[1.5.x] Class/Race Tier List

[donkatsu]

Yes, while that's awfully cute you do the same damage as a baby hitting you with a wet noodle.

You do enough damage to clear Insane with ease, and most classes can't clear Madness anyway.

It allows you to cut off single, powerful threats indefinitely, or to escape indefinitely using Burrow+Lightning Speed+Ice Wall, but I'm not fully convinced the impact is stronger than Stone Wall allowing you to cut off all threats for a long period of time with a single press.

I was never in a situation where I couldn't cut off all threats with Ice Wall in exactly the same way you would with Stone Wall.
Edit: In theory, such a situation could exist, but not with any of the dungeon layouts that are currently in the game.

[SageAcrin]

"winning" is not stomping.

Donkatsu has cleared Insane with other classes, including Anorithil, a Rank C on this chart.

I was never in a situation where I couldn't cut off all threats with Ice Wall in exactly the same way you would with Stone Wall.
Edit: In theory, such a situation could exist, but not with any of the dungeon layouts that are currently in the game.

I think this it's more accurate to say "Such a case can't exist if you stay consistently aware of your surroundings and, optimally, have a good feel for how the roomer produces areas.". I wanted it to come out extremely powerful if you knew how to use it, which required good situational awareness and hopefully wasn't boring as hell.

If you play optimally, Ice Wall is an extremely powerful tool. That was the idea. I wanted it to come out being a form of constant area manipulation. Wyrmic has other tools that play to this theme but, sadly, Quake is a little too unreliable to make a powerful area control talent, and Burrow/Lightning Speed are an aid to that game, they don't produce it alone.

If it helps, I've tossed the idea around of making it "long but not indefinite" when I get some more stable and generalized extra tools on Wyrmic. For now, though, it takes some convincing that it's, say, out of place good.

Of course if it's just boring to win Insane with one as it stands, I'm all for nerfing the duration or CD reduction, that was the main thing I was worried about with that talent to be honest.

Edit: General consensus in #tome seems to be "just pull the damage, maybe add an iceblock chance damage type to it so it still freezes adjacent enemies sometimes", which would work fine for me, on the record.

[edge2054]

It's really the cooldown and duration. The damage seperates it from other effects and imo makes it neat. Full cooldown resets that can be cycled like this promote tediousness as optimal play which is something we should actively avoid.

[grobblewobble]

Full cooldown resets that can be cycled like this promote tediousness as optimal play which is something we should actively avoid.

That's the thing.. becoming invincible by repeating the same power forever isn't fun.

Nor was it needed. Imo, the primary design goal should be to make a class fun to play on normal difficulty. And the current wyrmic does fine without Ice Wall, in that regard. If you as a designer are very good at the game, perhaps there is a risk that you forget the perspective of newer players.. a risk of thinking "Let's add an exploitable OP feature to make the class do well on insane," for example.

Insane is there as a challenge for seasoned players, not as something that necessarily needs to be possible with every class.

Also it did sound like stomping to me, not just winning..

Have you ever wanted to clear the Room of Death by mashing a single button while never taking any damage? Ice Wall can do that. Nasty High Peak stair guardian hitting you for 7k every 6 turns? Let Ice Wall kill it while you read a magazine.

[donkatsu]

If it helps, I've tossed the idea around of making it "long but not indefinite" when I get some more stable and generalized extra tools on Wyrmic. For now, though, it takes some convincing that it's, say, out of place good.

Permanent immortality is pretty out of place, no? Pulling the damage on it won't help; with Cauterize you're still guaranteed at least one turn to do damage with other talents. Tweaking CD/duration is the way to go.

[Nurge]

Going to suggest moving skirmisher up to tier B. They have extremely limited aoe, but that is about the only thing they lose out on badly. They definitely beat out most C classes pretty hard as far as survivability goes. Damage output is fairly monstrous.

[Lorcanis]

I am sorry to be asking in this topic, but it seems appropriate - I want to unlock madness for achi, but I can't seem to beat insane with any class/combo (I do not play shalore archmage tho because I finished normal difficulty with it). I need a few solid tips on how to proceed with this goal.
I already made few combos to lvl 20-30 (new chronomancers, brawler, solipsist, corruptor) but then I run into some encounters where I dropped dead in 1-2 turns.
- I know there are talents that are barely used in normal or nightmare difficulties because they are not deeded like tracking, what are ABSOLUTE MUST have skills/charms/inscriptions etc. ?
- I learned to drown rare/uniques/bosses in each town when starting
- When to get AM to give up teleport runes ?
- What areas/encounters are better to avoid ? Plethora of my characters died when entering the dark crypt
- What item stats should I be looking for ?
- In what order I should clean starting areas ? I usually go Trollmire and Kor first, then shalore area and thalore last.

Any general useful tips are welcome, there seems to be dozens of trick for a solid start.

Thank you very much !

