LOL, VAULTING ITEMS!"

[dado]

Originally posted by boozermonkey:

Meme

t. No normal wins in 28 days of play time

[boozermonkey]

Originally posted by dado:

Originally posted by boozermonkey:

Meme

t. No normal wins in 28 days of play time

Oh so of course that must mean I don't know anything at all about this game... Riiight!

I have no interest whatsoever in beating the bosses or completing the insanely boring final dungeons. I have done them more than once and quit every time out of sheer boredom.

In truth, I don't much enjoy playing this game beyond the mid-game and the arena. The concept and classes are great and it is a passbly OK rogue-like game, but far from the best.

I have a great deal of respect for the Open Source nature and for Dark God who contributes his time to keeping his dream alive. For that reason alone I continue to play it and will continue to play it, and contribute $$$ as I can well into the future.

I do have quite a lot of experience playing every race/class combo in the normal game possible, and I know the mechanics exceedingly well. This is why I know - as should anyone with more than 100 hours of playtime - that the OPs post is pure BS.

[Luh Wyte Nazgul]

Originally posted by boozermonkey:

trolling

t. literally no insane rl wins

[Micbran]

Originally posted by boozermonkey:

Originally posted by dado:

t. No normal wins in 28 days of play time

Oh so of course that must mean I don't know anything at all about this game... Riiight!

I have no interest whatsoever in beating the bosses or completing the insanely boring final dungeons. I have done them more than once and quit every time out of sheer boredom.

In truth, I don't much enjoy playing this game beyond the mid-game and the arena. The concept and classes are great and it is a passbly OK rogue-like game, but far from the best.

I have a great deal of respect for the Open Source nature and for Dark God who contributes his time to keeping his dream alive. For that reason alone I continue to play it and will continue to play it, and contribute $$$ as I can well into the future.

I do have quite a lot of experience playing every race/class combo in the normal game possible, and I know the mechanics exceedingly well. This is why I know - as should anyone with more than 100 hours of playtime - that the OPs post is pure BS.

right but thats normal and this is an insane tier list.
anything can win normal, if you don't believe me then you can do some reasearch into the glorious memes such as AM AM and weapon only adventurer run (w/ vault)

[Luh Wyte Nazgul]

plus i got 3200 hrs and i know the OP is 100% correct EXCEPT on a few classes but he admits hes never played them like that so

[Berenthas]

Originally posted by boozermonkey:

Originally posted by dado:

t. No normal wins in 28 days of play time

Oh so of course that must mean I don't know anything at all about this game... Riiight!

I have no interest whatsoever in beating the bosses or completing the insanely boring final dungeons. I have done them more than once and quit every time out of sheer boredom.

In truth, I don't much enjoy playing this game beyond the mid-game and the arena. The concept and classes are great and it is a passbly OK rogue-like game, but far from the best.

I have a great deal of respect for the Open Source nature and for Dark God who contributes his time to keeping his dream alive. For that reason alone I continue to play it and will continue to play it, and contribute $$$ as I can well into the future.

I do have quite a lot of experience playing every race/class combo in the normal game possible, and I know the mechanics exceedingly well. This is why I know - as should anyone with more than 100 hours of playtime - that the OPs post is pure BS.

alright, I was thinking you were trolling when you're not, you're just misguided and not knowledgeable of the game. We've all been there at some point, and it did take me 100hours for my first win, I don't claim I've known this game from the start.
I invite you to watch this https://te4.org/user/101797/wins since you think I don't know the game. I think the few wins will convinve you. Otherwise you can go check twitch and see me win insane/RL as an alch (noone else ever did that without addons modiying the class) or my recent TW win where i used no prod, and less than half of my class and gen points. here is the link! https://www.twitch.tv/videos/218230738
I'm sad you find ToME only passable, for me this is the best roguelike out there and that's why I try to share what I know with others. It's also sad that you come in a thread like that and attack what I worked hard to do when you don't have the same level of experience and don't even enjoy the game that much.

[boozermonkey]

The point is that in this post you rate classes into tiers without justification and without explaining adequately your premise for pidgeon holing one class over another into this tier or that one. You give nothing but vague or subjective details of what constitutes tier requirements. Your introducftion assumes all readers are somehow familiar with you and your level of game knowledge.

From your OP:
"in case you arrived here by accident know that you shall find below the truth about the current state of classes in ToME"

Oh really? Why should I or anyone for that matter take your word about which classes should fall into this tier or that one? I had really hoped to find a helpful post with really useful information in it only to find your post very unhelpful and somewhat offensive.

On tier requirements:
"Tier A (aka braindead/full autopilot tier)
Tier B (strong and slightly tedious, braindead for a good chunk of the game)
Tier C (strong but tedious/average but simple, where the noob and pro classes collide)
Tier D (really bad/tedious/both)"

I don't think explanation on my position should be necessary given the above tier descriptions. Anyone with a third grade education and above should understand what frustrates me about these. TBH, it should frustrate anyone.

