Class Tier List

[ZyZ]

Staff Solipsist is an interesting idea that looks like it could potentially do massive damage, but it's hard to justify skipping Leaves' Tide for that (though this can be solved with Swift Hands). Also Superpower is a gimmick option and never better than Temporal Form, which looks like it might actually be good on Solipsists since Mental Tyranny is now completely worthless. One issue with this is that you can't bump attack with the Dream Hammer, so you can't make as much use of the global speed from Clarity as I'd like, but it still looks like it's worth trying just for Hammer Toss if nothing else. I'll give it a shot on Nightmare when I can find the time.

Temporal form is definitely tempting but i would not count out superpower. 30% wis weapon boost is almost direct +30% to dream smith talents (you migh have some additional 'on melee hit' bonuses that are not boosted). STR improves phys power (dream smith tree again) and gives you 0.5 mindpower per point (in comparison wis gives you 0.7) and this should give you at least high one digit boost to almost everything you do including other damage boosting talents, dream hammer stats, increase chance to land sleep and other debuffs.

I consider temporal form as replacement for mental tyranny. Never tried it myself but definitely it makes more sense to convert mind/phys damage to buffed temporal than converting buffed phys damage to mind damage.

I've partially test it here http://te4.org/characters/104175/tome/e ... 1b856d1f56 but in that run i've also tested many other talents so definitely you can create much better build.

[Plak]

Eye of the tiger should definitely be the top Prodigy choice for Solipsist, it's a much more solid damage boost than other options with some utility as well. As long as you pump your mental crit chance, you'll have no issue spamming skills even as a Yeek. As for their second prodigy, Through The Crowd is actually a solid choice : Inner Demons become so much more potent when you can summon 3-4 demons and still keep blasting the boss though them, and with the extra support of night terrors and your thought-form, you'll be rocking +50 all saves most of the time.

[bpat]

I realize I haven't really clarified where I draw the line between tiers. To answer questions about why a class is a certain tier, I'll explain exactly how I divided it. Pretty much, the most important factor is defense, and there is a minimum level of defense a class needs to have to be placed in one of the top three tiers. Tier 1 classes must not only be nearly unkillable, but they must also have exceptional damage. Four of the five most tanky classes are tier 1, and the other one (Berserker) doesn't do quite enough damage for me to place it as high as the others. There is also a minimum amount of defense required for a class to be tier 2, but offense isn't nearly as important as it is for tier 1 (coincidentally all the tier 2 classes except Berserker also have exceptional offense, but it isn't as big of a requisite). For reference, if a class doesn't have defense comparable to Oozemancer (near-immunity to criticals and damage reduction with Mitosis) or Arcane Blade (Aegis talents), there is no way I can rank it higher than tier 3. This is why classes like Solipsists and Summoners are at the top of tier 3 instead of the bottom of tier 2. Tier 3 classes need to be decent enough at not dying, by the means of summons or just plain tanking, but they don't have to be near-immortal like the top two tiers. Also these classes all either have good damage (Stone Warden), good utility (Solipsist), or both (Doomed). The last three tiers are less clearly divided so there since classes with very poor defense are as high as tier 4 because of their other redeeming factors. For classes with poor defense like Cursed, Archer, and Rogue damage is now a bigger factor because even on Nightmare, you still have a decent window to eliminate dangerous enemies before they can take you down. Tier 5 and 6 classes all have fundamental issues that cannot be made up for by doing well in other areas. For example, Paradox Mage is pretty decent until it takes damage, which it has no way of safely recovering from since with Body Reversion is its only heal and not only does it suck at healing, but it also removes helpful effects from Infusions like Free Action, Pain Suppression, and Regeneration. A more extreme example of a fundamentally problematic class is Wyrmic, which is below average in every aspect and has no notable redeeming factors aside from Fungus and Burrow. Absolutely none of its damage talents scale well with the exception of Static Field, which can be resisted (lol), and even if it couldn't, it wouldn't be good enough to make Wyrmic viable.

Hopefully this is comprehensible enough to clarify my reasoning.

[bpat]

Eye of the tiger should definitely be the top Prodigy choice for Solipsist, it's a much more solid damage boost than other options with some utility as well. As long as you pump your mental crit chance, you'll have no issue spamming skills even as a Yeek. As for their second prodigy, Through The Crowd is actually a solid choice : Inner Demons become so much more potent when you can summon 3-4 demons and still keep blasting the boss though them, and with the extra support of night terrors and your thought-form, you'll be rocking +50 all saves most of the time.

