Rate the Classes

[BoomFrog]

Class balance is not critical as a single player game, but as a new player I was very unsatisfied with my summoner win since I figured out halfway through that they are overpowered. So I think it would be nice for new players to have an evaluation of all the classes and races so we can be better informed when selecting our birth. Please rate all the classes and races that you have cleared the game with and I'll try to keep the consensus in this post.

Rate:
Early game power - 1 is a very difficult start and you will die often if unskilled. 5 is an easy start.
Late game power - 1 is a challenge to complete the game with, 5 is so OP that a noob could probably win on the first playthrough.
Stability - 1 is a buggy class that has a decent chance to break the game, (Temporal warden), or it is a new addition to the game and not well tested (oozeamancer). 5 is a solidly tested class that needs little or no changes. (Ranger)

[BoomFrog]

My ratings:
Summoner:
EGP - 4
LGP - 5
Stability - 4

Berserker:
EGP - 3
LGP - 3
Stability - 5

[SageAcrin]

Bulwark: 5/3/5
Berserker: 4/5/5
Archer: 3/4/5
Arcane Blade: 2/5/5
Brawler: 2/3/5

Rogue: 1/2/5
Shadowblade: 1/5/5
Marauder: 3/2/5

Alchemist: 5/4/5
Archmage: 5/5/5
Necromancer: 5/2/5

Wyrmic: 3/4/5
Summoner: 5/5/5
Oozemancer: 5/5/4

Sun Paladin: 3/5/5
Anorithil: 3/4/5

Corruptor: 5/5/5
Reaver: 5/3/5

Cursed: 2/4/4(Might be just some leftover leeriness after the introduction of Predator. Then again, a bug was found in Mimic just a few days ago.)
Doomed: 4/4/4(Ditto this and feed bugs)

Temporal Warden: 2/4?/5.
Paradox Mage: 3/3/5.

Mindslayer: 3/4/5
Solipsist: 5/4/4? Still getting updated, so a good bet for less than optimal stability.

This is just general kneejerks, there are almost certainly a bunch of spots I could go up or down a point, so don't take it too seriously.

My opinion of Rogue is probably a bit lower than most people to have cleared one, but while it was fun the whole way through, it was mostly hard the whole way through too. Most of these I have cleared with, incidentally...TW/Anorithil/Marauder are the current exceptions, and I played Solipsist back when it was a 6/6 class, so I'm not entirely sure there.

Very few classes are really spectacularly hard to finish out with, honestly.

Edit: Since this got bumped up, updated it a bit for some playthroughs since.

[Crim, The Red Thunder]

Summoner.

EGP - 2/4 Depending on whether or not you are aware of meditation creating a damage malus on your summons, it's either hard early, or pathetically easy with simple management.
LGP - 5 No question, late game summons can dish the damage out while distracting the enemy from you.
Balance - 5. I see no real flaws with the class, other then a dull repetitiveness of having to sit around and wait a few turns till you can summon something else, praying nothing decides to shoot a beam at you through your summons. It could stand some more variety in terms of builds, but otherwise is quite solid as is.

Anorithil

EGP - 1/5 Early game depends on race choice. Races that get the eastern start (Cornac, Higher, Shaloren, Thaloren, IIRC) have a very difficult early game, coupled with the possibility of an escort spawning right next to the first boss (Which appears at melee range, while playing a caster class, at low level. Yeah. That bad.) and typically poor loot in the first dungeon to boot. Races that do NOT get the anorithil start (Yeek, Ghoul, Skeleton, Dwarf, and I *THINK* halfling) have a much, MUCH easier time.
LGP - 5 Huge heals, Huge shields, and a powerful synergistic combo between hymn of moonlight and corona offers you an insane level of crowd control, and the sniper rifle nuke of your moonlight ray is overpowered to boot. Given all the 'proc on spell chances' that hymn of moonlight makes (and corona to boot!), equipment of the right kind with a spell proc (or multiple! Black robe FTW!) are just godly amounts of extra damage to your character. Along with that, you get a status curing spell, on top of some special effects off either glyphs or circles. There's also enough variety to allow for some differing builds, though they all revolve around hymn of moonlight/corona for the most part.
Stability - 5. Yes, a perfect rating. Anorithil shows remarkable ability to stick most fights for the long haul, even if prolonged DPS over time can't compare to the massive burst damage classes like corruptor can offer in the shorter term. And between glyphs and circles you can easily differ your builds a bit, depending on what effects you want out of it. There's even some largely unused talents that offer some interesting gimmick builds (negative magic stealth, anyone?). Only downside here is that nothing ever feels as awesome after playing an anorithil.