As an example, you list Summoner into Tier D, and you may have your reasons for doing so, but your written justification for doing that just does not mesh with my own experiences playing that class nor with the posted guides written for it by people who have beaten the game with it on insane. By your own description, nobody should be able to beat the game with a Summoner on Insane, yet we know that is not true.

So, its not so much for me that you rate classes, but in how you do it. Who the heck are you to say a Summoner and Psilopsist is "really bad/tedious/both"?

[Micbran]

Originally posted by boozermonkey:

As an example, you list Summoner into Tier D, and you may have your reasons for doing so, but your written justification for doing that just does not mesh with my own experiences playing that class nor with the posted guides written for it by people who have beaten the game with it on insane. By your own description, nobody should be able to beat the game with a Summoner on Insane, yet we know that is not true.

play summoner on insane mode and see why

addtionally this: "Tier D (really bad/tedious/both)" does not mean this: "nobody should be able to beat the game with a Summoner on Insane."

as for solip, my current one has taken 2.5ish hours on the T1's
for comparison my Sun paladin took one hour
lol

[boozermonkey]

Originally posted by Micbran:

Originally posted by boozermonkey:

As an example, you list Summoner into Tier D, and you may have your reasons for doing so, but your written justification for doing that just does not mesh with my own experiences playing that class nor with the posted guides written for it by people who have beaten the game with it on insane. By your own description, nobody should be able to beat the game with a Summoner on Insane, yet we know that is not true.

play summoner on insane mode and see why

addtionally this: "Tier D (really bad/tedious/both)" does not mean this: "nobody should be able to beat the game with a Summoner on Insane."

as for solip, my current one has taken 2.5ish hours on the T1's
for comparison my Sun paladin took one hour
lol

I can't argue with player skill. You may not understand the nuances of the class as someone else, who may have no trouble at all clearing the T1 dungeons on Insane with a Summoner, or any class for that matter.

Again, the point is not that some classes are better for some players than others. That much is a fact. I have no problems placing some classes into "troubled" status, or whatever you choose to place them in. Its WHY!

Let's take myself as someone who comes to these forums looking for genuinely helpful information about the game. I read something like this and see seomeone putting classes into certain buckets of "bad/tedious, et al" and etc with no understandable justification. Its unintelligible.

WHY do you think Summoners need to be in Tier D?.. And please don't tell me because you think they are "bad". WHY are they bad?

And again, I am not saying the OP is wrong about any of those assumptions, because now that I have read the replies I understand what the intent was. I just want to know why he/she feels this way about a certain class because that is actually important information I would genuinely like to know.

My suggestion -- just a suggestion -- is that you create criteria for these tiers, such as:
*DPS potential (1 to 5 stars)
*Escape potential (1 to 5 stars)
*Status clearing potential (1 to 5 stars)
*Skill tree synergy (1 to 5 stars)
Those are just four things you could use to add some context that justify placing a particular class into a certain Tier when compared to other classes.

An example of this is placing the Beserker into Tier C as the OP has done. My experience with this class is that it has all of those things I mentioned above in abundance - raw dps, great escape option, status clearing options, and generally great synergy in most of the skill trees. Every Beserker guide I have read, and there are several, of Insane Beserker wins reinforces this. So WHY do you think that this class should not be Tier A or B?

[Berenthas]

Alright, since we're quoting my guide let me start with this.

Only 99% subjective!

That said. I could probably develop a rating system as you described, I don't think it would take me TOO long, and if you feel it's needed you might not be the only one. If you had said that right away rather than calling the tier list "flat out wrong", "ignorant hogwash" and "flat out fallacies" maybe we could have had a civil discussion earlier.

I'll go real quick on summonner and berserker since they seem to irk you.

Summonner : tedious aiming since it keeps targeting the enemy when i want to spawn a ritch. Extremely annoying to play in corridor when only one summons at a time work, when usually corridors are the best and safeest place to fight. Entirely reliant on summons, not a single other tree to fend off for yourself. And summons are stupid with stupid targetting and no way to force it. And sometimes they kill you. And end game they get oneshotted. To resume sumonner have poor mobility, poor damage (summons damage is only ok and bad targeting makes it worse) no defense but leaves tide, more tedious than 80% of the classes.

Berserker : it is inferior to a lot of classes right now, though very easy to pick up. No defense except unstoppable (which is very good of course, for 7 turns out of 45, with a high cost, and not before level 22, by which point you're in the T2 were the deaths happens the most), compare that to parry, grapple, webs of fate, trained reaction, chants, light, intuitive shots. I could probably find more but i covered a good ground already. Medium mobility (fearless cleave is amazing, they have rush). Compare it to chronomancer, all rogue metaclass, brawler, archer, wyrmic, oozemancer, SP, cursed, chronomancer, and you'll see it's worse. Damage wise they're... decent? I mean it's a melee class, but compared to other melee class or the archery class it's bad. They have only 3 straight up attack moves, no bonus to phys damage or innate pen/reduction of phys res. They have less than 3 out of 4 of the other warrior, 3 out of 4 rogues, less than SP, doombringer, demo, cursed, TW, mindslayer.

I think that covers it, I'm happy torespond to counter argument done in a civil manner, but will trash talk again if I'm trashtalked again