Spine of the World is pretty amazing on Solipsist since the class has no inherent stun resistance. I'll don't like saves but I'll give Through the Crowd a mention anyway because it seems pretty fun with Inner Demons and Night Terrors at least.

[Mankeli]

re: Paradox Mage Defenses.

They probably suck less if one manages to find the Temporal Augmentation Robe. With my Temporal Warden I got three turns worth of smearing from the robe. It is much worse than the talent itself but paradox mages can handle larger paradox pools because of paradox mastery and maybe are able to get like 4 turns or something because the duration from the robe scales with paradox. Then add Timeless if playing Shalore (you probably should play Shalore anyways) in specific and the huge free temporal resistance from Paradox Mastery and suddenly there is at least one sort of decent way of defending yourself from burst damage. PMs also have better attacks so they need less time smearing than TWs.

But yeah, in general, specific item drop dependent defences are not very relieable way of keeping your character alive .

[Snarvid]

The Golem is good as well but aside from the Golem and Throw Bomb, Alchemist is pretty much helpless. The class is being reworked and it looks good enough to increase it to at least tier 3, but for now with Fire Alchemy being terrible and Channel Staff being mediocre Alchemist isn't a particularly great class.

I would like to know more about the reworking of Alchemist. Where do I click to know more?

Also, elves are great, but I can't see bothering to play a Necromancer if you're not going to play a Higher. With Highborn's Bloom now covering souls, the 9 point commitment for 5/3 in Necrotic Minions and 1 point commitment in Essence of the Dead (I mean, there's three before it, but you were going to get Animus Purge anyway) seems a small price to pay out of a total build. For that low low price and a single turn you can hurl seven level +3 minions (or 8 @ lvl +5 with Scepter of the Archlich) into every pre-rested combat. It's the cornerstone of my Create Minions -> Forgery of Haze -> Impending Doom the big bad -> get the heck out of dodge and let your minions kick butt -> clean up any leftovers cowardly Necro strategy. It does require more management (rest up, then use Undeath Link & deactivate Necrotic Aura to clear your minions, use Essence of the Dead in prep for next fight) but so far on Nightmare I'm having to play more carefully anyway.

Higher also grab Gift of the Highborn giving free-action heals to a Lich and the bonus darkness damage from Born into Magic, which aren't too bad either, but it's Bloom or no Necro in my opinion. With Bloom, though, I'd be tempted to move them up into tier 2 after level 24 - or, at least, ahead of Summoner, with whom they share great minions (create minions/forgery/husks) but have far more personal damage, control, and utility options.

[Mankeli]

re: Paradox Mage Defenses.They probably suck less if one manages to find the Temporal Augmentation Robe.

Now that I'm playing one I noticed two things: 1) Timeless cannot extend the duration of damage smearing and 2) Unlike the talent damage smearing, Invoking damage smearing from TARDIS takes a turn...

I haven't gotten temporal form yet because as a shalore PM you kind of want that cauterize FAST but I'm guessing that the max turns one can reasonably assume to get while still maintaining paradox low enough to not fail your spells is only like 4-5 turns of smearing while in temporal form. Without temporal form and with the base paradox while sustaining the three PM talents the number of smeared turns is only two.

So yeah, keep bashing PM defences, it seems my glorious TARDIS abusing 85 % temporal resist scheme has failed. Temporal wardens FTW!

[grobblewobble]

Okay, a few words on Sun Paladins.

They have really good defenses. They have big armor, big shields and heals, they are good at resisting statuses and clearing them too. And then they have retribution and second life (which almost as good as cauterize) on top of all that. Their defense is their strong side and I think they should rank higher than arcane blades on it. Defense wise they should have 6 stars on this scale imo.

I'd argue that Shalore is probably not the best race for them. Dex is not a primary stat, so the speed boost will not be that great and besides, you´re mainly limited by cooldown times. The crit multiplier bonus is nice, but not spectacular. Timeless is never bad, but it isn´t especially good for sun paladins. All in all, the dwarf racials just look better to me. Boosting your already high saves even much higher is just great. An extra movement / escape option is also brilliant for sun paladins. And the extra hitpoints may not be flashy, but they do count. Starting in the west is a nice bonus, it certainly makes the early game easier. In the vault there are 3 sun paladin nightmare wins: no shalore, 2 dwarves and a cornac. For normal / roguelike there are 11 dwarf sunpal winners, only 1 shalore.

[jenx]

sounds like u haven't played solipsist with discharge tree. at high levels the dmg is unbelievable. i can clear the room of death without even having to teleport away.