I don't feel an opinion on solipsist is warranted, given how much it keeps changing. Beyond that, those are the only classes I feel qualified to speak about on balance, given they are the only ones I have managed a win with.

[jotwebe]

Dunno quite what to make of your Stability rating. I don't know if I would have put TW at 1, for example - where would you put something that doesn't work at all then?

Paradox Mage
4/4/2 (2 for expect bugs, but hopefully minor ones, possible to have to redo a dungeon level due to a crash)

Archmage
5/5/4 (found a bug in Body of Stone)

There's a Necromancer from several versions ago that the ninth stairboss bugged out, pretty sure she would have rolled over the final fight, however it was an early version of the class, stuff will have changed. With those reservations:
Necromancer
5/4/4 (the bug was something to do with a chronomancy talent the boss got, but minions can be iffy)

Any other clears are too long ago for me to remember the details enough to rate.

[darkgod]

Just a note, good players need to remember not everybody is like them. No somebody new to the game will *not* win on their first play through even with a 5/5 class.
Sure it can happen, but those are not what I would call normal players.

I would like also that people refrain from saying things like "oh you can faceroll and win". Maybe you can; most cant

Thanks

[donkatsu]

Shadowblade: 1/4/5
Alchemist: 4/3/5
Archmage: 4/5/5 (drop late game power by 1 if you don't go Wildfire or Aether, drop by another 1 if you somehow never find a good shielding rune)
Necromancer: 4/4/5 (drop both early and late game power by 1 if you try to focus on cold)
Cursed: 3/3/4 (drop early game power by 1 if you don't unlock Rampage early on)
Reaver: 4/4/5
Corruptor: 4/4/5
Anorithil: 4/5/5 (drops in power a bit somewhere during the midgame when you're transitioning out of "cleric mode" and into "pew pew laser show mode")
Sun Paladin: 4/4/5
Summoner: 5/5/5
Oozemancer: 4/4/3
Paradox Mage: 4/4/4
Temporal Warden: 3/4/4 (raise late game power by 1 if Shaloren)

Any other winners I've had have been changed too much since my win for me to give a remotely accurate assessment. Only reason most classes didn't get a 5 for early game was because I wanted to give Summoners their own rank to highlight how truly ridiculously safe they are.

[SageAcrin]

Just a note, good players need to remember not everybody is like them. No somebody new to the game will *not* win on their first play through even with a 5/5 class.
Sure it can happen, but those are not what I would call normal players.

I would like also that people refrain from saying things like "oh you can faceroll and win". Maybe you can; most cant

Thanks

It's funny, I was thinking about something related to this when I was making my list.

I was thinking about Alchemist, and how its early game is not only 5 to me, but extremely good among 5s.

Despite a fair deal of Roguelike experience even then, I didn't get East with the first one. Within the first few, yes, but see above about previous experience.

ToME is above all else a game of knowledge-every character, and every enemy, has a much deeper toolkit than usual for a Roguelike, and you need to know how these interact. Not spoilers, really...the game gives you all the knowledge you need to clear right there, without the code. But you need to know how to apply it.

[Crim, The Red Thunder]

Just a note, good players need to remember not everybody is like them. No somebody new to the game will *not* win on their first play through even with a 5/5 class.
Sure it can happen, but those are not what I would call normal players.

I'd like to point out, purely to demostrate the survivability of the Anorithil class, that the VERY FIRST ONE, that lived through the starter dungeon, proceeded to be not only my first Anorithil winner, but my first winner ever. *AND* that previous attempts on other characters had never even cleared Vor Armory. Granted, I was lucky in gear drops, AND I had some help from the friendly chat community. But still, to blaze through all the prides, the backup bosses, and all the rest of that for the first time, and come out ahead speaks highly for the survivability of the class.