[Mex]

Going to suggest moving skirmisher up to tier B. They have extremely limited aoe, but that is about the only thing they lose out on badly. They definitely beat out most C classes pretty hard as far as survivability goes. Damage output is fairly monstrous.

If you can show that they are as good or better than other classes in Tier B then I will consider moving them up.

I am sorry to be asking in this topic, but it seems appropriate - I want to unlock madness for achi, but I can't seem to beat insane with any class/combo (I do not play shalore archmage tho because I finished normal difficulty with it). I need a few solid tips on how to proceed with this goal.
I already made few combos to lvl 20-30 (new chronomancers, brawler, solipsist, corruptor) but then I run into some encounters where I dropped dead in 1-2 turns.
- I know there are talents that are barely used in normal or nightmare difficulties because they are not deeded like tracking, what are ABSOLUTE MUST have skills/charms/inscriptions etc. ?
- I learned to drown rare/uniques/bosses in each town when starting
- When to get AM to give up teleport runes ?
- What areas/encounters are better to avoid ? Plethora of my characters died when entering the dark crypt
- What item stats should I be looking for ?
- In what order I should clean starting areas ? I usually go Trollmire and Kor first, then shalore area and thalore last.

Any general useful tips are welcome, there seems to be dozens of trick for a solid start.

Thank you very much !

This thread is for the discussion of tiers, not how to play the game; anything in Tier B and above should have a fairly easy time beating Insane.

[bpat]

In what way is Cornac better than Ogre? They can both use 3 category points on categories and get five Inscriptions but Ogre has the option to get a sixth and the second racial and fourth racials make Inscriptions very powerful on Ogres. Sure Cornac has a better early game but Ogre gets much better as the game goes on.

[edge2054]

*snip*

This thread is for the discussion of tiers, not how to play the game; anything in Tier B and above should have a fairly easy time beating Insane.

But feel free to start another thread or ask in game chat Also mex's sig has quite a few helpful guides.

[Atarlost]

In what way is Cornac better than Ogre? They can both use 3 category points on categories and get five Inscriptions but Ogre has the option to get a sixth and the second racial and fourth racials make Inscriptions very powerful on Ogres. Sure Cornac has a better early game but Ogre gets much better as the game goes on.

Ogre has to sink tons of generic points to do that and can't unlock stuff early. I don't play at the settings the tier list is for, but I read the forums and the tier 2 dungeons are allegedly the hardest part. Cornacs are up a cat point at that level while ogres aren't.

[Mankeli]

Ok, demonologists are not tier-D if you place any value at all on mid and endgame power.

I just finished two insane runs, one sun pally and one demonologist. Both were ogres and with zero deaths. Honestly, I'm not even sure the sun pally was stronger in the end. Actually, I'd argue it was the other way around.

Demonologist's damage isn't very good, granted, but it has INCREDIBLE ability for sustained combat even against monsters with fairly high damage output. BTW, "fairly high damage output" includes Elandar on insane too. I just fearscaped him and fought there until he died.

My character had +6 vim per melee hit, 100 % stun immunity and flat damage reduction and automatic shield attack via blood shield in the endgame via demon seeds alone. Oh, and blood grasp too. This means that osmosis shield + blood shield combo can be sustained INDEFINITELY as long as you hit monsters. Add in Murderblade and its 20 damage reduction from living monsters and this was dude wasn't going to be bothered much by prides or such. Oh yeah, and almost forgot: Armour values of over 200 are pretty great too!

The early game is terrible, and the starting area isn't even the worst part. But after the first 20 levels or so, this class starts to gain momentum fast.

One problem the demonologist may end up with is that the generics suck. I invested 5-1-1-1 in the Torment category and ZERO points in black magic which is just awful. So without the light tree things may have turned out a bit differently. Then again, the chronomancy tree doesn't suck anymore so maybe one could have picked that or maybe conditioning because stamina is an issue and it has unfliching resolve which is just great.

But my character did find light and felt more like a tier-B thand D class in the end.

Edited, I forgot we have a B tier now.

[Mex]

Updated.

EDIT: On Ogre/Cornac: the 8 point sink is significant for classes that are tight on generics or if you need Harmony and/or Light etc...

[Bahndriin]

Very nice character, frownface.

[terri]

didn't wyrmic got nerfed in 1.3.1?

Icewall cooldown can not be lower than its duration

plus i suggest this quote to be added in the first post to explain what A,B, etc.. is about

Tier A represents classes that are basically immortal, with Unstoppable/Sacrifice shield. They are not strong enough to complete Madness now due to Vitality or short durations on Unstoppable.

Tier B represents classes that are strong without abusing any particular mechanic.

Tier C are lacking in one or more departments, whether that be defensively or offensively.

Tier D are classes that are worse versions of existing classes or simply are weak in comparison to others.

Ghouls and Skeletons moved to their own bottom tier. Not having movement, heroism, or mental/physical wild hurts them too much.