[bpat]

sounds like u haven't played solipsist with discharge tree. at high levels the dmg is unbelievable. i can clear the room of death without even having to teleport away.

Discharge is good but not amazing in my opinion. Solipsist does somewhat weaker damage than other ranged classes, but it's still a great class. If you send me a screenshot or damage log of Discharge damage being better than I think it is then I'll happily move Solipsist's damage to three stars.

I'm planning on updating this for 1.2 after I play all the classes enough, but so far it looks like Archmage will remain tier 1, Berserker will remain tier 2 or be moved to tier 1, Oozemancer will remain tier 2, Sun Paladin will be moved to tier 2 (from 6), Alchemist will be moved to tier 2 or 3 (from 5), Brawler will be moved to tier 3 (from 6), Mindslayer will be moved to tier 3 or 4 (from 5), and Skirmisher will be tier 4. Some other classes like Necromancer, Bulwark, and Rogue may be moved down a tier to keep the list balanced. It looks like Wyrmic will be in tier 6 by itself because it is now easily the weakest class in the game so hopefully it will be buffed or reworked next patch.

[ProfessorCirno]

As someone who hasn't looked super deeply at the new paladin changes, what buffed them so immensely?

[Nori]

As someone who hasn't looked super deeply at the new paladin changes, what buffed them so immensely?

Can't speak for all the changes, but the 10 levels I've played so far have been a great change.

First off they get two handed weapons. You don't have to go shield anymore. There is also a two handed paladin tree which is pretty stellar and has good damage plus damage mitigation (including the last skill which does nice damage and makes you immune to all damage for one turn).

The sun tree spells are much better and more useful, especially the second one. It creates a path to where you cast it that allows free movement. Helps solve the extreme mobility issue.

The weapon of light sustain now adds one to the duration of any shields and increases their value every melee strike (up to 20 times)... Lots of other great changes to that just give a lot more choice.

[tylor]

I'm surprised that TW is so high. Their defences are next to non-existant. I have not tried smearing+warind wand combo, maybe that's what makes all the difference...

[Scol]

As someone who hasn't looked super deeply at the new paladin changes, what buffed them so immensely?

Chant of Fortitude now alsco increases your max life (24.5% at ETL 6.5).
Weapon of Light doesn't drain energy and boost your damage shields with every hit.
Martyrdom reworked into Weapon of Wrath - sustain that applies Martyrdom with every hit and also deals additional damage equal to percentage of your lost life (85% at ETL 6.5; capped).
Wave of Power have chance for second hit at range (higher range = bigger chance).
Crusade now gives energy instead of requiring it and reduces your cooldowns and cleans 1 debuff from you on hit. Cooldown reduced from 10 to 5.
Shield of Light procs extra shield attack on hit (once per turn).
Second life sustain cost reduced from 60 to 20
Bathe in Life boost your damage shields every turn.
All Celestial/Sun skills replaced with new ones:

1. Sun Ray - single target damage spell that also gets AoE Blind on talent level 3.
2. Path of Sun - 5-9 Range beam that deals damage every turn for 5 turns. Movement on the path does not take time for you.
3. Passive that adds spell crit chance and gives you chance on crit to either trigger Sun Venegance (which makes Sun Ray instant cast for 2 turns) or reduce Sun Ray CD by 1.
4. Buff that reduces your spell cooldowns, increases your cast speed and prevents enemies for hitting more than x% of your max life (limit's damage to 66% of your max life at ETL 6.5).

They also got Technique/Two-handed assault tree and 2 new locked Celestial trees: Crusader (Two-Handed equivalant of Guardian) and Radiance(Aura like tree).

Sword(or should I say staff) and Board Sun Paladin is IMO easily the strongest class right now. I'm on 26lvl right now on Nightmare Roguelike and I'm breezing through the game. With Chant of Fortitude, Second Life, Retribution, Shield of Light and all my heals and shields I'm almost unkillable. With Weapon of Light, Weapon of Wrath and Shield of Light I deal insane damge. With Path of Sun I have great gap closer and free escape if something goes wrong. With Crusade, Providence and inscriptions I can easily remove debuffs. One time I almost died (but still had Blood of Life's extra life) was in Last Hope Gravayard when one of coffins spawned insane Vampire. But when he almost killed me I recived +400 damage from Weapon of Wrath which allowed me to finish him off with single hit from ~1000 HP.

[ProfessorCirno]

Not to make this PALLYCHAT 2014, but I'm mostly curious about the new Sun and Radiance trees. WOuld you say they're worth a lot of points? I know Path of Sun is awesome, but not so much the other abilities.