Still, as DG said, it isn't a guaranteed win for anyone on the first time. Maybe I was just insanely lucky and the class is a lot harder then I say to play. No roguelike can ever have a 'go here and do this to win'. Your mileage will inevitably vary from the experience of everyone else.

[phantomglider]

I think a thing that might be worth rating is the simplicity of a class, or how easy it is to play to its full potential; this is something that, for example, Alchemist would rate very high on (stroll into a room, toss bombs everywhere, give not a single damn) and Paradox Mage would rate very low on (Cease to Exist -> Temporal Destabilization -> Redux -> Quantum Spike, rewind, Redux -> Gravity Well...oh, and watch out for anomalies!). In my mind it's a combination of how many synergistic or set-up abilities it wants to use, how much resilience it has to bad situations, and how much it overwhelms you with talent choices.

In that measure, my approximate ratings would be:

Bulwark 4/5; 5/5 for absolute newbies playing their very first roguelike
Berserker 5/5
Archer 5/5
Arcane Blade 2/5
Brawler 2/5

Rogue 1/5
Shadowblade 1/5
Marauder 2/5

Alchemist 5/5
Archmage 2/5
Necromancer 1/5

Wyrmic 3/5
Summoner 5/5
Oozemancer 4/5

Cursed 3/5
Doomed... I'm really not sure. Probably another 3/5

Sun Paladin 4/5
Anorithil 4/5

Reaver 3/5
Corruptor 3/5

Temporal Warden 2/5
Paradox Mage 1/5

Mindslayer 2/5 Fiddly shields!
Solipsist 3/5

[BoomFrog]

Yeah, I hesitated to use the word noob in my description. I think everyone is going to lose with the first couple characters just learning how the game works. I guess I meant, "A player who has won with a different class but never played this class would probably win on the first try with this class" is a 5. People have been rating everything really highly which surprises me.

[jotwebe]

Well, so far it has been people rating classes they won with, and unless that's a huge list like SageAcrins, there'll be a bias to view those as powerful classes, not to mention that those will actually tend to be powerful classes.

Phantomglider makes a good point about simplicity, although there are actually two kinds at work there, simplicity of play versus simplicity of build. Those interact. Alchemist has both, Arch- and Paradox Mages are harder on the build/play side.

Simplicity:

Archmage 3 - An emberassment of choices on the levelup menu, play tends to be straightforward

Paradox Mage 2 - Still easy to overspread but not quite so much, play is fiddly though

Necromancer 3 - Easier to build, but with manathrusting minions, Lichdom and so on harder to play than AM

Maybe we need some better statistics though. The current ones are a bit limited in that we can't view by version, and things can change a lot between them.

It would be great to see:

* number/percentage out of the class that made a player first win (or Vampire Crusher)
* number/percentage that made a win first time the class was played

It'd also be great to track top killers by version, and cheer the Minotaur as he pulls ahead of the Sandworm Queen. And have a weighted option, where a player death is worth level^2 points (should approximate the level curve characters make it to) to give those late game bosses a fighting chance.

[Ory]

Interesting way to look at the game...

I have had a great number of deaths -- most of the oh, two monsters critical hit me in the same turn variety... but to date I can not say that any class feels over powered... though some classes do feel easier than others. It would be interesting to see how people rate 'play style' or 'fun to play' of each class as well.

[Atarlost]

The class that calls to me most is Arcane Blade. The classes I can most reliably clear Dreadfell with are Wyrmic and Sun Paladin. The class I've legitimately gone farthest with is Mindslayer (savefile corruption on High Peak), but I'm terrible at starting them.

The class I've actually gone farthest with was a Temporal Warden who somehow glitched when fighting his paradox clone in Daikara and never took damage again except from displacement effects.

[adamn]

Noob here: Mindslayer and Solopsist confuse the hell out of me. I don't know how to build one. They have a number of class features which aren't explained anywhere, and a lot of their abilities cross-reference. On the other hand, Necromancer was very intuitive for me. 4/5 for ease of use, I'd say.